Unable to login after upgrade

[Volker Wysk]

Am Freitag, den 30.10.2020, 18:30 +0000 schrieb 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.

Login remotely, as root. Then try to log in locally, in your desktop. Then
take a look at the logfiles.

ls -l --sort=time /var/log 2>/dev/null| head -n 20

This lists the 20 most recently changed things in /var/log. The more recent
ones could reveal clues of that's gone wrong.

Good luck,
Volker
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