Login Loop - 19.2 Xfce - Should I give up?

[colski]

Hi.

I'm fairly new to linux for PC's, having just a basic knowledge of running LAMP etc for web development.

Having said that I have successfully migrated a number of PC's away from windows 7 onto Linuxmint cinammon 19.2 and this has been quite smooth.

Based on the above "success" I decided to try and get an old laptop (2005 - Sony vaio 1gb ram 80gb hdd) up and running using Linuxmint xfce 19.2

I burned a boot usb and ran the live mode. It seemed to run ok and so I installed it.

I used a totally blank, brand new harddrive and used the install to format the disc etc.

During the install I set up the username and password. The only other things to mention, if they are relevant, is that I ticked the box saying something like download supporting third party apps etc and I also ticked the box about encrypting the home directory.

After a few minutes once the install was complete up popped the login screen with the linuxmint logo on it and I thought that is great.

HOWEVER, when I enter the password for the user I can not log in. It keeps going back to the login screen after a few seconds.

The mouse works. The keyboard works. Even the trackpad on the laptop works.

I have tried the install about 5 different times in case that was a problem, each time using as simple as password as I could to ensure the keyboard wasn't misreading a character etc.

I have spent about 8 to 10 hours in total trying to handle this with zero success and I am about to give up and throw the laptop in the bin and never use linuxmint xfce ever again.

I have read numerous articles on the forum and google to try and get round this. ctr,alt, f1 etc but my knowledge of doing whatever is needed is limited.

Once or twice throughout this process I have inexplicably gotten past the login screen and the laptop booted into linuxmint xfce proper. Not sure how or why, but I think once it occurred because I removed the entry nopasswd for the root user as I saw this mentioned somewhere on a forum post.

But after a short while after leaving the laptop unattended, I came back to find it back on the login screen again and I coould no longer login - aghhh!!!

During one of the fresh installs I even ticked the box that says to automatically login at startup, but that had no effect and the login screen still appeared - even though there was now no password box. But it still would NOT let me in when I hit enter. Just looping back to the login screen time after time.

If I deliberately use a wong password it will return to the login screen and say in yellow letters "Invalid password, please try again".

If I then use the correct password it will return to the login screen but with no yellow warning message.

There is no other software on the hardrive (each new install has wiped it clean).

Can anybody shed any light on this as I want to be able to use this laptop again and hopefully this operating system.

Why should it be so hard with a brand new install etc?

Thanks,
Colin

P.S. - Sometimes during this whole thing, after one or two fresh installs, the laptop doesn't even get past a screen with just the LM logo on it. Rebooting again then usually gets to the login screen and the login loop proceeds from there.

[smurphos]

I used a totally blank, brand new harddrive and used the install to format the disc etc.

Any chance of testing the laptop with an alternative known to be working harddrive? I can't help but suspect faulty (albeit new) harddrive. It sounds like the file system is defaulting to read only...

If not try a non-encrypted install. if you still have the same issues, are you able to mount the installed partition(s) from within a live session?

[colski]

Many thanks for the reply.

I think the disc is fine based on my limited knowledge.
After i hit ctrl,alt,F1 I am able to get to command line etc.

The linuxmint files are there on the new disc, approximately 8GB of them after install.

I have also been able to create some dummy text files and save them to disc. So i don't see how it could be read only?

I have also done installs that don't encrypt the home directory but I still get the same login loop.

I have also recently tried installing without checking the load 3rd party software etc and it seems I can get past the login screen more often but it still sometimes loops.

So I am still scratching my head on what could be causing this.

I don't understand your last comment regarding mounting etc.

Colin

[pbear]

Can anybody shed any light on this as I want to be able to use this laptop again and hopefully this operating system.

Try booting with nomodeset. See ELTP for instructions. Alternatively, if you can't get into the system at all, use the instructions in the Release Notes. There have been several login loop threads where nomodeset turned the trick, e.g., here, here, here and here.

If that doesn't work, another thing to check is ownership of Xauthority and home generally. See askubuntu.

[colski]

Thank you for the reply pbear.

I will get the time a little later this afternoon to have a go at some of these suggestions.

Here's a bit more data for you and anyone else that may be able to help:

When I look closely at the screen, after I enter my password, most of the desktop such as the task bar and a bit of the top bar appears for perhaps half a second and then it reverts back to the login screen. It's almost as if it want to let me in to the desktop after login but decides it won't and goes back to the login screen.

