Arch Linux

DarioP

Member

From: Geneva

Registered: 2011-01-05

Posts: 165

[solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

Today I updated an Acer Aspire 3830T.

The boot flows like this: everything smooth as always with systemd, then the screen becomes black as when loading the gdm login window, but in a fraction of a second it falls back to the "[ OK ] ... " text screen. It stays there for some minutes (~5) then the gdm login finally comes up. Mouse working and everything fine, but when I input the login password I never get a response.

I spent a few hours on this trying to downgrade many packages but I had no success and I ran out of ideas. Is anybody facing a similar issue?

Last edited by DarioP (2014-05-13 06:27:05)

cesura

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Tallinn, Estonia

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 1,867

Re: [solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

Have you had a look around at your GDM logs? Maybe check out what's in /var/log/gdm and see if it's relevant.

---

PGP Key

DarioP

Member

From: Geneva

Registered: 2011-01-05

Posts: 165

Re: [solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

Yes, as one of the first things.. unfortunately I didn't find anything suspect.

cesura

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Tallinn, Estonia

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 1,867

Re: [solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

Have you noticed any other services taking particularly long to start? The only relevant bug report that I could find was this submitted on April 23; apparently there's an upstream bug that started occurring after the latest update to GDM.

---

PGP Key

DarioP

Member

From: Geneva

Registered: 2011-01-05

Posts: 165

Re: [solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

Everything looks really fine: boot process, logs, everything! But I cannot reach the desktop. I saw that bug, so I tried to downgrade gdm and libgdm to version 3.10 that I was using before but nothing changed. It still takes ages to load the login window and from there I'm still not able to get to the desktop. So I tried to downgrade Gnome to 3.10, (at least the packages that seemed important to me) but no change. I tried with Intel drivers, nothing.

Something is failing very silently. I don't know how to spot it.

DarioP

Member

From: Geneva

Registered: 2011-01-05

Posts: 165

Re: [solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

So I finally moved to a backup folder some of the hidden folders in the home, including .config
It still takes ages to reach the GDM login window, but then at least I can login to the Gnome desktop. The system icons in Gnome's program like Gedit and Nautilus are missing.

Maybe I will try to purge Gnome and reinstall it...

Last edited by DarioP (2014-05-10 19:00:26)

DarioP

Member

From: Geneva

Registered: 2011-01-05

Posts: 165

Re: [solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

No way

I completely removed gnome and gnome-extra, reinstalled, created a new user, set exec gnome-session in ~/.xinitrc and... I get the "oh no" screen after startx.
No hint in any log file.

Tried again with GDM and I can reach the desktop in a not-so-natural way, but again all the Gnome icons are messed up, here is a screenshot

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=10362o8 … 260OnW-L35

I cannot figure out how an update could have created so many problems. I'm preparing myself to format the hard drive and have a fresh install, the first for any of my machines since I migrate to Arch some years ago.

Last edited by DarioP (2014-05-10 23:25:48)

Stunts

Member

From: Portugal

Registered: 2009-03-28

Posts: 339

Website

Re: [solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

This can be solved with:

pacman -S gdk-pixbuf2

I've had this problem in the past and that solved it for me.
Hope it helps you too.

DarioP

Member

From: Geneva

Registered: 2011-01-05

Posts: 165

Re: [solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

Thanks! I still have not formatted. I'll give it a try.

DarioP

Member

From: Geneva

Registered: 2011-01-05

Posts: 165

Re: [solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

This can be solved with:

pacman -S gdk-pixbuf2

I've had this problem in the past and that solved it for me.
Hope it helps you too.

The package was already installed and I was sceptical, but reinstalling it automagically solved all the problems, in extremis it saved me the work of a new install.

Muito obrigado!!

Stunts

Member

From: Portugal

Registered: 2009-03-28

Posts: 339

Website

Re: [solved] Cannot login into Gnome after last update

I'm glad it worked out for you!
I took me about a week of log wrestling and google searching to find the solution for that, on one of my machines, but here it is.
From what I could understand, the cache for gdk-pixbuf2 can get corrupted under some special circumstances during an update. The result is what you saw.
However, reinstalling the package will regenerate the cache and everything becomes fine again.

Pas de quoi!