"Could not chdir to home directory /home/me: No such file or directory"

Question

I am using 12.04 on my server.

I created a new user using adduser me and passwd me and added it to sudo.

When I log in this is what I see.

Could not chdir to home directory /home/me: No such file or directory    
$

I type bash and it begins to look "normal"

$ bash
me@server:/$

How can I avoid typing bash every time I login?

Solution

adduser is too basic and doesn't set the defaults properly. It's recommended to use useradd whenever is possible. You can remove the new user and create it again with useradd -D me or repair it yourself:

sudo mkdir /home/me
sudo usermod --shell /bin/bash --home /home/me me
sudo chown -R me:me /home/me
cp /etc/skel/.* /home/me/

If you had used getent passwd me as Florian suggested you should have seen something like this:

sudo getent passwd me
boggus:x:1002:1002::/home/me:/bin/sh

And ls /home wouldn't shown the user directory as your error:

Could not chdir to home directory /home/me: No such file or directory

Comments

[MattDMo]

how did you create the new user?

[ddd]

that answer is not at all related to this question and does not help me.

[Braiam]

What command you used to create the user? Also add to your question the output of cat /etc/passwd.

[ddd]

adduser me, passwd me

[Christopher B. Adkins]

Please add the output of getent passwd $USER to your question

[ddd]

however at the last step I get cp: cannot stat /etc/skel/*': No such file or directory` what does this do?

[ddd]

when I do useradd -D me it just outputs list of arguments. I have ran userdel me before

[Braiam]

Please, edit your question and add the output of apt-cache policy passwd.

[ddd]

following this instruction did not successfully resolve the problem.

[Braiam]

@ddd but then tell what went wrong... edit your question and add the information...

[Egwor]

@ddd you missed the '.'. What you needed to do was cp /etc/skel/.* /home/me/ not cp /etc/skel/* /home/me/

[Shannon]

@Braiam, I had similar issue and went through your instruction. The last line(cp /etc/skel/.* /home/me/) gives me error: 1. cp: -r not specified; omitting directory '/etc/skel/.' 2. cp: -r not specified; omitting directory '/etc/skel/..' any idea?