lightdm hangs after updates

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Yesterday I made a fresh install of the 14.04 daily build, and made a similar experience. Then I installed lightdm-gtk-greeter, and could log in as usual. Consequently there may be an issue with unity-greeter.

I tried your sugestion.
If I install lightdm-gtk-greeter, I am presented with an Xorg running in low graphics mode error and it keeps restarting the X.

So I guessed wrong. Furthermore, after today's upgrade I can't reproduce my unity-greeter issue.

I somehow managed to make it work using lightdm-gtk-greeter, but it doesn't autoload Unity and I dont' have the indicators that appeared before.

I started Unity using unity --replace in Guake and this is what I get:

WARN 2014-02-24 22:05:37 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:579 Can't register object 'org.gnome.Shell' yet as we don't have a connection, waiting for it...
ERROR 2014-02-24 22:05:37 unity.debug.interface DebugDBusInterface.cpp:196 Unable to load entry point in libxpathselect: libxpathselect.so.1.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
WARN 2014-02-24 22:05:37 xim.controller XIMController.cpp:103 IBus natively supported.
WARN 2014-02-24 22:05:37 unityct(io) <unknown>:0 Desktop file '/home/cristi/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop' is using a deprecated format for its actions that will be dropped soon.
WARN 2014-02-24 22:05:37 unityct(io) <unknown>:0 Desktop file '/usr/share/applications/clementine.desktop' is using a deprecated format for its actions that will be dropped soon.
WARN 2014-02-24 22:05:37 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:579 Can't register object 'com.canonical.Unity.Launcher' yet as we don't have a connection, waiting for it...
WARN 2014-02-24 22:05:37 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:579 Can't register object 'com.canonical.Unity.Dash' yet as we don't have a connection, waiting for it...
WARN 2014-02-24 22:05:37 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:579 Can't register object 'org.gnome.SessionManager.EndSessionDialog' yet as we don't have a connection, waiting for it...
WARN 2014-02-24 22:05:37 unityo (appinfo2) <unknown>:0 g_settings_set_value: value for key 'visual-bell-type' in schema 'org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences' is outside of valid range
WARN 2014-02-24 22:05:37 unityo (appinfo2) <unknown>:0 g_settings_set_value: value for key 'visual-bell-type' in schema 'org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences' is outside of valid range
ERROR 2014-02-24 22:05:37 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:524 DBus name lost 'org.gnome.Shell'

It prevents the package (or a dependent one) from functioning correctly at all.

We had someone on Ubuntu forums with what seemed to be this issue. User "deadflowr" suggested it was because /usr/share/xsessions/ubuntu.desktop was missing, and indeed it was. So the related package, ubuntu-session was missing. Why? I don't know. As far as I know the user was doing fresh installs from the mini iso.

Had the same problem as above. Got it working again by installing lightdm-gtk-greeter as suggested.

This bug (or a related one) still seems to be around after the final beta freeze. I've installed the 14.04 beta, and while I can login with my primary account, other users on the same machine can't log in - the greeter just sits there until you hit Esc. Also applies to the guest account.

Have same issue, after upgrading from 13.10 to 14.04 LTS release.
All suggestions didn't work. Can't get to work right now - ubuntu=fail

Hi, I got a similar problem today after running
> apt-get dist-upgrade
to upgrade to 14.04.

After running it my desktop cannot show up when reboot.
However, I found I can still use Cirl+Alt+F1 to go to tty1 and login using my user account with root privilege.

Then I solved the problem and get my desktop back by running
> apt-get install ubuntu-desktop lightdm

It seems to me the package lightdm has been removed during the dist-upgrade. I don't know what happened though.

Having exact same problem, can't log in, my desktop was configured to auto login

Seems as Ubuntu-session Ubuntu-desktop lightdm are not installed

Upgrading from 13.10

I just noticed that the upgrade didn't really upgrade. Try
Sudo apt-get -f install
Sudo apt-get update
Sudo apt-get upgrade

I bet you have alot of packages left to upgrade like me. I noticed on the login screen that hanged originally that it said Ubuntu 13.10 in the corner as original OP

I did as suggested but i'm unable to use my ubuntu 14.04. Do I have to do a fresh install?

I tried to reinstall (not a fresh installation) but that doesn't resolve the issue.
If I login with my old user the desktop doesn't show.
If I use a new user, after login and password, the system returns to the login screen.

