This is an old issue that I've tried to solve and apparently it's still valid, none of the updates so far have resolved it.
It seems to be related to Gnome (gdm?) and Nvidia drivers, because for ex. On my desktop PC I just sidestepped the issue with an LXDE based install, which works fine, however I really do like Gnome for some reason, so it would be great to find the cause/solution to this.
Here are the details:
After a fresh install and installing all updates (latest kernel for 10.04 and latest packages), I cannot login on the graphical login screen. After entering the password the screen will turn black for a few seconds and then returns back to the login screen. But if I go to terminal with ctrl+alt+f1 I can login just fine, so my username/password is definitely OK.
On my laptop I use Ubuntu 10.04 95% of the time, and never ran into this issue, so I suspect it's hardware related. Maybe something graphics related (I have an Nvidia 9800GT on my desktop, but Ati card on laptop).
Any ideas on what I should look for or try? Which logs should I check to find out possible reasons/solutions to this problem.
Update:
It is immediately after a fresh install, on first login, so I don't have restricted drivers enabled. Only nvidia related packages installed are nvidia-173-modaliases
, nvidia-96-modaliases
, nvidia-common
, nvidia-current-modaliases
.
If i boot into recovery mode as root, and then run startx
, I can get into GNOME.
Output of cat /var/log/gdm/:0-greeter.log
Window manager warning: Failed to read saved session file /var/lib/gdm/.config/metacity/sessions/103537dbc1e1d90e94130703607828717100000014670000.ms: Failed to open file '/var/lib/gdm/.config/metacity/sessions/103537dbc1e1d90e94130703607828717100000014670000.ms': No such file or directory
** (process:1477): DEBUG: Greeter session pid=1477 display=:0.0 xauthority=/var/run/gdm/auth-for-gdm-Jf8At5/database
(gnome-power-manager:1478): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.24.1/gobject/gsignal.c:2273: signal `proxy-status' is invalid for instance `0x203ed90'
gdm-simple-greeter[1477]: Gtk-WARNING: /build/buildd/gtk+2.0-2.20.1/gtk/gtkwidget.c:5636: widget not within a GtkWindow
Window manager warning: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x1200047 (Login Wind)
Window manager warning: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed.
Window manager warning: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x1200047 (Login Wind)
Window manager warning: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed.
Best Answer
This appears to be a known bug with the GNOME Display Manager (
gdm
) in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.Comment #21 of that bug suggests disabling the Ubuntu logo splash screen will work around this issue. To do so temporarily, you may edit the kernel arguments from the GRUB menu and remove the
splash
option. To do so permanently, removesplash
from theGRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
environment variable line in/etc/default/grub
, and runsudo update-grub
to make the changes take effect.If that fails, you could also switch to a different display manager for the time being, like
lightdm
or KDE'skdm
(which you can install without necessarily installing the KDE Plasma Desktop environment). You won't get GNOME's login screen, but you will still be able to login to a GNOME desktop. To install either of these, just runsudo apt-get install lightdm
orsudo apt-get install kdm
and restart. To login to a GNOME session, just chooseGNOME
orUbuntu Desktop
from the Session menu of your chosen display manager. It should remember your selection for future logins.