I am running 12.04 LTS, fully updated. My system is configured to automatically log me in into my account. Auto-login works fine.
However, sometimes I need to access the unity-greeter/lightdm login screen. For example, this happens when I log out and then want another user want to log into their account. The interface we get is exactly the one shown on the Wikipedia page for LightDM:
- the password prompt is grayed out and I am unable to type my password
- the mouse moves fine but I cannot click the system icons on the
top-right corner of the menu bar does not work - I can switch using ctrl-alt-f? to a console and login fine using the text/console login prompt. If I kill X, I am again returned to the same unusable login screen.
How can I fix this? How can a user log into their graphical environment without having to reboot the system?
Best Answer
I have encountered the same on random occasions on my 14.04 LTS installation. I have not been able to reproduce it. Sometimes it just happens and I am stuck at login.
I have added this alias to to my
.bash_aliases
file as a workaround that have worked so far:When login prompt is grayed out. I switch to e.g. tty1 with Ctrl+Alt+F1, login and just enter my alias:
saveme
.This way you will not lose any work from open applications. When you restart lightdm you will lose everything you had running which was really annoying and something I wanted to avoid..
XDG_SEAT_PATH
may not be the same for you. Check while logged in in a terminal:You can also check with: