Login Loop problem

chenard612 · Post by **chenard612** » Tue Oct 12, 2021 11:17 pm

Hi,

I have problems logging in.

Every time in enter my password on login page it boots me back to the same login page. If I enter the wrong password it will signify the invalidity.

This happened for the first time after a hard reset. I had not used my CPU for a couple of days and when I came back to it I had multiple error messages I never had before. Unfortunately I do not remember exactly what it said but I think it referred to a lack of memory. I can recall a popup recommending to ''empty or trash something''. It's a shame that I don't remember the message, but I had at least 5 or six of these popups one behind the other.

Although I had the issue, I could use chrome just fine. It's when I tried to use my editor that the page stopped responding. The reset took a suspiciously long time, hence the hard reset.

I'm sorry I can't offer any more details and thank you for your help.

Post by **Pierre** » Tue Oct 12, 2021 11:21 pm

Hi chenard612 ,
welcome to our forum.

- what is the Make & Model of your machine ?
- which version of the LinuxMint System are you using ?.

rambo919 · Post by **rambo919** » Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:45 am

Could be your graphics driver, try to switch from proprietary to free.... though I don't remember how to do that from cli.

On the other hand it could be your kernel or a combination of the two.

I had the same problem with noveau and any kernel above 4.15 I think a year or so ago. The easiest fix was to boot with a older kernel and use driver manager to switch to proprietary.

Post by **karlchen** » Wed Oct 13, 2021 5:10 am

Hello, chenard612.

Please, check out this post about identifying 2 of the most common reasons for login loops: Re: Tricia Stopped Booting

Regards,
Karl

chenard612 · Post by **chenard612** » Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:22 am

Hi everybody, thank you very much for your help.

@Pierre, my machine is hand built, what pieces would be important for you to know? I ran Linux Mint 19.1 on it for two years now with no problem.

@Karlchen I just read the other post and it really looks like the same problem I have. I followed your instructions and found out that my /dev/sda2 file is indeed full with 0% left. Should I add memory capacity to my machine or is there a way for me to make some room in that file? I'm not sure how to proceed...

Thanks again for your help.

Alexis

Post by **karlchen** » Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:29 am

Hello, chenard612.

Which filesystem exists on /dev/sda2? Is the root filesystem / or the dedicated /boot filesystem.
In the terminal, where you had found out that /dev/sda2 is full, please, execute the command
LC_ALL=C df -h | egrep "^/dev/|Filesystem"
This command will tell which filesystem is on /dev/sda2 and 100% full.
Please, let us know.
In case there is unallocated space on /dev/sda, you could resize /dev/sda2.

Regards,
Karl

rambo919 · Post by **rambo919** » Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:25 pm

Check your /timeshift folder if you are using it..... the snapshots might have gobbled up HDD space while you were not looking.

chenard612 · Post by **chenard612** » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:59 am

I have tried the command:

Code: Select all

LC_ALL=C df -h | egrep "^/dev/|Filesystem"

I get this:

Code: Select all

Filesystem: /dev/sda2 Size:916G Used: 871G Avail: 0 Use%:100% Mounted on: /

Code: Select all

Filesystem: /dev/sda1 Size:511M Used: 6.1M Avail: 505M Use%:2% Mounted on: /boot/efi

I'm not sure of what this means but from what I can read from Karlchen's answer I guess it could indicate that it is the root filesystem that is in the /dev/sda2.

Is there a way from here to resize/expand /dev/sda2?

Thanks again for your help.

Alexis

Post by **karlchen** » Sat Oct 16, 2021 8:53 am

Hello, chenard612.

You are right. The full filesystem on device /dev/sda2 is indeed the root filesystem /.
You will have to boot from a Linux Mint live system and see whether you can free up some GB of your 916 GB total disk space on /dev/sda2.
I wonder what all can have been saved on /dev/sda2 in order to fill the total usable space of 871 GB?
As suggested by rambo919 above, check whether there if a directory /timeshift and whether it occupies a lot of space. If this is the case, clear the space by deleting the Timeshift snapshots.

About resizing /dev/sda2 and the root filesystem /: I doubt that this will be possible. The difference of 45 GB between total space and usable space will be what has been reserved for the journalizing mechanism of the ext4 filesystem. Journalizing makes it less likely to corrupt the filesystem.

Regards,
Karl

chenard612 · Post by **chenard612** » Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:08 am

Hi,

thank you again @karlchen & @rambo919 for your diagnosis.

