[RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

gtf21 · 2022-06-02 11:54:09

The last functioning state of my system was the 20th May 2022 — all subsequent upgrades cause me to be unable to log into my user session (graphical or otherwise, wayland or X11), although I can log in as root.

If I open a root session on TTY2 and log in either graphically (TTY7 or in a terminal TTY3) I get the same behaviour — the process either freezes with a cursor and a black screen after lightdm tries to start the graphical session or just a blinking cursor in the terminal which eventually kicks me back to the login prompt. In TTY2, using `journalctl -fxeb0`, I see that dropbox keeps trying to start and fails, but uninstalling dropbox doesn’t fix the problem (just the logs).

I *suspect* there is a dbus issue, as if I “su” into my user as root, and try to use systemctl to disable any user units, I get an error about dbus permissions. I don’t know if this is normal.

This was happening on the same kernel as my stable system, and is not fixed by the latest kernel either.

I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to proceed (rolling back results in a stable system, so I can sit at 2022/05/20) and debug this properly, especially as root can login, “su gideon” works as root, but actual session login does not.

Last edited by gtf21 (2022-07-24 15:14:56)

gtf21 · 2022-06-02 12:04:09

It *could* be something to do with xcb-utils and other X-related things as I have a lot of units whichuse X which start on login (dunst, redshift-gtk, dropbox) and these seem to be doing core dumps regularly when I start a session, and I can see lots of mentions of xcb*, libX*, and so on. Xcb-utils et al. were upgraded in the system upgrade. It does seem to be related to font rendering (pango/cairo) within X.

seth · 2022-06-03 07:18:04

unable to log into my user session (graphical or otherwise

The rest of your posts seem to contradict the "or otherwise" thing. If you boot the multi-user.target (2nd link below) can you the login as gideon?

gtf21 · 2022-06-19 20:00:18

I tried setting the multi-user target as default, rebooting, and logging in and I get the same behaviour: it hangs when I try to log into my user, but logging in as root works (from which I can “su gideon” but when I so, systemctl —user gives me “permission denied”).

(This is with a full system upgrade performed on Friday 17th June.)

Last edited by gtf21 (2022-06-19 20:00:48)

seth · 2022-06-20 06:36:21

Move your users profiles (eg. for bash ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile and ~/.profile) out of the way (somewhere else)
Can you now login?

gtf21 · 2022-07-23 16:23:13

I tried again which a system upgrade today (23/07/22) and same problem occurs, even when I have:

- deleted .zsh .zshrc .zshenv
- deleted .xprofile
- deleted .config/i3

I’m concerned that there might be a few systemd services under my user which are causing the issue, because:

1. If I login to root then sudo su gideon, I can log in
2. If I login to gideon (on a terminal tty) I cannot log in
3. If I login through a lightdm to start an X session, I cannot log in
4. If I login to root, sudo su gideon, then try to do systemctl —user list-units, I get:

Failed to connect to bus: No medium found

System is still unusable unless I rollback

gtf21 · 2022-07-23 17:08:31

I disabled the display manager unit via

systemctl disable lightdm

And rebooted, and then:

1. on tty2 started a root session, did sudo su gideon, and then watched the journal with

journalctl -f > /path/to/file

2. on tty1 I tried to login as gideon

The output is is here: http://0x0.st/oju8.txt

I'm not 100% sure, but it seems to be a set of issues with pam / dbus.

Last edited by gtf21 (2022-07-23 17:08:55)

seth · 2022-07-23 20:55:32

You login fine, then something™ (smells like a user service) wants to start gnome-gkr and ~1m later the session terminates

Jul 23 18:53:58 anaximander systemd[1]: Started Session 7 of User gideon.
Jul 23 18:53:58 anaximander login[1197]: pam_env(login:session): deprecated reading of user environment enabled
Jul 23 18:53:58 anaximander systemd[1243]: Starting Gnome Keyring Daemon...
Jul 23 18:54:45 anaximander mullvad-daemon[1013]: [mullvad_daemon::version_check][DEBUG] Writing version check cache to /var/cache/mullvad-vpn/version-info.json
Jul 23 18:54:45 anaximander mullvad-daemon[1013]: [mullvad_daemon::management_interface][DEBUG] Broadcasting new app version info
Jul 23 18:54:55 anaximander systemd[1]: getty@tty1.service: Deactivated successfully.