Sorry, I'd like to add that I tried also using gdm but I can't login anyway

ubuntu 14.04 hangs frequently.Also 4to 5 times restarted everyday.

I have the same problem using GDM.
So, I think it's not related to lightdm.
In .xsession-errors I read dbus terminated with status 2.

What can I do to track down the problem and get my system working again?

Update
After starting and stopping dbus, lightdm and reinstalling lightdm and ubuntu-desktop, now I can login with a new user but no way to use an older one

After 14.04 release, I've updated the distro and I don't have this problem anymore, with stock and custom kernel.
It seems like some people are still affected by this bug.

I have the same problem as well. both Unity and Gnome are freezing right after login but I managed to install LXDE which is working fine

This also happened to me on 3 fresh installs and upgrades from 13.10 combined, both on hardware and VMs. Exact behaviour. Works fine until apt-get upgrade is run for the first time. It disables auto-login if configured and then hangs as soon as the password is entered, staying on the lightdm screen, but blanking out all the password fields. The main menu is still accessible as I can access power functions, and changing VT also works find. All installs tested using Unity, not tested under Gnome or LXDE.

On the hardware install, I was able to fix it by reinserting the DVD and choosing to reinstall the OS, however oddly when running in VirtualBox there was no option to reinstall, just to reformat and start from scratch.

Also it does show 13.10 on the lightdm greeter rather than 14.04 until the issue is fixed. Once it's fixed, it shows 14.04. Very strange.

WORKAROUND:

I worked around this by using the following IMMEDIATELY after a clean install:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop lightdm libgtk-pixbuf2.0-dev
gdk-pixbuf-query-loaders | sudo tee /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gdk-pixbuf-2.0/2.10.0/loaders.cache
sudo apt-get upgrade

Now reboot.

This is tested working in the VMs and on hardware machines (not that there SHOULD be a difference)

Sorry, typo: "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop lightdm libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev"

Same problem here

Intel® Pentium(R) CPU B960 @ 2.20GHz × 2

Intel® Sandybridge Mobile

Unity not start after login...

This sounds very similar to what I'm experiencing on Ubuntu 14.10. Basically, when I login, teh screen goes blank for a moment, then right back to the login. I have reason to believe a recent update made this happen. From what I've been reading, I think it has something to do with the .Xauthority file found at ~/ . I found something similar to what I was experiencing.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/367260/i-am-logged-out-immediately-after-logging-in\
Supposedly if I removed ~/.Xauthority (I made a backup) it would be regenerated after lightdm restarts. Well it doesn't, and I'm still stuck in a loop.

If anyone needs any command output, feel free to ask.

I am experiencing this problem on Xubuntu 14.04 after an upgrade today. I have tried all the suggestions I could find on internet , such as reconfig/reinstall lightdm and xubuntu-desktop, clear session cache, remove Xauthority, restart lightdm time and time again, but still cannot work around this problem.

I have checked auth.log and found something interesting. When everything is OK, the log looks like this

