Unable to login after upgrade

[Gregory Gamble]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 22:03, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 09:10:42AM +0000, Gregory Gamble wrote:
> >    Dear list,
> >
> >    I wonder if you have advice on what to check out.
> >
> >    On my "work" computer, I recently did the upgrade from 18.04 to 20.04
> >
> >    and now have the curious situation of not being able to login at the
> >    desktop,
> >
> >    but I'm able to remote login from home.
> >
> >    So far the IT guy has not been able to locate the problem.
> >
> >    Have you some ideas on where to look and what info. I should provide
> >
> >    ... might the GRUB file have been over written?
> >
> >         If so, will a sudo command fix it?
> >
> If you really can log in from home then the computer is running, grub
> must have worked.

Thanks for that. I was clutching at straws at what might be different
logging remotely vs at the terminal.
So a GRUB over-writing is not the problem.

> When you say you can't log in at the desktop what do you mean, no
> login screen, incorrect password, or what?

On the desktop it shows my name as a user.
Essentially, it has accepted previouslu my ID (a 8-didit no.)
... and shows my name: Greory Gamble
Clicking on that it prompts for my password
... if I put in the wrong password, I get the usual diagnostic: wrong password
... if I put in the right password, it just cycles back,
    to the password prompt.
... For good measure, the innovation with 20.04 is that you can select
    a screen keyboard. So I did that, and 'keyed' in the password,
    by pointing and clicking with the mouse, with the same result.

So I assume from that, that my correct password has been recognised,
but for whatever reason it can't get past the login screen.

> Incorrect password is often down to a wrongly mapped keyboard.  Try
> entering a user name and see if all the characters used in your
> password appear correctly.

Yes, I have had a keyboard in the past that had a key that didn't work.
But I think the above shows that a wrongly mapped keyboard is not the problem.

When I remote login, I do:

ssh <ID No>@<IP address>

... if that helps.

I don't really get what is so different about desktop login vs a remote login.
If there's a problem, it's usually the other way round, because the
network is too strict.

I may try a 20.10 upgrade
...is it easy to reverse to 20.04.02 if one does that?
Everything else seems to work fine, when I remote login.

What other things can I do after logging in remotely,
that might give you helpful info. for the desktop login?
I'll next be able to try a desktop login in a little more than 6 hours,
if there is a change that I can initiate from a remote login.

Regards,
Greg Gamble
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