What if you chsh to /bin/bash and do you have OMZ installed?

gtf21 · 2022-07-23 21:15:19

I’ll see if I can disable some user services but I can’t get systemctl to work in my “sudo su” session even when I set the DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS to “unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus” — this worked once for me but then never again as the bus is never created.

seth · 2022-07-23 21:48:29

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System … asic_setup

seth wrote:

What if you chsh to /bin/bash and do you have OMZ installed?

gtf21 · 2022-07-23 22:05:48

I tried chsh to bash — still doesn’t work. I assume OMZ is oh my zsh, which I have never used. I’ve also removed all the zsh config files as per previous post, and have tried removing all files from default.target.wants and timers.target.wants in ~/.config/systemd/user. I still can’t log in (that log fole was sent after removing all the zshrc files and the systemd files).

gtf21 · 2022-07-23 22:11:09

I found it! In /etc/pam.d/login there is a line which automatically starts gnome keyring as per https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GNOME/Keyring

Commenting this line allows me to login.

seth · 2022-07-24 06:39:09

What did the line (singular?) actually say?
Ideally post the entire login pam config that has caused this.

If there's a (kinda really severe) problem w/ the config exampled in the wiki, this needs to be brought up with the wiki.

Also please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

gtf21 · 2022-07-24 10:55:05

I’ll post the config lines in a bit, but in a way the issue isn’t resolved — gnome-keyring-daemon now just doesn’t work (and I use it for quite a lot of stuff). Unfortunately I’m a bit lost as to why because it doesn’t log anything except that it is starting (and it just hangs there).

gtf21 · 2022-07-24 15:08:12

Ok, so, in /etc/pam.d/login, I commented out the line which says:

session optional pam_gnome_keyring.so auto_start

But it turns out that lightdm also auto-starts gnome-keyring-daemon if it's present (by default), so I had to edit /etc/pam.d/lightdm and comment out the following lines:

-auth optional pam_gnome_keyring.so
-session optional pam_gnome_keyring.so auto_start

Finally, because I set gnome-keyring-daemon to autostart by copying files into /etc/xdg/autostart as per somewhere I can't remember, but I don't think it was the wiki (maybe it was the gnome-keyring-daemon instructions, I had to take every file gnome-keyring-daemon*.desktop and add

Hidden=true

This fixed my session not logging in, but gnome-keyring-daemon still doesn't work.

seth · 2022-07-24 15:11:24

You could try to explicitly run gnome-keyring from an interactive shell and see what it does.
Maybe gdb or strace it.

gtf21 · 2022-07-24 15:14:31

Ok, well since this fixes the login issue what I'll do is mark it as resolved and open a new topic for the gkd issue.

Arch Linux

#1 2022-06-02 11:54:09

[RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#2 2022-06-02 12:04:09

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#3 2022-06-03 07:18:04

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#4 2022-06-19 20:00:18

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#5 2022-06-20 06:36:21

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#6 2022-07-23 16:23:13

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#7 2022-07-23 17:08:31

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#8 2022-07-23 20:55:32

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#9 2022-07-23 21:15:19

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#10 2022-07-23 21:48:29

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#11 2022-07-23 22:05:48

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#12 2022-07-23 22:11:09

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#13 2022-07-24 06:39:09

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#14 2022-07-24 10:55:05

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#15 2022-07-24 15:08:12

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#16 2022-07-24 15:11:24

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

#17 2022-07-24 15:14:31

Re: [RESOLVED] Cannot start a user session (at all)

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