Thanks.
Colin

[trytip]

But after a short while after leaving the laptop unattended, I came back to find it back on the login screen again and I coould no longer login - aghhh!!!

stupidest linux developer idea EVER to put a damm password on a live mode. it's like having a timelock on your bathroom door inside your house and you don't keep the key inside but out in the garage, so everytime you need to use the bathroom you need to go to the garage first. makes me laugh at how lame linux is sometimes

no need to check any permissions, just boot with a live mint and delete .ICEauthority and .Xauthority from your home directory. while you are in live mode and you deleted these files post the output of .xsession-errors.old

[colski]

Hi all,

A quick update as I try some things:

I am trying to follow some of the links mentioned above...After hitting shift after rebooting I got into some kind of menu and from memory I think I hit e (perhaps short for edit) and I was able to change "quiet splash" to "nomodeset" on the page. Then hit F10 to carry on the start up cycle.

This time after entering my password I was allowed in. Yippee!!!

However, now the visible screen is quite a bit smaller, roughly 3cm smaller on the left and right edges and perhaps 1cm smaller top and bottom. Yikes!!!

So there is something wrong with how linux is displaying itself.

I will start to surf through any past threads I can find here. Does anyone know why this happens and how I can correct it. I would like 100% of my display, not approximately 75%

Also, is the mini edit I made above to change to nomodeset a permanent one or is this something I will have to keep doing. I guess I will find out soon enough when I next boot, but can anyone shed any further light on this?

Many thanks in advance.
Colin

[trytip]

once you get booted open Update Manager and update especially kernel 4.15 after which a reboot will most likely make things work

[colski]

What I have just done is to sudo edit the grub file under etc/default/ directory.

In the grub file I changed the following line from

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

to

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"

This seems to stop the login loop from happening and I can now login in. So is what I did ok?

UNFORTUNATELY on this laptop (sony vaio) Linuxmint does not go full screen on the laptop. There is a heavy black border of about 3cm on the left and right of the desktop display and also a black border of about 1cm top and bottom of the desktop display.

My mouse will not go into these black borders. For some reason the laptop and/or Linuxmint think my laptop screen is quite a lot smaller than it really is.

How can I make Linuxmint recognise 100% of the available laptop screen?

Thanks.
Colin

[trytip]

did you update? open terminal and post the terminal output for this command

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxzd

[MrEen]

did you update? open terminal and post the terminal output for this command

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxzd

From another thread:

Code: Select all

colin@colin-PCG-K35-UC:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:
Host: colin-PCG-K35-UC Kernel: 4.15.0-54-generic i686 bits: 32
compiler: gcc v: 7.4.0 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: Linux Mint 19.2 Tina
base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Sony product: PCG-K35(UC) v: C100LEX1
serial: <filter>
Mobo: Sony model: Q-Project v: 02 serial: <filter> BIOS: Phoenix
v: R0105X3 date: 10/26/2004
Battery:
ID-1: BAT1 charge: 43.5 Wh condition: 43.5/59.2 Wh (74%)
model: Sony Corp. PCGA-BP2NX status: Charging
CPU:
Topology: Single Core model: Mobile Intel Pentium 4 bits: 32 type: MCP
arch: Netburst Smithfield rev: 1 L2 cache: 1024 KiB
flags: pae sse sse2 sse3 bogomips: 6113
Speed: 3059 MHz min/max: 1862/3059 MHz Core speed (MHz): 1: 3059
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD RS200M [Radeon IGP 330M/340M/345M/350M] vendor: Sony
driver: N/A bus ID: 01:05.0
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: ati,fbdev
unloaded: modesetting,radeon,vesa resolution: 1024x768~76Hz
OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 8.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 19.0.2
direct render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: ULi M5451 PCI AC-Link Audio vendor: Sony driver: snd_ali5451
v: kernel bus ID: 00:04.0
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-54-generic
Network:
Device-1: ULi M7101 Power Management [PMU] vendor: Sony
type: network bridge driver: ali1535_smbus v: N/A port: 8400
bus ID: 00:06.0
Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR5212/5213/2414 Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: AMBIT Microsystem driver: ath5k v: kernel port: 8400
bus ID: 00:09.0
IF: wlp0s9 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-3: Realtek RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
vendor: Sony driver: 8139too v: 0.9.28 port: 9000 bus ID: 00:12.0
IF: enp0s18 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 74.53 GiB used: 7.63 GiB (10.2%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Hitachi model: HTS541680J9AT00 size: 74.53 GiB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 72.86 GiB used: 7.63 GiB (10.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 54.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
Processes: 132 Uptime: 28m Memory: 933.9 MiB used: 241.4 MiB (25.8%)
Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.4.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.19
inxi: 3.0.32
colin@colin-PCG-K35-UC:~$

[pbear]

Note that's from 1.5 hours ago, so quite current.