Jul 15 18:11:02 weihong-pc systemd-logind[870]: New seat seat0.
Jul 15 18:11:03 weihong-pc systemd-logind[870]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event1 (Power Button)
Jul 15 18:11:03 weihong-pc systemd-logind[870]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event10 (Video Bus)
Jul 15 18:11:03 weihong-pc systemd-logind[870]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event0 (Power Button)
Jul 15 18:11:05 weihong-pc lightdm: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_kwallet.so): /lib/security/pam_kwallet.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Jul 15 18:11:05 weihong-pc lightdm: PAM adding faulty module: pam_kwallet.so
Jul 15 18:11:05 weihong-pc lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm-greeter:session): session opened for user lightdm by (uid=0)
Jul 15 18:11:05 weihong-pc systemd-logind[870]: New session c1 of user lightdm.
Jul 15 18:11:05 weihong-pc systemd-logind[870]: Linked /tmp/.X11-unix/X0 to /run/user/104/X11-display.
Jul 15 18:11:05 weihong-pc lightdm: pam_ck_connector(lightdm-greeter:session): nox11 mode, ignoring PAM_TTY :0
Jul 15 18:11:08 weihong-pc lightdm: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_kwallet.so): /lib/security/pam_kwallet.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Jul 15 18:11:08 weihong-pc lightdm: PAM adding faulty module: pam_kwallet.so
Jul 15 18:11:08 weihong-pc lightdm: pam_succeed_if(lightdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "weihong"
Jul 15 18:11:08 weihong-pc dbus[754]: [system] Rejected send message, 7 matched rules; type="method_return", sender=":1.25" (uid=0 pid=1450 comm="/usr/sbin/dnsmasq --no-resolv --keep-in-foreground") interface="(unset)" member="(unset)" error name="(unset)" requested_reply="0" destination=":1.5" (uid=0 pid=939 comm="NetworkManager ")
Jul 15 18:11:12 weihong-pc lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm-greeter:session): session closed for user lightdm
Jul 15 18:11:12 weihong-pc lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session opened for user weihong by (uid=0)
Jul 15 18:11:12 weihong-pc systemd-logind[870]: New session c2 of user weihong.
Jul 15 18:11:12 weihong-pc systemd-logind[870]: Linked /tmp/.X11-unix/X0 to /run/user/1000/X11-display.
Jul 15 18:11:12 weihong-pc lightdm: pam_ck_connector(lightdm:session): nox11 mode, ignoring PAM_TTY :0
Jul 15 18:11:14 weihong-pc gnome-keyring-daemon[1622]: Gkm: using old keyring directory: /home/weihong/.gnome2/keyrings
Jul 15 18:11:14 weihong-pc gnome-keyring-daemon[1622]: Gkm: using old keyring directory: /home/weihong/.gnome2/keyrings
Jul 15 18:11:14 weihong-pc gnome-keyring-daemon[1622]: couldn't set environment variable in session: The name org.gnome.SessionManager was not provided by any .service files
Jul 15 18:11:15 weihong-pc polkitd(authority=local): Registered Authentication Agent for unix-session:c2 (system bus name :1.39 [/usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1], object path /org/gnome/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8)
Jul 15 18:11:14 weihong-pc gnome-keyring-daemon[1622]: message repeated 2 times: [ couldn't set environment variable in session: The name org.gnome.SessionManager was not prov...

I guess I'm having the same issue on Ubuntu 14.10.

Session opening takes so long it can be mistaken for a freeze (up to 90, evn 120 seconds sometimes).
If I update Ubuntu 14.10 with xorg-edgers repos, session does not open.

I don't this this is specific to just LightDM. I tried installing KDM to see if it too would lock up occasionally, and it does. It's very strange because no keyboard input is recognized, not even ctrl+alt+f does anything. Next time I'll give it a while to see if it snaps out of it.

That's supposed to be ctrl+alt+f4 (typo)...

I am experiencing exactly the same problem, the desktop freeze after click login and the keyboard does not response. I think systmed is the most probable cause since I found this in auth.log:

Jul 18 18:13:22 weihong-pc systemd-logind[1176]: Failed to issue method call: Unknown unit: <email address hidden>

But I have no ideas how to fix this problem.

Well whatever it is, I know ssh logins are still possible. If available I can login from another machine via ssh and reboot from there. Nothing seems to be locked up from that end, so I know it's not the core system. It also seems to be every other reboot too, if that matters.

An update.

I had written here that I seemed to be affected by this bug too, but I remembered later that just before running the "Software Updater" gui tool I had enabled the "pre-released updates" update source. After the update the system wouldn't boot, and seemed totally hosed. But I had a backup of the root partition made with fsarchiver and so I was able to restore it. I did that, then just now tried disabling, then enebling one at a time, all of the sources and PPAs that I had been using---excpt for that "pre-released updates" source. The updates went without a hitch, and it seems all good. So in my case the bug report was seemingly a false alarm, and I just wanted to let y'all know.

ps: I "hid" my first comments because they now seems not to be really helping.

I ran apt-get update today and found the problem is solved! I check the apt history log and find that xdg-utils is updated. Is that the most probable cause?

I think I'm having the same problem. It started happening shortly after upgrading from 12.04 LTS to 14.04 LTS. There are two user accounts on my system. One works fine. The other experiences this problem - hangs with only background image displayed after login. I've waited a half hour and nothing changes. None of the solutions I've found on the internet work (resetting Unity, reinstalling ubuntu-desktop, etc.) I'm guessing some configuration got borked during the upgrade, but I am no guru and have no idea how to track it down. If there's information I can provide that might help, I'll be happy to do so, but you may have to explain how to get it.

