forced to login twice (every time!)

[redlined]

I have to login two times, every time (initial start up, following restarts and logoffs, and after screensaver resumes). This has been happening for the past week, ever since I added Mate DE to my existing LM19 Cinnamon following advice read in a thread in these forums on it being safe to add a second DE like this (a "heavy" with a "light" DE) works fine, which I've been wanting to run Mate on this old laptop as Cinnamon is a bit too heavy on it. Really loving Mate, btw!

The other strange thing about it is the two login prompts are different dialog boxes and seem to randomly switch between which one pops up first- the complete login prompt (with switch user option) and a simple box similar to after screensaver. Regardless which one is first, the DE appears as expected then if wait a couple seconds it blacks screen, reloads background and second login prompt pops up. If any key push or mouse movement the screen black is immediate with second prompt popping up.

Following second login everything works normally and there is no need to authenticate twice for anything else, like sudo or updates, etc...

Any thoughts on how to fix this?

[Afroduck]

Fellow newb here. After you log in the first time is there a prompt in the upper right hand corner that says something like 'sda1 unlocked successfully" or something along those lines? If so I believe the first login is to unlock the encrypted HD and the second login is to unlock the OS. Hopefully other users here can shed light for the both of us.

[redlined]

Fellow newb here. After you log in the first time is there a prompt in the upper right hand corner that says something like 'sda1 unlocked successfully" or something along those lines? If so I believe the first login is to unlock the encrypted HD and the second login is to unlock the OS. Hopefully other users here can shed light for the both of us.

hi Afroduck, no messages or prompts like that here, no encryption of HDD at all so not thinking that's the cause or related.

I do have a bit better of description for two prompts to login though, poorly worded the initial post. The small dialog box has Switch User and Unlock only; the larger login dialog has 4 choices, Leave message (that's pretty cool, lol, never saw the option until adding Mate DE), Switch User, Cancel and Unlock are the rest.

Curious if it has to do with installing Mate DE after Cinnamon, or has to do with enabling screensaver for a try then going back to blank screen instead and some setting stuck from login after screensaver(?)

[redlined]

this response by karlchen in another thread Re: Name of the "Login" application in Settings? has me wondering if adding second DE did mess things up a bit, specifically, it appears I have two "greeters" (slick and unity). if this could be cause for my two login prompts what should I do?

Putting on my Ubuntu base cap ...
This is what dpkg on my Ubuntu 18.04.1 Mate tells me:

Code: Select all

$ inxi -Sxxx
System:    Host: unimatrix0 Kernel: 4.15.0-36-generic i686 bits: 32 compiler: gcc v: 7.3.0 Desktop: MATE 1.20.1 
           info: mate-panel wm: marco 1.20.1 dm: LightDM 1.26.0 Distro: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (Bionic Beaver) 
karl@unimatrix0:~$ dpkg --list lightdm* *greeter* | grep "^ii"
ii  lightdm                         1.26.0-0ubuntu1 i386         Display Manager
ii  lightdm-settings                1.1.4-0ubuntu1  all          LightDM Settings Configuration Tool
ii  slick-greeter                   1.1.4-1         i386         Slick-looking LightDM greeter

So there should already be lightdm, lightdm-settings and slick-greeter. Hey, this reads very much like on Mint 19, does it not?!

But as gdm has been mentioned, I suspect on the main edition, Ubuntu 18.04 with the Gnome3 desktop, it might be gdm and a different greeter screen as well. What do I know? After all Gnome3 is not not my mate/Mate (pun intended).

my results for inxi -Sxxx
and dpkg --list lightdm* *greeter* | grep "^ii"

Code: Select all

anyuser@OEMTUFFBOOK:~$ inxi -Sxxx
System:    Host: OEMTUFFBOOK Kernel: 4.15.0-36-generic i686
           bits: 32 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: MATE 1.20.1 (Gtk 3.22.30) info: mate-panel dm: lightdm
           Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
anyuser@OEMTUFFBOOK:~$ dpkg --list lightdm* *greeter* | grep "^ii"
ii  lightdm                              1.26.0-0ubuntu1                   i386         Display Manager
ii  lightdm-settings                     1.2.3                             all          LightDM configuration tool
ii  slick-greeter                        1.2.2+tara                        i386         Slick-looking LightDM greeter
ii  unity-greeter                        18.04.0+18.04.20180314.1-0ubuntu2 i386         Unity Greeter
anyuser@OEMTUFFBOOK:~$ 

[karlchen]

Hello, redlined.

