Bug#794316: gdm3: had this problem. found something that fixed it in my case.
Ray Dillinger
bear at sonic.net
Sun Apr 24 17:50:28 UTC 2016
Package: gdm3
Version: 3.18.0-2
Followup-For: Bug #794316
Dear Maintainer,
I had an issue where login didn't work. The login screen would appear,
I'd enter username and password, and then I'd wind up back at the login
screen. It may be this bug or one closely related.
For a while I thought I might be misremembering the password, or might
have changed it and forgotten, because it was very much like what
happens when you get the password wrong. But as I eventually noticed,
not *exactly* like it. There was different behavior for the right
password and any wrong password.
I used ctrl-alt-f2 to login in text mode (which did work). Immediately
on login I got a message about a syntax error in my ~/.profile. I had
failed to close a quote on a $PATH= command. It happened to be the last
command in the file (and the most recently added) but I don't know if
that matters.
Anyway, when I fixed the .profile error and rebooted, the problem with
gdm refusing to start was gone.
One clue along the way was that I noticed a difference while attempting
to log in between getting the password actually wrong ("sorry that
didn't work" message and a new login prompt) and getting the password
right (screen blinks out for a half-second as the gdm login manager
restarts, and then the login prompt reappears with no "sorry that
didn't work" message). So I figured, login was probably working and
then control getting handed off to something that crashed, with the
error handling landing me back at the login screen.
So I figured it had to be something on the startup path and probably
something related to my account. When I got the message about the
~/.profile error, it made sense.
But it's an excessively poor way to handle something as trivial as a
~/.profile syntax error. In the first place it's deceptively mysterious
(looks almost exactly like getting the password wrong), counterintuitive
to most people ( ~./profile error --> graphical login doesn't work is
non-obvious when most of them won't think of trying to log in without
GUI and therefore won't even SEE a message about the ~/.profile error),
and it will lock any exclusively GUI-using folk (the ones who don't even
know a non-GUI login is possible) out of the machine entirely preventing
them from FIXING the profile error.
In other news and probably relevant to a different bug, the reason I
was rebooting in the first place is because there appears to be a memory
leak in gdm. It had consumed 8GBytes of memory over the course of a
few weeks.
Bear
Note about 'stretch/sid' below: this isn't a case of software version
incompatibilities. I use 'sid' exclusively for sources, and have compiled
3 packages against the 'stretch' environment for compatibility.
They run from ~/.bin. However, None of those programs uses the X server,
and none of them run at startup.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
APT prefers testing-updates
APT policy: (500, 'testing-updates'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 4.5.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
Versions of packages gdm3 depends on:
ii accountsservice 0.6.40-3
ii adduser 3.114
ii dconf-cli 0.26.0-1
ii dconf-gsettings-backend 0.26.0-1
ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.59
ii gir1.2-gdm3 3.18.0-2
ii gnome-session [x-session-manager] 3.18.1.2-1
ii gnome-session-bin 3.18.1.2-1
ii gnome-settings-daemon 3.18.2-1
ii gnome-shell 3.18.1-1
ii gnome-terminal [x-terminal-emulator] 3.20.0-1
ii gsettings-desktop-schemas 3.18.1-1
ii libaccountsservice0 0.6.40-3
ii libaudit1 1:2.4.5-1+b1
ii libc6 2.22-6
ii libcanberra-gtk3-0 0.30-3
ii libcanberra0 0.30-3
ii libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 2.34.0-1
ii libgdm1 3.18.0-2
ii libglib2.0-0 2.48.0-1
ii libglib2.0-bin 2.48.0-1
ii libgtk-3-0 3.18.9-1
ii libpam-modules 1.1.8-3.2
ii libpam-runtime 1.1.8-3.2
ii libpam-systemd 229-4
ii libpam0g 1.1.8-3.2
ii librsvg2-common 2.40.15-1
ii libselinux1 2.4-3+b1
ii libsystemd0 229-4
ii libwrap0 7.6.q-25
ii libx11-6 2:1.6.3-1
ii libxau6 1:1.0.8-1
ii libxdmcp6 1:1.1.2-1.1
ii lsb-base 9.20160110
ii metacity [x-window-manager] 1:3.18.3-1
ii mutter [x-window-manager] 3.18.3-2
ii policykit-1 0.105-15
ii ucf 3.0036
ii x11-common 1:7.7+14
ii x11-xserver-utils 7.7+7
ii xterm [x-terminal-emulator] 324-1
Versions of packages gdm3 recommends:
ii at-spi2-core 2.18.3-4
ii desktop-base 8.0.2
ii gnome-icon-theme 3.12.0-1
ii gnome-icon-theme-symbolic 3.12.0-1
ii x11-xkb-utils 7.7+2
ii xserver-xephyr 2:1.18.3-1
ii xserver-xorg 1:7.7+14
ii zenity 3.20.0-1
Versions of packages gdm3 suggests:
ii gnome-orca 3.20.0-1
ii libpam-gnome-keyring 3.18.3-1
-- debconf information:
* shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm3
gdm3/daemon_name: /usr/sbin/gdm3
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