[trytip]

you need to NOT run nomedeset in your /etc/default/grub/ that's not a permanent solution only for live systems in order to get them booted.

and I also ticked the box about encrypting the home directory.

why? what is so important on your drive you need encryption as an obstacle? i would erase the drive, boot again with livemode set to nomedeset to get it booted, install creating a root and home partition separately, do not use encryption then as soon as you are installed install updates and reboot

then come back to deal with display

[colski]

Hi,

I have no longer used the encrytion for the home folder etc. I reinstalled a few times after that.

Regarding nomodeset, unless I make it permanent by modifying the default\grub file then I can't get past the log in screen. It simply loops back to it each time I log in.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/38780/h ... led-ubuntu

If there is another way to get through the login screen without using nomodeset then I am all ears.

I don't really know the effect nomodeset has except from askubuntu:

"Adding the nomodeset parameter instructs the kernel to not load video drivers and use BIOS modes instead until X is loaded. Many open source drivers have removed support for non-kernel mode setting, so in those cases when you use nomodeset you will end up falling back to the very basic VESA un-accelerated driver."

Perhaps by adding nomodeset to allow me to login, it is then creating the smaller display issue I now have once I am logged in. Agh!

I am currently updating the system, but not sure how that will fix anything unless it somehow resolves the screen/display driver problem I am having.

Back soon.

[colski]

UPDATE:

I ran update manager and it took a while. There were probably 60 or more things that needed updating..

Once this was done I first rebooted and went into the grub menu using shift. I edited out the nomodeset that I had permanently added to the grub file to allow me to get past the login loop problem I was having.

Lo and behold when the login screen appeared and I entered the password I was allowed in to the desktop. AND it was now full screen and using its proper resolution of 1280x800 and there are options to change it to other resolutions too under settings> display.

I then sudo xed the grub file and removed the nomodeset parameter.

Then I ran update-grub

Then I rebooted a few times to test the laptop.

Each time I was able to enter the password and get to the desktop and each time the desktop is full screen. Yippee!!!!

So it lookes like the problem has been solved.

Can anyone explain what I did to make this right?

To sum things up, this is the effective things that I did:

1) Firstly I discovered I had a login loop so I added nomodeset via the grub boot menu.

2) I then added nomodeset permanently into the default/grub file (I later learned this was possibly stopping the correct display screen size)

3) I went into update manager and updated everything.

4) I then rebooted - but edited the bootup grub file using shift to remove nomodeset and I noticed I no longer had the login loop and display was fine

5) So I removed the nomodeset from the default\grub file and updated grub

6) rebooted

and now everything seems fine

So I am guessing there is something in the updates via Update Manager that corrects the login loop.

I wonder why the latest linuxmint xfce I installed didn't have these things already included? I don't know enough about how updates work or wht ends up in the linuxmint install package. Does the Update Manager look for what your PC or Laptop needs specifically as well as the usual ubuntu updates etc?

Colin

[pbear]

I then sudo xed the grub file ...

Glad you got it working, but have to point out you should not use sudo with xed (or any GUI app). Nor is it what Pjotr recommended in the link I gave earlier. Rather, you are supposed to use a command in the form xed admin:///etc/default/grub. For an explanation why it matters, see this page on Pjotr's website. He also mentions a couple other safe ways to open GUI apps with root privileges.

To fix unintended changes using sudo may have caused, open Terminal and run sudo chown -Rc $USER:$USER $HOME.

[cliffcoggin]

Can anyone explain what I did to make this right?
Colin

Simple: you updated. It's good practice to always update whenever you are notified.

[colski]

Thanks pbear for the data. I'll handle that. I'm a linux noob but I will read up on that. Cheers.

[colski]

Can anyone explain what I did to make this right?
Colin

Simple: you updated. It's good practice to always update whenever you are notified.

Yes indeed. But I don't understand why I have had to go through so many loops just to install this albeit on an old laptop.

Why wasn't whatever the "fix" was, included by default in the xfce 19.2 install iso? Surely none of the issues I faced are new.

I don't understand enough about linuxmint mint and or updates to know why it isn't there by default.

Thanks.

[cliffcoggin]

I have no idea why the installation did not go properly, but what you experienced was not normal and is one of the reasons this forum exists. Now that you have a working OS just keep it updated. In Cinnamon that means clicking on the shield symbol when notified, I assume XFCE is the same.