[SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

xfqt · 2022-05-29 15:07:33

Hello everyone,

I have recently changed from XFCE/bspwm to Cinnamon. Everything went quite fine up until creating an additional user for the girlfriend. Both users were created using `useradd` and everything went fine until now. I first saw how I couldn't log in to my old user from lightdm. I wanted to ask this question first, but I have now found the root cause of the problem: Cinnamon is not showing the still existing main user, the one i have been running for about a year. I can also still log in to said user from any terminal or the tty. Just not from lightdm.

Other forums suggested to just delete the user and recreate it using the gui, which might be a solution, but none that I'd be happy with. Since the second user, which is now working properly, was also created using the terminal, I'd hate to hop off into whatever GUI.

The system is up to date. Both users still show up in `/etc/passwd` and their respective `id` command outputs do align with what I expected them to. I feel like the problem may be caused by `accountsservices` . Not because I know said services, just because I stumbled upon them in the ubuntu context where Cinnamon stems from. Does anybody have any ideas on how to get me back into position to log into my account or is more information required?

Regards,

xfqt

Edited title at 30.5.22 @ 20:42 cet, old title was: Old user not showing in new Cinnamon Setup

Last edited by xfqt (2022-06-11 21:52:26)

seth · 2022-05-29 20:37:05

What are the UIDs for the main and GF account? Both >= 1000?
Do you share a toothb… $HOME?
Did you have cinnamon installed before? (Cause it will draw in accountservice which will hide "system users", ie. typically UIDs < 1000)
Can you add yet another user w/o loosing your GFs account in lightdm?

xfqt · 2022-05-30 07:49:31

UID for main user is 1000, GID is 1001 (with 1000 being sudo), UID for GF is 1001 and GID 1002. Already found some information about that and checked `/etc/login.defs`.

We do share a home partition. I did not have Cinnamon installed before, I started with plain xfce, switched to xfce with bspwm as wm and then switched to cinnamon recently. I can add other users which will show in lightdm and are able to login normally.

Another thing which might be related to all this trouble is that lightdm is ignoring its config. I tried switching the greeting, unlocking manual login, etc. None of which had an effect. I edited `/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf` and already checked, there are no other configs (or even corresponding directories) anywhere. I feel like cinnamon screwed my system badly.

seth · 2022-05-30 08:36:04

We do share a home partition.

isn't the same as the same $HOME directory.
How much trouble would it be to move the sudo group (and align the GIDs to the UIDs)?

lightdm is ignoring its config. I tried switching

See /var/log/lightdm - did you maybe install a different greeter (check your pacman log)?

xfqt · 2022-05-30 08:56:50

We don't share a directory, just the partition.

I never thought about that, I just tried to move my main user to uid 1010 instead of 1000, likewise the gid. I don't think that is where the problem stems from, though. I /var/log/lightdm I found these lines:

[+0.01s] DEBUG: Loading users from org.freedesktop.Accounts
[+0.01s] DEBUG: User /org/freedesktop/Accounts/User1002 added
[+0.01s] DEBUG: User /org/freedesktop/Accounts/User1001 added

So I now really assume that AccountsServices is the root cause of the problem. Sadly, I can't really find any sort of understandable documentation or configuration for that thing. I am going to reboot now, either the reboot will make accountsservices see the new uid/gid pair of my main user or it will brick it.

/e: Not only the user, but the whole system won't boot now. I should not be getting angry due to recent surgery, but boy do I tell you, cinnamon is not staying. What a mess.

Last edited by xfqt (2022-05-30 09:07:17)

seth · 2022-05-30 09:38:03

Not only the user, but the whole system won't boot now.

Can yous still boot the multi-user.target (2nd link below)?

xfqt · 2022-05-30 17:04:03

I am getting a "Load Kernel Modules" failed error message. I can't even log in as root. I tried using a live usb to be able to.. I don't even know what, whatever it was, i didn't succeed. I have no idea what is broken now. I was able to log in as root once, there I wasn't really able to do anything though. No pacman, no mounting, whatsoever - just new error messages, which I didn't put down. None of the files I randomly checked gave out anything alerting (fstab, for example). On the liveusb with chroot I tried checking for broken symlinks in /var/lib, as that has been the problem for another user on here, but the links are fine. One thing that put me off was the difference between uname -a, which returned 5.14, as opposed to 5.18 returned by `pacman -Qi linux`.

