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Ubuntu – login loop – ubuntu 16.04 – nvidia

16.04lightdmlogin

I've tried what's recommended in several of the questions that deal with the "login loop" with none of the solutions working.
BTW, I have an nvidia GPU: GTX 1080.

Concretelly I've tried with no results:

  • Copying .Xauthority and .ICEauthority, or changing ownership to the user.
  • Removing and re-instlalling lightdm
  • purging nvidia drivers:
    sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*, sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall,
    sudo service lightdm restart and reboot

Following this question advice I include the output of .xsession-errors. 

$ cat ~/.xsession-errors
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0".
openConnection: connect: No such file or directory
cannot connect to brltty at :0
upstart: gnome-session (Unity) main process (3270) terminated with status 1
upstart: unity-settings-daemon main process (3262) killed by TERM signal
upstart: logrotate main process (3118) killed by TERM signal
upstart: bamfdaemon main process (3181) killed by TERM signal
upstart: indicator-bluetooth main process (3320) killed by TERM signal
upstart: indicator-printers main process (3333) killed by TERM signal
upstart: indicator-session main process (3334) killed by TERM signal
upstart: indicator-power main process (3321) killed by TERM signal
upstart: indicator-application main process (3359) killed by TERM signal
upstart: indicator-datetime main process (3325) killed by TERM signal
upstart: unity7 pre-start process (3263) terminated with status 143
upstart: Disconnected from notified D-Bus bus
upstart: indicator-keyboard main process (3328) killed by TERM signal
upstart: unity-panel-service main process (3281) killed by TERM signal
upstart: indicator-sound main process (3332) killed by TERM signal

Best Answer

The problem was basically nvidia drivers screwing up the system so badly that the nvidia re-install didn't work as expected.

They say to diagnose this is by running in the terminal: nvidia-smi which returned. NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver

The solution was basically a full re-install of the OS. So downloading ubuntu 16.04 in a USB drive, re-installing ubuntu.

Then: 

$ sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
$ sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia-*
$ sudo apt autoremove

this is the driver for GTX 1080 from: https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads?target_os=Linux&target_arch=x86_64&target_distro=Ubuntu&target_version=1604&target_type=debnetwork 

$ sudo dpkg -i cuda-repo-ubuntu1604_9.1.85-1_amd64.deb
$ sudo apt-key adv --fetch-keys http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/ubuntu1604/x86_64/7fa2af80.pub
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install cuda

then reboot and everything works, for now. Thanks nvidia for your trashy software!

Here is the discussion of the topic from nvidia-forum with some extra details.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Login Loop – unable to run unity – not Xauthority ownership but may be related to display

Though you have given answer in your question, writing this for the record. Type ctrl + alt + F1 and login with your username at command prompt.

user@dell$ ls -l ~/.ICEauthority
-rw------- root root 3668 May 28 09:28 /home/user/.ICEauthority
user@dell$ sudo chmod 777 ~/.ICEauthority
password:
user@dell$ ls -l ~/.ICEauthority
-rwxrwxrwx root root 3668 May 28 09:28 /home/user/.ICEauthority

ctrl + alt + F7 and login worked.

Ubuntu – Lightdm fails to login and redirects

The problem is a bug in Gnome-Shell that causes my preferences file to become corrupted, which then can't be loaded and causes Gnome-Shell to crash and bump me back to the login screen.

The workaround is to delete my preferences file:

rm ~/.config/dconf/user

and then reboot. I lose all my customizations but at least I can login.

Related Question
  • Ubuntu – Login Loop – unable to run unity – not Xauthority ownership but may be related to display
  • Ubuntu – Lightdm fails to login and redirects
  • Ubuntu – Ubuntu 16.04 Login Loop Problem