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I just updated Ubuntu about 15 minutes ago on my desktop which is running 12.04. Within the set of updates, there were some kernel upgrades. It didn't say I needed to reboot after the update was finished, but I thought I would anyway.

The computer successfully rebooted up to the login screen. However, after entering my password, the screen goes black for a moment, then it comes back to the login screen.

I tried the suggestions in this question, but unfortunately they didn't help. In the accepted answer, the questioner vaguely says it was a "Unity problem". I'm using Gnome-classic with full Compiz effects. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Compiz, but that didn't fix anything.

So... I can't use my desktop computer until this is fixed. I hope there is some help soon.

I've uploaded the output of cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log to Pastebin.

A temporary solution of changing to gdm instead of lightdm was found with help in the chat room.

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4 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Somebody asked me that same question the other day :

since yesterday my ubuntu 12.04 locks me out, i can only access the guest account.
if i enter the correct password for the admin account,
the screen turns black and then goes back to the log in screen.
if i enter an incorrect password, it says incorrect password.
if i create a new admin account via the guest account, i get the same problem.
resetting the password won't help :(
any ideas anyone?

It seem's a few people have had this problem, and using gdm instead of lightdm is the recommended workaround, and it worked for the person that asked me - after a couple of reboots. Have a look at these links for instructions & let me know if it helps.

Stuck at login screen

Can't log in to ubuntu 12.04

12.04 Lightdm cannot login

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As mentioned in the question, I got some advice in chat that said basically the same thing, so it seems this is the way to go. I ran sudo apt-get install gdm, which brought up a dialog to select gdm instead of lightdm, and then it was possible to log in. –  Dave M G Jul 8 '12 at 15:26
Glad it helped you too, and thanks for the feedback. :o) –  Fernhill Linux Project Jul 8 '12 at 15:28
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Is it possible that your graphics card is not supported or isn't updated anymore, or something is not supported/became corrupt in the update? Use alt+F2 to drop back to a console in the login screen, log in as root, see if you can: sudo apt-get upgrade + sudo apt-get update to see if that will correct something that needed correcting. It's not very likely, but it's worth a try.

Maybe try to re-install your graphics driver this way as well. Additionally, maybe you should try a package update or repair with GNOME in case the issue lies in the desktop-environment itself.

Lastly, maybe this link will help you out: How To Fix Broken Packages In Ubuntu Or Debian

Hope you get this sorted out.

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The description alone is not enough for me to decide of the exact cause, but I can offer some help in diagnosing and fixing the problem.

First, you should be able to login into a text terminal without having to start your window manager.

Click CTRL-ALT-F1 to get access to one of your virtual terminals (to go back to graphical: usually CTRL-ALT-F7 should get you back into the graphical login screen gdm, kdm, or whatever you are using). Once in a virtual terminal, you should be able to login and get a shell.

Once in, look at the logs, in particular your window-manager logs and the X11 logs under /var/logs/... to figure out the cause of the failure of your window manager. HTH.

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Thanks for responding. I looked at /var/log/Xorg.log, but there were no errors in it at all. I dont know which other log files would be relevant, if any. –  Dave M G Jul 8 '12 at 4:57
I think it should be /var/log/Xorg.0.log. Also: 'ls -ltr /var/log' would show the most recently modified files under /var/log at the end of the list, so you can walk backward from that list. –  arielf Jul 9 '12 at 6:14
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Ubuntu 12.10 gets stuck in a Login Loop

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