I wonder a bit why there is the (Ubuntu) unity-greeter on your system. Mint 19 Mate and Mint 19 Cinnamon should both use the slick-greeter only. Inside the slick-greeter, you select to launch a Cinnamon session or a Mate session.
I could imagine that the in your case both greeters are invoked, slick-greeter and unity-greeter.
I would try uninstalling unity-greeter. - Beware, in case marking unity-greeter for removal should mark for removal lots of other software packages, which belong to Mate or Cinnamon. In this case it may be wise posting the list here for inspection, before actually proceeding.

Best regards,
Karl

[redlined]

Hello, redlined.

I wonder a bit why there is the (Ubuntu) unity-greeter on your system. Mint 19 Mate and Mint 19 Cinnamon should both use the slick-greeter only. Inside the slick-greeter, you select to launch a Cinnamon session or a Mate session.
I could imagine that the in your case both greeters are invoked, slick-greeter and unity-greeter.
I would try uninstalling unity-greeter. - Beware, in case marking unity-greeter for removal should mark for removal lots of other software packages, which belong to Mate or Cinnamon. In this case it may be wise posting the list here for inspection, before actually proceeding.

Best regards,
Karl

Thank you for responding karlchen! I'm not sure why they are both there, I imagine it was a dependency for something else? For the most part I have followed Pjotr's easy LM tips pages configuring as directed there for Cinnamon then again when I added Mate DE recently.

Is there a specific terminal command where I can get a list to share and inspect?

[thx-1138]

apt-get --simulate remove unity-greeter
It will only run a simulation of what it's gonna do.

[redlined]

apt-get --simulate remove unity-greeter
It will only run a simulation of what it's gonna do.

Thank you thx-1138!

Code: Select all

anyuser@OEMTUFFBOOK:~$ apt-get --simulate remove unity-greeter
NOTE: This is only a simulation!
      apt-get needs root privileges for real execution.
      Keep also in mind that locking is deactivated,
      so don't depend on the relevance to the real current situation!
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  bamfdaemon docbook-to-man gir1.2-accounts-1.0 gir1.2-gconf-2.0
  gir1.2-gdata-0.0 gir1.2-signon-1.0 gir1.2-unity-5.0 gnome-session-common
  gnome-system-tools gtk-doc-tools gtk3-nocsd highlight highlight-common hud
  intltool libcolumbus1-common libcolumbus1v5 libdecoration0 libgexiv2-2
  libgsettings-qt1 libgtk3-nocsd0 libmate-sensors-applet-plugin0 libmatedict6
  liboobs-1-5 libsignon-glib1 libunity-core-6.0-9 libunity-misc4
  libzeitgeist-1.0-1 mate-applets mate-applets-common mate-common
  mate-sensors-applet mate-sensors-applet-common mate-system-monitor
  mate-system-monitor-common mate-utils mate-utils-common mintdesktop
  python-funcsigs python-mock python-pbr python-zeitgeist python3-blinker
  python3-feedparser python3-jwt python3-oauthlib session-shortcuts shotwell
  shotwell-common unity-asset-pool unity-lens-applications unity-lens-files
  unity-lens-music unity-lens-photos unity-lens-video unity-schemas
  unity-scope-calculator unity-scope-chromiumbookmarks
  unity-scope-colourlovers unity-scope-devhelp unity-scope-firefoxbookmarks
  unity-scope-home unity-scope-manpages unity-scope-openclipart
  unity-scope-texdoc unity-scope-tomboy unity-scope-video-remote
  unity-scope-virtualbox unity-scope-yelp unity-scope-zotero
  unity-scopes-master-default unity-scopes-runner xsltproc
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  unity-greeter
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Remv unity-greeter [18.04.0+18.04.20180314.1-0ubuntu2]

I pulled up synaptic again and see a ton of unity stuff installed- I must have done something dumb if this is not normal :/
Otherwise it doesn't look like much will be removed with unity-greeter, unless I do apt autoremove then all the rest of those packages get removed too, correct? (and do I need any of those others in the list?)

[karlchen]

Hello, redlined.

About the unity-greeter:
It can be removed. Removing it will not automatically remove other software.

