[Bug 1770233] Re: gnome-initial-setup prevents me from logging in with my existing user (UID 501)

[Robert Ancell]

What has occurred is due to the change of UID_MIN AccountsService has
decided that your existing user (501) is now a system user. GDM has then
decided that there are no user accounts on the system, so has triggered
gnome-initial-setup to create one.

I suspect if you had rebooted after changing UID_MIN back it would have
worked fine (user showed in GDM, gnome-initial-setup not run).

I'll assign this to the 'login' package which has decided to change the
MIN_UID to 1000 - it may be this is an issue on older systems that used
to have this value.

** Package changed: gnome-initial-setup (Ubuntu) => shadow (Ubuntu)

** Summary changed:

- gnome-initial-setup prevents me from logging in with my existing user (UID 501)
+ Login package changes MIN_UID in /etc/login.defs -> AccountsService/GDM then ignores existing user (UID 501) -> starts gnome-inital-setup to create user

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1770233

Title:
  Login package changes MIN_UID in /etc/login.defs ->
  AccountsService/GDM then ignores existing user (UID 501) -> starts
  gnome-inital-setup to create user

Status in shadow package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  On May 8. 2018 I was prompted to upgrade from 17.10 to 18.04.

  The upgrade went smooth except that the installer asked me if it could
  make changes to /etc/login.defs. I thought it was supposed to not ask
  questions (and stall the upgrade if I was away from the computer), but
  I pressed yes and it continued. I pressed yes since I had not
  personally modified this file as far as I can remember and was not
  particularly attached to its contents.

  After reboot gnome-initial-setup wants me to create a new user. There
  is no (obvious) way to login with my old user, but Ctrl+Alt+F2 luckily
  worked---I could log in and all my files where still there. I tried
  changing UID_MIN in /etc/login.defs back to 500 from 1000 (I believe
  this was the change I was prompted about), but I still could not login
  graphically, so the /etc/login.defs change may have been unconnected
  to the bug.

  I was able to figure out that the offending program was called gnome-
  initial-setup and an "apt purge gnome-initial-setup" later I could log
  in as normal. I do not believe an average user could have figured this
  out (how many even know about the virtual terminals Ctrl+Alt+FX?).

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