Kubuntu 14.04 not accepting password

[marco07]

Hi all:
Last week I upgraded my Lenovo Thinkcenter desktop from 13.10 to 14.04 without any problem. I have had a couple of work sessions ever since and updated the system as well. All working well. Today, however, I tried to log-in with no success. After entering my user password The log-in screen first goes blank and then comes back as log-in screen (as in a loop) again with no error message . If I input a worng pass word I do get an error message though. I can only log-in as guest now.
Any ideas as what to do next?
Thanks in advance!

[GreyGeek]

I suspect that the problem isn't your login password. It is probably your window manager. You have a hidden file in your home account called ".Xauthority" (note the period infront of the name). If that is corrupted your desktop won't show and you will be kicked back to your login screen.

On your grub menu select the second option and on the next screen chose the first "recovery" mode. When that console based menu come up choose "root" prompt and tab to the "OK" and press the Enter key.
You will get a read-only root access command line. Change the files system to read/write:
mount -o remount,rw /
Then,
rm /home/whateveryouraccountnameis/.Xauthority
Then enter
reboot

[marco07]

Gerry, thanks for your reply!
I followed your instructions correctly. However, after reboot the problem
still was there.
So, I went back and repeated the stepwise instructions. This time I got the
message" Cannot remove "/home/marco/.Xauthorit" no file or Directory was
found.
Then I issued the command "locate .Xauthority". Got two locations:
/home/marco/.Xauthority
/var/lib/lightdm/.Xauthority
I tried again to remove both this time. While apparently the file on 2nd
location was removed, I got "cannot remove.... no file or directory found." for
the first location.
Strange thing is after re-issuing "locate .Xauthority" command here again.
Both files shown to be still existing.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks again

[Snowhog]

sounds like maybe you have ownership issues in your /home directory.

Open a console and verify you are in your users /home directory. If not, change into it. Then type:

sudo chown -r username:username *

Where username is your login username. This will change the ownership of everything in your user /home directory to you. Exit the console and reboot.

[GreyGeek]

What Snowhog said.
Sometimes ~/.Xauthority's ownership gets changed to root. If that happens your window manager (kdm or lightdm won't be able to access it because you no longer own it.
I SHOULD have had you prefix the command I gave you with "sudo ":
sudo rm /home/whateveryouraccountnameis/.Xauthority
but, I forgot. My bad.
Removing ~/.Xauthority from your home directory allows the window manager to create a new file in your home directory the next time you boot up. Since rebooting didn't give you your desktop ~/.Xauthority still existed but wasn't owned by you. Snowhog's command will convert its ownership back to you and your group, marco:marco.

[marco07]

What Snowhog said.

Thanks Guys!
When I cannot log in into my system, how am I suppose to open a console then?

I SHOULD have had you prefix the command I gave you with "sudo ":
sudo rm /home/whateveryouraccountnameis/.Xauthority

I thought I was already in root console by seeing the "#" prompt. Nontheless even with sudo prefix, I got:
"cannot remove..... no such a file or directory"
Then here I tried snowhog's:
sudo chown -r marco:marco *
I got: invalid option -- 'r'
Then I tried:
sudo chown -R marco: marco *
Got:
chown: cannot access '*' : no such file or directory

Any other guidance?

[Snowhog]

Then I tried:
sudo chown -R marco: marco *
Got:
chown: cannot access '*' : no such file or directory

Any other guidance?

You have a space after the colon.

As you aren't able to log in to the Desktop, you are logging in to a terminal session, so you are already 'in a terminal' so to speak. If the prompt ends in a # sign then you are already operating with root permissions, so no need to preface any commands with sudo.

You need to MAKE SURE you are in your user's /home directory. Type:

pwd

If it doesn't return /home/marco then you are in root's /home directory and need to change into yours: cd /home/marco. Once in your /home directory, type:

chown -R marco:marco *

Then type:

shutdown -r now

to log out and reboot.

[GreyGeek]

I thought I was already in root console by seeing the "#" prompt.

Oh, that's right. You got to "#" via the recovery mode. I forgot that in my last response. (See what happens to your brain when you cross 70!)

