Arch Linux

lenatrice

Member

Registered: 2025-02-24

Posts: 3

[Solved] SDDM autologin not working

I created the file /etc/sddm.conf.d/autologin.conf as instructed in the Archwiki, with the content:

[Autologin]
User=user
Session=plasma

but it doesn't work, I am always greeted by the login screen upon startup. I have also tried with Session=plasmax11, Session=plasmax11.desktop because the name of the file in /usr/share/xsessions/ is plasmax11.desktop

I have also tried to add this to /etc/sddm.conf:

Include=/etc/sddm.conf.d/*.conf

I have also copied /etc/sddm.conf.d/autologin.conf to /usr/lib/sddm/sddm.conf.d/autologin.conf but it didn't work either

Does someone have any idea why my user is not automatically logging in?

Last edited by lenatrice (2025-02-25 12:44:45)

mackin_cheese

Member

Registered: 2025-01-07

Posts: 475

Re: [Solved] SDDM autologin not working

dumb question cause i don't see it spelled out in your config, did you replace user with your actual username?

lenatrice

Member

Registered: 2025-02-24

Posts: 3

Re: [Solved] SDDM autologin not working

dumb question cause i don't see it spelled out in your config, did you replace user with your actual username?

Yes, the user is actually called user. It's a generic name because it's a live environment supposed to be used by multiple people

mackin_cheese

Member

Registered: 2025-01-07

Posts: 475

Re: [Solved] SDDM autologin not working

oh sddm is not the only thing you need to auto login into kde, you also have to enable it in KDE itself in the system settings

Wild Penguin

Member

Registered: 2015-03-19

Posts: 383

Re: [Solved] SDDM autologin not working

oh sddm is not the only thing you need to auto login into kde, you also have to enable it in KDE itself in the system settings

This is not true, pretty sure sddm does not know anything about your desktop environments settings, or more correctly, what the kcm module does is exactly that it writes it's own autologin.conf file (can't be 100% sure, would be interesting to see what the kcm module does differently, if anything. It's worth a shot, though).

OP, did you do everything mentioned in the wiki page?

I may misremember but possibly the user with auto-login also needs to be in the nopasswdlogin, or maybe not, maybe it's only for passwordless-but-chooseable login from the display manager.

Did you restart sddm service after editing the file?

Last edited by Wild Penguin (2025-02-25 00:40:22)

mackin_cheese

Member

Registered: 2025-01-07

Posts: 475

Re: [Solved] SDDM autologin not working

oh sddm is not the only thing you need to auto login into kde, you also have to enable it in KDE itself in the system settings

This is not true, pretty sure sddm does not know anything about your desktop environments settings, or more correctly, what the kcm module does is exactly that it writes it's own autologin.conf file (can't be 100% sure, would be interesting to see what the kcm module does differently, if anything. It's worth a shot, though).

OP, did you do everything mentioned in the wiki page?

I may misremember but possibly the user with auto-login also needs to be in the nopasswdlogin, or maybe not, maybe it's only for passwordless-but-chooseable login from the display manager.

Did you restart sddm service after editing the file?

The KCM module pretty much overtakes sddm configs by default, so the auto login would likely have to be set in plasma's system settings. He should be giving that a try

lenatrice

Member

Registered: 2025-02-24

Posts: 3

Re: [Solved] SDDM autologin not working

oh sddm is not the only thing you need to auto login into kde, you also have to enable it in KDE itself in the system settings

This is not true, pretty sure sddm does not know anything about your desktop environments settings, or more correctly, what the kcm module does is exactly that it writes it's own autologin.conf file (can't be 100% sure, would be interesting to see what the kcm module does differently, if anything. It's worth a shot, though).

OP, did you do everything mentioned in the wiki page?

I may misremember but possibly the user with auto-login also needs to be in the nopasswdlogin, or maybe not, maybe it's only for passwordless-but-chooseable login from the display manager.

Did you restart sddm service after editing the file?

Yes I restarted sddm service and also rebooted multiple times.

I added this to /etc/pam.d/sddm now:

#%PAM-1.0
auth        sufficient  pam_succeed_if.so user ingroup nopasswdlogin

Still no success. If I understand correctly this is not for autologin but passwordless and choosable as you mentioned.

This differs from automatic login in that the user still has to choose which account to log into

.

I just installed sddm-kcm module and could enable Autologin successfully in Plasma settings (just a side note, it's a weird location in the settings though, it's inside Colors and Themes then choosing the "Behaviour" button on the top - the behaviour part of SDDM should be in another section as it doesn't quite fit in the themes section).

It generated a new file on /etc/sddm.conf.d/ called kde_settings.conf, and it's contents are practically the same, except it included the Relogin=false option. So although it was working, I was still curious as to why it didn't work with my own configuration file. So I disabled the autologin option on Plasma settings, deleted the entire [Autologin] section from kde_settings.conf and uninstalled sddm-kcm just to ensure. Kept only my autologin.conf and the file is working now by itself (removed user and session values and it didn't autologin, putting it there again reenabled autologin). Not sure what was the problem before but it's solved.

Last edited by lenatrice (2025-02-25 13:03:54)

Wild Penguin

Member

Registered: 2015-03-19

Posts: 383

Re: [Solved] SDDM autologin not working

FWIW I have set up sddm to auto-login with and without KDE Plasma (no anything else but KDE Plasma) many times previously.

I remember there has been some hiccups but don't remember the details nor what the actual problem was, I got things always sorted out by myself.

(p.e. There are many desktop environments, they can not and should not "take over" a display manager since that would be nonsensical. There could be many users and many desktop environments to choose from; auto-login is a separate thing from a DE a user chooses to use; the DE may have utilities to make it easier to write configuration files).

mackin_cheese

Member

Registered: 2025-01-07

Posts: 475

Re: [Solved] SDDM autologin not working

FWIW I have set up sddm to auto-login with and without KDE Plasma (no anything else but KDE Plasma) many times previously.

I remember there has been some hiccups but don't remember the details nor what the actual problem was, I got things always sorted out by myself.

(p.e. There are many desktop environments, they can not and should not "take over" a display manager since that would be nonsensical. There could be many users and many desktop environments to choose from; auto-login is a separate thing from a DE a user chooses to use; the DE may have utilities to make it easier to write configuration files).

kde be weird at times

Last edited by mackin_cheese (2025-02-25 19:07:57)