Login password no longer working
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Hello folks, yet another mystery to solve...
I try to login to my user as usual, enter the same PW, and it seems to be accepted only to return me to the password prompt again. It doesn't indicate an invalid password, just proceeds then gives the "blip" noise and I'm back at "My Name" and the blank PW field.
I've restarted several times and same problem.
Weird, right?
Thanks for any help.
Zem
A little more info:
After restarting I got the black screen with the words "Trisquel 7.0" followed by:
" Continue to wait, or Press S to skip mounting or M for manual recovery."
Waiting for ten minutes didn't lead anywhere, so I pressed S and got a passphrase prompt (disk is encrypted)
I entered the passphrase:
Which brought me to the usual desktop with the user password prompt field.
I entered the User password.
But all that happened was the screen doing a a brief technicolor dance, before bringing back around to the user password field.
So I'm effectively locked out of the computer. (User login password has not been changed, caps lock were not on.)
Thanks for you insights.
Zem
Hmmm. That is a system problem then (we wrote our last messages at the same time). It looks like one of your partitions cannot be mounted. And it may be the one with /home (since the system manages to show you the graphical log in screen, it appears to be working fine). In other words: it may be very bad news.
Looking at the logs in /var/log may gives some more information. From the terminal, the 'less' command does the job. Can you log into a terminal (as I explained in my previous post)? Anyway, even if you can, it may be easier to use a live system (such as Trisquel's) from which you can check your partitions (you can use the "Disks" graphical utility in the "System settings") and backup your data... if you can access them. :-S
This problem likely has nothing to with authentication. The problem probably is that your desktop crashes when it starts. Probably because of some personal configuration. If there is another user account on the system, I bet she can log in without any issue. Sam thing if you choose another desktop environment (assuming you installed another one).
Even if you cannot log in graphically, you probably can log into a terminal that you can get with Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or Ctrl+Alt+F2 or ... Ctrl+Alt+F6). From there, you can try to rename some personal configuration file so that the desktop believes it has never been configured and uses the defaults. I would start by renaming the ~/.config directory with the following command:
$ mv ~/.config ~/.config.bak
You can then use Alt+F7 to go back to the graphical session where you can try again to log in. If it works you can then try to get back some of your customization (moving them from ~/.config.bak to ~/.config) if you wish.
Thanks, Magic.
I personally didn't do anything "'under the hood', if that is what you mean by 'personal configuration'.
The only other account is the 'Guest Session'. I CAN log into the Guest Session.
Does that alter any of your advice? Can I effect change from the Guest Session?
And when I try to log into terminal with Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or Ctrl+Alt+F2 or ... Ctrl+Alt+F6), am I doing that from startup, or at any time?
Thanks,
Zem
By "personal configuration" I mean any personal (not system-wide) difference with the way your applications used to work the very first time you launched them. That is what you call "preferences" in a subsequent message. For instance, if you configured an email account in Evolution, it is "personal configuration", if you added a launcher on your desktop panel, it is "personal configuration", etc.
But, given your second post (we wrote at the same time), you actually have a system problem. My oldest message (that happens to be below the newer one) is irrelevant.
Although I am kind off puzzled that a guest user can log in. I thought her temporary home folder would be in /home. You can then read the logs from that graphical session using GNOME's utility (you can call it with the command 'gnome-system-log' in a terminal if you prefer).
Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or Ctrl+Alt+F2 or ... Ctrl+Alt+F6) can be used any time after the system init.
Since the install is recent, and there is no new documents lost, I may well just re-install - unless I hear of a compelling opinion not to.
I will first try to follow Magic's suggestions.
Bummer to have to reinstall it all over again, update again, and lose my preferences. Trisquel has been a rocky road for this novice user lately. I won't be able to trust it as a working OS until I give it some time, and see what other bugs surface.
Thanks!
Zem
I'm wondering if these complications are connected to disk encryption? Maybe I should skip encryption for now...?
You can backup your preferences from the live system. Just copy the hidden files (i.e., the files whose names start with a dot) right inside your home folder. You can display the hidden files in the file browser using the related entry in the menu or using Ctrl+H.
And test your disk from the "Disks" utility in "System settings". You probably do not want to reinstall Trisquel on a disk that is close to dead. From the same utility, you can also check the installed filesystems and maybe repair them (hence no need for a re-install). I am not sure whether encryption raises additional complications.
I am a member!
Zem:
Let me confirm that this happened to me as well. Exactly the same symptoms. I assumed the computer itself was going bad since it's 12 years old and has been heat-freezing on occasion. I decided just to reinstall rather than CHROOT and update/upgrade etc. When I was ready to re-install it just started working again. Starting and stopping the computer five or six times in a row was all I ended up doing.
I haven't found any reason for the strange behavior. My hard drive is not encrypted since I don't do important work on this laptop. Just started working like a charm. Can't explain. Everything looks good now.
No help, I know. Still give that a try, I guess. Hope it works out for you.
Thanks, Joe.
I'll try re-booting several times.
Were you booting from install disk when things went back to normal?
- Zem
I am a member!
Zem:
No I wasn't booting from an install disk. It was just simply me getting frustrated with it not accepting my password and trying to re-boot. The fourth or fifth time doing so I left for an evening out and didn't touch the computer for two days. I don't know why but I started the computer one last time before re-installing and it just worked for no reason. I laughed and shook my head at the same time in bewildered amazement but it has been working ever since.
I didn't upgrade anything or change any system files. I didn't CHROOT into the HD and play around or anything else. It just stopped working and just started again. It could be a hard drive glitch but I've not found anything. Since all I do with this is just read news sites and such, I'll wait for it to fail again before addressing it (I don't like HP anyway). Then I'll buy another computer from Chris and be done with this one. :-)
It may be that a filesystem (as written earlier, I would bet on the one mounted at /home) is corrupted, that 'fsck' runs in the background (what would be a bug, maybe related to encryption: the user needs to be aware that a filesystem is currently checked) but you never waited enough for it to have the time to repair the problems. Until you did and then everything became fine. Then the key was to wait enough once and not to reboot several times.
Just a supposition though.
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