About all the packages marked as "can be auto-removed":
Careful with the axe, Eugene.
There are quite a few unity-* software packages. Removing them should have no ill side-effects. Almost looks as if you tried to install the Ubuntu Unity desktop at some point in time.
Yet, there are quite a few packages listed as "auto-remove", which carry "mate" in their names. Removing them might cripple your Mate desktop, I am afraid. At least I would not apply auto-remove, before not each of the mate packages in the auto-remove list had been checked.

Even more likely, I would not use auto-remove at all. Instead I would copy all the unity-packagenames and remove only those.

Regards,
Karl

[redlined]

Hello, redlined.

About the unity-greeter:
It can be removed. Removing it will not automatically remove other software.

About all the packages marked as "can be auto-removed":
Careful with the axe, Eugene.
There are quite a few unity-* software packages. Removing them should have no ill side-effects. Almost looks as if you tried to install the Ubuntu Unity desktop at some point in time.
Yet, there are quite a few packages listed as "auto-remove", which carry "mate" in their names. Removing them might cripple your Mate desktop, I am afraid. At least I would not apply auto-remove, before not each of the mate packages in the auto-remove list had been checked.

Even more likely, I would not use auto-remove at all. Instead I would copy all the unity-packagenames and remove only those.

Thank you karlchen. I will do as you recommend, copy and remove the unity- packagenames

Thinking back I must have wanted some tool, most likely on tweaking and configuring things under the hood with a GUI and installed an Ubuntu package that had all the unity stuff as dependencies...

Think I'll verify backups before breaking out that axe

[gm10]

Seeing all those packages you got installed I'll recommend you do a clean install of LM19 MATE instead. Take what you did so far as a learning experience and start fresh with a clean system. Will probably save you some trouble down the road.

Just my recommendation, you don't have to.

[redlined]

Seeing all those packages you got installed I'll recommend you do a clean install of LM19 MATE instead. Take what you did so far as a learning experience and start fresh with a clean system. Will probably save you some trouble down the road.

Just my recommendation, you don't have to.

Thank you gm10, and I agree even though I really like how I've got this set up and tweaked, it was a clean install of LM19 beta Cinnamon that I upgraded to release instead of full re-install... I also know (now) that this laptop struggles too much under Cinnamon so having it as a second DE alongside Mate is not something I need (Mate was recently installed to see if it was better on this laptop).

[gm10]

Note that Mint 19.1 releases next month in case you want to wait with your re-install for that.

[redlined]

Note that Mint 19.1 releases next month in case you want to wait with your re-install for that.

lol, I was just considering that since I have to refind all the tips I used from these forums to get things fixed or otherwise done as I liked. Can also make a bigger partition for timeshift and aptik since 10GB is apparently not enough since the disk space warning keeps popping up there being <500MB left.

[redlined]

although I've resigned to a clean reinstall of LM19.1 Mate only when released Nov/Dec I decided to try removing unity stuff to see if it helped, it did not fix the 2x login requirements issue but everything seems to be working fine so far. (2x restart and login to cinnamon and mate both 2x)

as karlchen advised and carefully wielding my axe...just the unity stuff instead of apt autoremove which listed much more

Code: Select all

apt-get remove unity-greeter unity-asset-pool unity-lens-applications unity-lens-files unity-lens-music unity-lens-photos unity-lens-video unity-schemas unity-scope-calculator unity-scope-chromiumbookmarks unity-scope-colourlovers unity-scope-devhelp unity-scope-firefoxbookmarks unity-scope-home unity-scope-manpages unity-scope-openclipart unity-scope-texdoc unity-scope-tomboy unity-scope-video-remote unity-scope-virtualbox unity-scope-yelp unity-scope-zotero unity-scopes-master-default unity-scopes-runner

results-

Code: Select all

System:    Host: OEMTUFFBOOK Kernel: 4.15.0-36-generic i686
           bits: 32 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: MATE 1.20.1 (Gtk 3.22.30) info: mate-panel dm: lightdm
           Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
anyuser@OEMTUFFBOOK:~$ dpkg --list lightdm* *greeter* | grep "^ii"
ii  lightdm                              1.26.0-0ubuntu1                   i386         Display Manager
ii  lightdm-settings                     1.2.3                             all          LightDM configuration tool
ii  slick-greeter                        1.2.2+tara                        i386         Slick-looking LightDM greeter
anyuser@OEMTUFFBOOK:~$ 

not wanting to be totally wreckless hacking this system up, however, since I'm going to reinstall in a month I am willing to try risky stuff to fix the 2x login issue, so ideas still welcome