I am also affected.

I just upgraded to 14.04 yesterday & I waited a while after it came out because last time I upgraded to 12. the upgrade hosed me so fricking bad I had to wipe my drive and start again.

I did a test by upgrading my laptop first & that went fine, so feeling a little more confident in ubuntu this time I did my main pc...and I am so pissed I trusted ubuntu again I cant tell you... Im hosed..

I might as well be using windows for as much of a time suck failure ubuntu has become... when it works it works great... but this is the second time I have been SCREWED doing an upgrade..... NEVER AGAIN!!!

I had to hire a guy to come over and try fix it after EVERYTHING mentioned here FAILED.... he teaches linux at a local uni and he couldnt figure it out or fix it...

The only he could get a full boot was to install xubuntu.... I started using ubuntu & gnome desktop because it was so well supported, and now Im forced to either start again from scratch or deal with using a desktop that Im so unfamiliar with its like wading through mud to get anything done.

I see this has been listed as a high importance bug since FEB. yet its isnt even assigned.....

If you just want to try my fix skip to end of post.

I also stumbled up on this bug in the summer. It took me a while but I managed to solve it in the end for me. (Had the problem on 6 or 7 older computers.)
I was sure I documented it here as well but it appears I did not.
It was a while ago but I still think I can remember the correct issue.

For me the problem was in the user-session variable in lightdm.conf file located in "/etc/lightdm/".
I had set it to 2D to speed things up a long time ago:
"user-session=ubuntu-2d"
I had a slight feeling that I read something about it and it seams that 2D was indeed dropped in Ubuntu 12.10.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/08/unity-2d-removed-from-ubuntu-12-10

This page should probably be updated as well:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity2D

My fix:
1) Open file for editing. If you do not know how to do this then there is discussion here on how to edit system files (http://askubuntu.com/questions/92379/how-do-i-get-permissions-to-edit-system-configuration-files)
2) Change row "user-session=ubuntu-2d" to "user-session=ubuntu"
3) Reboot computer

Bob or anyone else, please report back if this helps you.

Hi John

Thanks for the heads up... I was literally 2 seconds away from clicking install on the cd rom
and wiping my installation... (something I REALLY do not want to do)

I was REALLY hoping your solution would work... but sadly it already says simply "ubuntu"
in user session :(

Using ubuntu (at least as far as upgrades is concerned) has become worse than using windows, this is the second time in 2 upgrades that doing an upgrade has become the time suck from hell, and brought my actually using my main puter to a dead stop... and left me at the point of wiping my os hard drive and starting from scratch... it really has me rethinking ubuntu at all.

I switched out from windows because I got really tired of it being slow bloatware crashing crap, and I refuse to be bent over by apple, and locked into their ecosystem

Ubuntu seemed like a good solid os by then (v10) with a good gui that was well supported and a vibrant community supporting it.
Im not a fan at all of unity, but the ability to just install gnome and get to work is great... or at least it is until you are stupid enough to upgrade as I was...

I cant even get my vps to load using xubuntu and my provider ....um.... we dont support that.... thats why I choose ubuntu, its well distributed enough its supported... this is obviously a trend... Im sadly debating if I should go pick up a copy of windows

thanks for hosing me again ubuntu!!!!!

Hi Bob!

Updated my name - still the same person.

Ok, it might also be that this bug has been open for so long time that we are seeing multiple issues in here.

I know this feeling all too well. I have helped a lot of people to Linux and in many cases to Ubuntu. It is always fun to get a phone call with an issue similar to this. But at the same time I know that supporting this kind of large project is not easy. I have had countless occasions when I have problems on Windows or other OS when I have felt that I should have gone with another one.

That said could you also provide your /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log as an attachment.
And do I assume correctly that you have "greeter-session=unity-greeter" in the "/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf".

How comfortable are you experimenting on CLI?

Hi

I very much appreciate the assistance.

Im ok getting into terminal & as long as its a copy and paste kinda deal, Im a gui user having moved over from windows
but over the last few years I have gotten fairly familiar with what does what when it comes to ubuntu/linux...
and have no problem busting out terminal or opening this or that in kate and doing some editing...