I deleted some large files I knew I had and didn't need (many database backups, logs and other stuff) and I cleared around 7G of momery on /dev/sda2.

That allowed me to boot my computer normally but there is still a whooping 869G taken on my memory partition.

I do not use Timeshift and from what I read about it it, it does not come standard with Linux Mint, you have to set it up before it can be used. I could not find it in my directory.

Is there a way for me to see what is taking up so much space? I regularly add new packages through pip, many of which I do not use anymore. Could it be this that takes up so much room? Nothing else I do would take so much memory space.

I just noticed that one day after emptying 7G of stuff, almost all the cleared memory has been filled again! I did not take any action that would have filled 7G, it must be happening away from my sight.

Thank you for your help and have a good day.

Larry78723 · Post by **Larry78723** » Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:35 am

Please post an inxi -Sx report. This will give us a concise overview of your Mint Version and Desktop

Here is how to generate the report and post it:

Boot from your installation media (USB/DVD)
Open a terminal window (Ctrl-Alt-t). Make it fullscreen to avoid unneeded linebreaks or chopped lines. Copy the following code and paste into the terminal (Ctrl-Shft-V) then hit Enter/Return:

Code: Select all

inxi -Sx

exactly as it has been typed here.

Go to Edit, Select All, and then Copy, come back here, click on reply then code tags, </>, and then paste.
The results will help us to help you.

chenard612 · Post by **chenard612** » Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:58 am

Hi Larry.

Here goes the "inxi -Sx" command:

Code: Select all

System:    Host: matador-B450M-DS3H Kernel: 4.15.0-88-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.4.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.0.10 
           Distro: Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic

Thank you!

Larry78723 · Post by **Larry78723** » Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:11 pm

Now, please run the following command in terminal opened maximum:

Code: Select all

ncdu /home/yourusername

This will tell us where the problem might be.

chenard612 · Post by **chenard612** » Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:11 pm

Hi again Larry,

This is most curious.

I tried:

Code: Select all

ncdu /home/myusername

(very practical command btw, thank you), and the result looks like this:

Code: Select all

    7.4 GiB [##########] /.local
    4.5 GiB [#####     ] /anaconda3                                                                                                                                                           
    2.8 GiB [###       ] /Downloads
.   1.7 GiB [##        ] /.cache
    1.3 GiB [#         ] /Desktop
  613.3 MiB [          ] /.virtualenvs
. 423.4 MiB [          ] /.config
  142.8 MiB [          ] /.atom
  122.6 MiB [          ] /redis
   37.8 MiB [          ] /rtl8821ce
   32.7 MiB [          ] /rtl88x2bu
   28.7 MiB [          ] /.mozilla
   25.1 MiB [          ] /Pictures
  ...

The overall memory used perceived by this command is 19.4G.

This is a clear contradiction with the /dev/sda2/ measure that seems to be causing all that problem.

When I run:

Code: Select all

LC_ALL=C df -h | egrep "^/dev/|Filesystem"

I get:

Code: Select all

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2       916G  868G  1.1G 100% /
/dev/sda1       511M  6.1M  505M   2% /boot/efi

Am I comparing two things that are not related? Is the second command really displaying something I should understand is a memory space?

I also noticed something very very strange since I was able to log in after my 'clean up' of 7G. My computer is 'glitchy'. It's hard to explain but some animation or features are problematic ever since I was able to log back. For example the clock at the bottom right of my screen toggles between 15:03 and 15:02 extemely fast. Like 10 times a second. Some 'hover' animations will also toggle extremely fast, making their background color switch like a disco ball. It's nothing that make my CPU inoperable, but I though this is to be related with my main problem.

Again, I am incredibly thankful to you for helping me.

Alexis

Larry78723 · Post by **Larry78723** » Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:41 pm

OK, that eliminates /home as the problem area. Now run this command and post the results:

Code: Select all

lsblk -fi

chenard612 · Post by **chenard612** » Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:17 pm

Here we go for

Code: Select all

lsbfk -fi

we get:

Code: Select all

NAME   FSTYPE LABEL UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                      
|-sda1 vfat         3064-3B3E                            /boot/efi
`-sda2 ext4         f72404a6-f7d3-456e-96ca-8109fd7702eb /

Linux Mint Forums

Login Loop problem

Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem

Re: Login Loop problem