Ubuntu 18.04 Login window loop

Question

Is there any reason the login window would stop working and start looping? I'm running 18.04. I normally RDP into the ubuntu box, but that isn't working now. Using a keyboard and mouse, I see my username on the monitor. I type in my password. Then the screen goes blank for a few seconds... and I'm back to the login screen where my username is. I'm not getting through to my desktop!

I haven't messed with the machine except for the following, but, I'm not sure why any of these would impact the loginscreen.

• install pihole in a docker container,
• turn off systemd-resolved (to get port 53 working) per https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/8zamlk/trying_to_install_pihole_on_ubuntu_and_having/e2hd7qp/ and How to disable systemd-resolved in Ubuntu?, and
• installed gufw to graphically manage the firewall/open port 80 for pihole.

But none of these messed with the login manager. Does anyone have any idea what could be up? Interestingly, nearly all of my docker containers (portainer, heimdall, tatulli, sonarr, radarr, pihole) work, with the exception of anything using ssl (plex and cockpit). I'm guessing somehow the firewall blocked port 443, but I'm not sure why that would stop me from logging into the box using a keyboard and mouse...

Any help/insight is greatly appreciated!

EDIT1: I tried creating another user via

sudo useradd -d /home/testuser testuser  
sudo passwd testuser

but the login manager still throws me for a loop

EDIT2: I've disabled the firewall via

sudo ufw disable

and I reversed the system-resolved.service work, but still no luck :(

Solution 1

I've almost done all suggestions here, but none of them didn't work. Also gd3 reconfigure has no effect. But I had suspected to my last gnome extensions.

The [email protected] was the problem. So I disabled all gnome extensions to solve login loop as following steps:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+F2 or Ctrl+Alt+F3 or ...
2. Enter your username and password
3. cd ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/
4. mv extensions extensions.bak
5. mkdir extensions
6. Press Ctrl+Alt+F1
7. Login and Thanks God

Hope help somebody else. I almost worked full day to find this solution.

PS: I've installed my favorite extentions again and I have to tell you Login Loop disaster in ubuntu has wide variety causes. So try to find your special cause and solve it.

Solution 2

Looks like it may have been related to "upgrading" from 18.04 to 18.04.01: No login screen after ubuntu 18.04.1 update

In any case, doing the following fixed it for me:

systemctl stop gdm.service  
systemctl restart gdm.service  
sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3  
reboot

Solution 3

My ubuntu loop login problem started after switching from java11 openjdk to java8 openjdk. I had logged in via CTRL+ALT+F3 to terminal and switched back to java 11 via sudo update-alternatives --config java and login loop stopped.

Solution 4

I also had tried a lot of solution but none of that work for me, but this did.

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+F2
2. Login with your username and password
3. Enter ls -ld ~/ after you will see something like this drwxr-xr-x 30 root root 4096 Jul 6 20:26 /home/{yourcutename}/
4. Now Enter sudo chown username:username /home/{yourcutename}/

This worked for me :-)

View more solutions

Comments

[karel]

Possible duplicate of Ubuntu gets stuck in a login loop

[Kryten]

This worked for me. I had an out-of-date extension ([email protected]). Copying all extensions, then adding them back one-by-one (I only had two, so it was easy) allowed me to identify this as the culprit. Thank you!

[Rob Rutten]

After two days of frantic googling re "18.04 login loop after software update" and trying all standard recipes to no avail I found your above extensions suggestion. Saved me! For me also the workspace grid. Thank YOU!

[Khalil Laleh]

@RobRutten , @ Kryten Happy it helped you. Thanks God :))

[DsCpp]

I had to reinstall my GPU drivers and waist hours just to come across with the post. - I love you

[AndreGraveler]

** by strip down mode, I mean recovery mode

[AndreGraveler]

It seems if you change the path variable manually it throws off things. Its best to do auto install.

[Amit Yadav]

You'll go to heaven for this. Before almost deciding to reinstall Ubuntu I tried this and it worked. Thanks mate.

[robm]

This did it for me, in fact after the second line I was able to login again, no reboot required.

[TheGeeko61]

After trying all the guesses discussed here, I am moving onward. My version is 21.04. Even Jesus wasn't able to come through for me. (I've posted my own question because it's a different scenario.

[TheGeeko61]

Oops... Here's my situation...askubuntu.com/questions/1361229/…