Full error message:

/dev/sda5: clean, 542548/33933040 files, 12775110/13568001 blocks
[FAILED] Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
[FAILED] Failed to mount /boot.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Local File System.
[FAILED] Failed to mount /mnt/fritzbox.
[DEPEND] Depency failed for Remote File Systems.
You are in emergency mode. [...]

Edit (20:39 CET)
I am now back into the system (with no idea what changed. The above error message is maybe due to my system being on /dev/sda6 now after some repartitioning. That is something I'll have to tackle elsewhere, since it is not related to the problem ITT. Which still persists, my main user on uid/gid 1010 now is still not showing in lightdm, even though I can now log in to my account. Still grateful for any sort of idea on how to get a persistent solution for account services regognizing old users.

Last edited by xfqt (2022-05-30 18:42:07)

seth · 2022-05-31 06:20:31

One thing that put me off was the difference between uname -a, which returned 5.14, as opposed to 5.18 returned by `pacman -Qi linux`.

Means you're booting a kernel different from the installed one. As consequnce any kernel module that's not in the initramfs cannot be loaded. This has nothing to do w/ the cinnamon situation.

Since there's a boot partition automounted and assuming you did not explicitly umount it you may be booting from the root device.

file /boot/vmlinuz-linux

will tell you about the kernel and

cat /proc/cmdline

provide a general hint where you're booting from (if there's a "boot/initramfs" you're likely booting from the root partition.

If you're booting from the boot partition you'll have to install the new kernel there. Since you apparently can't boot it right now, you'll have to do so from eg. the install iso (arch-chroot'ing into the system, mount the /boot partition and re-install the kernel package)

xfqt · 2022-06-10 21:24:00

All boot problems due to wrong kernels could be easily solved.

My problem still persists, though. My main user with UID 1010 and GID 1010 is not showing in lightdm. I have to manually enter both credentials. This not too much of a task, but it is just not how things should be working.

seth · 2022-06-11 06:34:47

it is just not how things should be working.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RyYrs5tu60

Check "qdbus org.freedesktop.Accounts" and there esp. ListCachedUsers, FindUserById or FindUserByName and ultimately perhaps CacheUser
I assume your GFs account was created after installing cinnabun…mon and accountsservice w/ that?

xfqt · 2022-06-11 21:40:19

According to that qdbus my user account is marked as system account. In qdbus viewer there is an option to set a value, this does not really set anything though. Probably because it is a viewer, but what do I know at this point. Someone on stackoverflow, the ubuntu version that is, mentioned to change something in the passwd. That does not seem right though, especially since both existing accounts look the same in /etc/passwd.

The second, the gf's, user was indeed added after installing cinnamon. I feel like my problems been persistent all along, I just didn't notice up until adding a second user to the machine.

Edit: I finally found a solution. Someone's been describing the same problem on askubuntu.com 8 years ago. The necessary keywords, for anyone wondering, were 'Accounts "SystemAccount" Change'.

Full answer from askubuntu - My Account not visible in User Accounts:

It seems that AccountsService was caching the fact that it once thought this was a system account. To fix this, I had to manually edit: /var/lib/AccountsService/users/<username>.
In the User section, I had to change SystemAccount=true to SystemAccount=false
After restarting the AccountsService daemon (sudo service accounts-daemon restart ["sudo systemctl daemon reload" on arch]) my username reappeared in the System Settings->User Accounts GUI.
Notably, this was an account that was carried over from a previous install of 14.04, and had had its uid manually changed.

Thank you for the input on finding the right keyword to search the www for, seth!

Last edited by xfqt (2022-06-11 21:59:35)

Arch Linux

#1 2022-05-29 15:07:33

[SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

#2 2022-05-29 20:37:05

Re: [SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

#3 2022-05-30 07:49:31

Re: [SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

#4 2022-05-30 08:36:04

Re: [SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

#5 2022-05-30 08:56:50

Re: [SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

#6 2022-05-30 09:38:03

Re: [SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

#7 2022-05-30 17:04:03

Re: [SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

#8 2022-05-31 06:20:31

Re: [SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

#9 2022-06-10 21:24:00

Re: [SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

#10 2022-06-11 06:34:47

Re: [SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

#11 2022-06-11 21:40:19

Re: [SOLVED] Old user not recognized by accountservices

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