[marco07]

Thanks to you both Gerry & snowhog!
It was also my bad. By observing "~" sign before "#", I though I must be in my home directory. Evidently, I was at root's home directory. By switching to my home directory, I could remove ".Xauthority" and exceuted snowhog's commands as well. Upon a reboot and entering my password, BINGO!
Thanks again, I will now mark this thread SOLVED.

[marco07]

Oh, that's right. You got to "#" via the recovery mode. I forgot that in my last response. (See what happens to your brain when you cross 70!)

sic

I quite understand gerry! I have crossed 70 as well.
thanks for your help!

[GreyGeek]

I quite understand gerry! I have crossed 70 as well.

There are quite a few of us "seasoned" Kubuntu users on this forum. And they said that Linux was too complicated for us to run?

[marco07]

That is right. I feel that I am almost addicted to Linux. I have a few linux OS on my several computers and visits their forums regularly to keep updated. Kubuntu is my main system, 12.04 on my laptop and 14.04 on my two desktops. The laptop is quite stable and I enjoy it so much, that I do not dare yet to upgrade to 14.04. Am waiting till muon tells me that a new version is available.

[JohnMoore]

I had high hopes for this thread, since I have had exactly the same symptoms ever since lightdm was added to the "standard" release.

I've done all the steps, but it doesn't work for me. Fortunately, I found a work-around long ago. Hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 for a command line session and install kdm. Once kdm is in charge, everything seems to work.

There are two other recurring problems I've had from about the same time. Both concern the plasma panel (mine's on the screen bottom), I use pager and have six desktops (shown 3x2). On every restart, pager is "offset" on the panel so that only the bottoms of the bottom three desktops display. The "workaround" for that is to remove pager from the panel and then reinstall it. Then everything's fine until the next reboot. Anybody know a configuration file that could be causing this?

The other problem is that if I add the "Folder" widget to the plasma panel, and select my own home folder, the display "stretches" each icon and title to about half of the screen height. If I set it to /home, then I get a normal display that lets me open my home directory with Dolphin, but the usability of the folder widget is lost, anybody know the config file for that?

[cdupree]

Hi guys, I've got the same problem with my 14.04 desktop. I updated some packages that required a reboot, after which I couldn't log in. An additional complication was that I had just changed my password. But I have it written down and am sure I'm entering it correctly.

I tried the steps recommended here without success. I get into the root prompt, but I got an error when I entered the mount command as stated here. When I tried

mount -rw -o remount /

I got no error message. But I can't delete .Xauthority in my home directory. I think I remember encrypting my home folder; how does that affect things? I can't see the files normally in my ~, but there is a file called .encryptfs.

Any ideas? Thanks!

[SteveRiley]

Then I issued the command "locate .Xauthority". Got two locations:

One thing to remember about locate is that it relies on a static file index. You can test this yourself:

steve@t520:~/junk$ [B]touch foo.bar[/B]   [I][COLOR="#B22222"]<-- create an empty file[/COLOR][/I]

steve@t520:~/junk$ [B]locate foo.bar[/B]   [I][COLOR="#B22222"]<-- search for it; note the command returns nothing[/COLOR][/I]

steve@t520:~/junk$ [B]sudo updatedb[/B]   [I][COLOR="#B22222"]<-- this updates the file index (it automatically runs once a day, too)[/COLOR][/I]

steve@t520:~/junk$ [B]locate foo.bar[/B]   [I][COLOR="#B22222"]<-- now we can find it[/COLOR][/I]
/home/steve/junk/foo.bar

steve@t520:~/junk$ [B]rm foo.bar[/B]   [I][COLOR="#B22222"]<-- delete the file[/COLOR][/I]

steve@t520:~/junk$ [B]locate foo.bar[/B]   [I][COLOR="#B22222"]<-- note that it's still in the index[/COLOR][/I]
/home/steve/junk/foo.bar

steve@t520:~/junk$ [B]sudo updatedb[/B]   [I][COLOR="#B22222"]<-- update the index again[/COLOR][/I]

steve@t520:~/junk$ [B]locate foo.bar[/B]   [I][COLOR="#B22222"]<-- now it's gone[/COLOR][/I]