Can start X with startx but DM login fails

dwidmann · 2020-04-23 11:10:11

What I can do:
*I can start my desktop environment if I open a terminal emulator with startx.

What I can't do:
start my desktop environment with a DM -- I've tried sddm,lightdm,lxdm, so it doesn't seem to be specific to any particular DM

What happens:
I punch in my password at the greeter, screen goes black for an instant and returns to the greeter.

Unfortunately there's nothing that really jumps out as a culprit in the logs for the DMs, Xorg, dmesg, journalctl, etc, but I can upload them anyway if you think there might be something there.

I've seen a problem like this before, years ago ; I can temporarily resolve it by removing my home directory AND user (a fresh home directory seems to be insufficient, nor is just adding a new user account and logging in with that), but apparently it comes back

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-04-23 11:14:24

Is there an X.Org log for the failed session under the display manger? Probably best to post that and the full logs for any given display manager. Let's try LightDM first, just because.

Trilby · 2020-04-23 13:45:53

dwidmann wrote:

What I can do:
*I can start my desktop environment if I open a terminal emulator with startx

That's an odd approach. I'd assume you could also just start your DE with startx/xinit then. Why the terminal emulator middle man? Is that necessary?

seth · 2020-04-23 15:34:04

Also, what *is* your DE, and how do you run it from the terminal?

dwidmann · 2020-04-23 17:14:45

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Is there an X.Org log for the failed session under the display manger? Probably best to post that and the full logs for any given display manager. Let's try LightDM first, just because.

There is. Full logs here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17dyy1x … sp=sharing
I'd try to trim them down, but if there's something there I'm not seeing, I'm afraid I'd cut it off :\

Trilby wrote:

That's an odd approach. I'd assume you could also just start your DE with startx/xinit then. Why the terminal emulator middle man? Is that necessary?

Hmm, wasn't working at the time, think the error I got was dbus related, oddly enough it's working now though.

seth wrote:

Also, what *is* your DE, and how do you run it from the terminal?

KDE/plasma

startx /usr/bin/startplasma-x11

On that note though, it looks like other environments won't start from DM either, just gave fluxbox a go (I keep it around for an emergency backup), but no dice, does the same thing.

Trilby · 2020-04-23 17:32:12

Well, do you need a DM? Their primary purpose has always been to break and provide a larger bug surface. They don't actually do anything.

seth · 2020-04-23 20:39:09

[+7.78s] DEBUG: Authenticate result for user dustin: Success
[+7.78s] DEBUG: User dustin authorized
[+7.80s] DEBUG: Greeter requests session kodi
…
[+7.81s] DEBUG: Session pid=931: Running command /etc/lightdm/Xsession kodi-standalone
…
[+7.91s] DEBUG: Session pid=931: Exited with return value 2
[+7.91s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Session stopped

Kodi ?

dwidmann · 2020-04-23 21:49:02

Trillby wrote:

Well, do you need a DM? Their primary purpose has always been to break and provide a larger bug surface. They don't actually do anything.

You're not wrong. Given that startx works, this is more of a curiosity than anything.

seth wrote:

Kodi ?

Ah, yes. I have that session available to me as well, and it doesn't work from the DM either.

seth · 2020-04-24 06:23:05

Ok, but were you actually trying to run it?
(Because if kodi is broken and somehow "locked" as your session you might end up w/ the wrong impression that you cannot start KDE from lightdm while lightdm in fact tries and fails to run kodi all the time)

Apr 23 12:37:51 terra sudo[1057]:   dustin : TTY=tty2 ; PWD=/home/dustin ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/fish

Did you change your users shell to fish?
You didn't symlink /bin/sh to /bin/fish, did you?

dwidmann · 2020-04-24 12:37:41

I don't usually use lightdm, so I think it was the 'default' out of the bunch, for whatever reason. I forgot to change it when I was making that log. I changed my default login shell to fish, but sh still points to bash.

seth · 2020-04-24 12:43:00

I changed my default login shell to fish

I'd give it a try and revert that, could be some session-setup script of the DM/s fail here (completely wild guess, though)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-04-24 17:03:39

What are the exact steps you took to configure the display managers? There don't seem to be any errors in the files apart from this line in seat0-greeter.log:

** (lightdm-gtk-greeter:958): WARNING **: 12:37:26.518: [PIDs] Failed to execute command: upstart

But the log continues after that so I don't think it was critical.

dwidmann · 2020-04-27 15:49:23

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

What are the exact steps you took to configure the display manager

Configure them? Generally speaking, I don't. I don't do anything beyond enabling/starting them.

seth wrote:

I'd give it a try and revert that, could be some session-setup script of the DM/s fail here (completely wild guess, though)

Perhaps I'll try that later today, but if that's enough to break things, well, this quote comes to mind:

Trillby wrote:

Well, do you need a DM? Their primary purpose has always been to break and provide a larger bug surface. They don't actually do anything.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-04-27 15:56:28

dwidmann wrote:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
What are the exact steps you took to configure the display manager
Configure them? Generally speaking, I don't. I don't do anything beyond enabling/starting them.

Yes, that's what I meant. How do you do that, exactly?

For example, have you tried setting the default to graphical.target? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Di … ay_manager

Arch Linux

#1 2020-04-23 11:10:11

Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#2 2020-04-23 11:14:24

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#3 2020-04-23 13:45:53

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#4 2020-04-23 15:34:04

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#5 2020-04-23 17:14:45

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#6 2020-04-23 17:32:12

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#7 2020-04-23 20:39:09

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#8 2020-04-23 21:49:02

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#9 2020-04-24 06:23:05

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#10 2020-04-24 12:37:41

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#11 2020-04-24 12:43:00

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#12 2020-04-24 17:03:39

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#13 2020-04-27 15:49:23

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

#14 2020-04-27 15:56:28

Re: Can start X with startx but DM login fails

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