I do not however have the ability to just buts out a terminal window and know what to type natively.

here you go & thank you.. took a while to figure out how to get into the log files as root :)

thanks again :)

***** lightdm.conf*******

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-session=unity-greeter
user-session=ubuntu
greeter-show-manual-login=true

******end********

******lightdm.log*****

[+0.00s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Starting Light Display Manager 1.10.1, UID=0 PID=1296
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration dirs from /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration from /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-greeter-wrapper.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration from /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-guest-wrapper.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration from /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-ubuntu.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration from /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-unity-greeter.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration from /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-xserver-command.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration from /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/60-lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration from /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/90-nvidia.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration dirs from /usr/local/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration dirs from /etc/xdg/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration from /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/10-xubuntu.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration from /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Using D-Bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Registered seat module xlocal
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Registered seat module xremote
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Registered seat module unity
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Registered seat module surfaceflinger
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Adding default seat
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Seat: Starting
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Seat: Creating greeter session
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Seat: Creating display server of type x
[+0.01s] DEBUG: Quitting Plymouth
[+0.02s] DEBUG: Using VT 7
[+0.02s] DEBUG: Seat: Starting local X display on VT 7
[+0.02s] DEBUG: DisplayServer x-0: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/x-0.log
[+0.02s] DEBUG: DisplayServer x-0: Writing X server authority to /var/run/lightdm/root/:0
[+0.02s] DEBUG: DisplayServer x-0: Launching X Server
[+0.02s] DEBUG: Launching process 1309: /usr/bin/X -core :0 -seat seat0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch
[+0.02s] DEBUG: DisplayServer x-0: Waiting for ready signal from X server :0
[+0.02s] DEBUG: Acquired bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager
[+0.02s] DEBUG: Registering seat with bus path /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Seat0
[+0.05s] DEBUG: Loading users from org.freedesktop.Accounts
[+0.05s] DEBUG: User /org/freedesktop/Acco...

So.... the giant pain in the backside that is called ubuntu upgrade

isnt over...its a long stupid story.... however I did find a solution that at least let me reboot into a gui

Lets start with ... the ONLY way I could make any progress, was erasing my hard drive and installing from scratch.... (%^$# YOU ubuntu)

 it all worked and booted.... then I spent the next way too many hours trying to get all my stuff back up and running.... configuring ...installing... customizing... blah blah blah

so... since I am obviously a moron (for trusting an upgrade in the first place) I today was a super big moron and installed the nvidia drivers and various issues happened... I run 3 - 27 inch monitors running in panorama and the default from the install was fine..... and everything...so why I thought I should fix it by adding the propriety driver is beyond me

regardless a number of crappy things happens that made my work day turn into once AGAIN.... "lets f around with ubuntu day"

after installing the driver the damn thing kept booting into low graphics mode with no solution in site... so I started trying to solve that problem and found this

http://askubuntu.com/questions/141606/how-to-fix-the-system-is-running-in-low-graphics-mode-error/141607#141607

*****************************

specifically this (link in that page) http://askubuntu.com/a/141607/25798

This is a bug in LightDM and a bug report has already been filed.

The reason why you end up with this failsafe X is because the pantheon-greeter you installed along with the elementary desktop is now not available and LightDM is not able to identify an alternative greeter.

As a workaround, you can edit the LightDM conf file and correct the error.

Run the following command in a terminal:

sudo nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
and change the line

greeter-session=pantheon-greeter
to

greeter-session=unity-greeter
and save it.

After changing the file, reboot and you will now be greeted with Unity greeter.

****************

so I did this .... and somehow ... inattention...frustration... anyway I erased the contents just before I hit the save & rebooted

to my HORROR... I booted into the same problem that started this mess.... the bug described... so Im 2 days into a re-install and back at the issue I had that started it all, that I had no solution for in the first place other than a full re-install....

Since its almost halloween... i guess... nightmares are appropriate

anyway all the whining aside... I figured out how to at least get it to boot back to low graphics mode, so if you are stuck at the
point you login and then nothing happens you can at least try this

cntrl alt F1

login

sudo nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

I edited lightdm.conf to: greeter-show-manual-login=true (this is different from the suggestion in the link)

saved and rebooted and I was at least able to get into low graphics mode, back to the last fing issue... but even that is an improvement! I was about ready to eat a bullet at that point if it hadnt worked

I hope it does for you... I was not able to find any way in other than a full re-install before....

Apparently this bug is at least in my case related to th...

Closing assumed fixed.