Lost Login ability from GUI

[Guest]

Linux 3.5.0-21
KDE SC 4.93
on a generic box with a AMD Sempron Processor 3000+

Did an online upgrade from Kubuntu 12.04 to 12.10 a couple weeks ago and had no problems. Then yesterday I was at the Login window and clicked on "Suspend" just to see what would happen. What happened is that something along the way got corrupted. When I got back to the Login page I was no longer able to log in.

Specifically, after entering my PW, the mouse pointer changes to the X-windows "X" icon and then the screen goes black and then it drops back to the Login window. And I cannot get past this point using the GUI login.

If I login in as "Guest" it works fine.

If I CTRL-ALT-F1, log in to commandline and run "sudo startx" I am able to log in (although not all of my hardware/software settings carried over to what is now CTRL-ALT-F8. .

I had to use "sudo startx" because "startx" reported back that it couldn't lock .Xauthority and after a while the program terminated. It means I'm logged in as root

I've not found a thread with the same symptoms yet. I'm certainly no expert but it suggests a config file is no longer pointing to the X11 server. I checked the status of my account through the User Management function and see nothing odd. I'm hoping there is a quick and/or easy way to repair damages. I hoping not to need to completely reinstall the system.

[james147]

Delete the .Xauthority file and try to log in again.

The fact you can log in with guest and root suggest it is just a problem with a config in your home directory so the most you should have to do to fix it is create a new user rather then a complete reinstall. But you just need to find the file that is causing the problems and then fix that, .Xauthority is almost certainly it and i have seen it cause problems in the past. It is completely safe to delete it and it does not store any important information as far as I know.

[Guest]

Thanks. That did the trick. I figured it was in my home directory, and I suppose the error message from the commandline about not being able to lock .Xauthority should have tipped me off.

[Guest]

I also had this problem and solved it with the solution here. In my case, the laptop ran out of battery while suspended (normally, suspending and resuming work fine).