Bug#1120326: gdm3 fails to launch, journalctl displays "Gdm: GdmSession: no session desktop
luc.maisonobe at free.fr
luc.maisonobe at free.fr
Fri Nov 7 17:22:03 GMT 2025
Package: gdm3
Version: 49.1-6
Severity: normal
Dear Maintainer,
*** Reporter, please consider answering these questions, where
appropriate ***
* What led up to the situation?
Upgrading from gnome 48 to gnome 49?
* What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
ineffective)?
Uncommenting "WaylandEnable=false" in /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf allowed at
least to switch to a text console with ctrl-alt-fn (before this change,
I could not even switch to a text console).
Then I was able to look at journalctl wich displays a lot of copies of:
nov. 07 16:47:38 lehrin gdm3[2442]: Gdm: GdmSession: no session desktop
files installed, aborting...
nov. 07 16:47:38 lehrin systemd[1]: gdm.service: Main process exited,
code=killed, status=5/TRAP
nov. 07 16:47:38 lehrin systemd[1]: gdm.service: Failed with result
'signal'.
nov. 07 16:47:38 lehrin systemd[1]: gdm.service: Triggering OnFailure=
dependencies.
nov. 07 16:47:39 lehrin systemd[1]: gdm.service: Scheduled restart job,
restart counter is at 2.
nov. 07 16:47:39 lehrin systemd[1]: Starting gdm.service - GNOME Display
Manager...
nov. 07 16:47:40 lehrin systemd[1]: Started gdm.service - GNOME Display
Manager.
nov. 07 16:47:40 lehrin gdm-launch-environment][2502]:
pam_unix(gdm-launch-environment:session): session opened for user
gdm-greeter(uid=605)
I checked the sessions folders, they are here:
(lehrin) luc% ls -l /usr/share/wayland-sessions/
total 56
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8240 31 oct. 13:34 gnome-classic.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8364 31 oct. 13:34 gnome-classic-wayland.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8014 31 oct. 14:23 gnome.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8570 31 oct. 14:23 gnome-wayland.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9175 22 août 17:07 xfce-wayland.desktop
(lehrin) luc% ls -l /usr/share/xsessions/
total 16
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 86 21 juin 2024 lightdm-xsession.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10257 22 août 17:07 xfce.desktop
(lehrin) luc%
The only thing that worked was to install task-xfce-desktop, i.e. to not
use gdm3 at all.
This seems very close to bug #1119809, but the differences are that I
was *not* able to switch console,
and that I encountered that on 49.1-6, i.e. after the fix for #1119809.
*** End of the template - remove these template lines ***
-- System Information:
Debian Release: forky/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 6.16.12+deb14+1-amd64 (SMP w/24 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE, TAINT_OOT_MODULE,
TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE
not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled
Versions of packages gdm3 depends on:
ii accountsservice 23.13.9-8
ii dbus [default-dbus-system-bus] 1.16.2-2
ii dbus-bin 1.16.2-2
ii dbus-daemon 1.16.2-2
ii dconf-cli 0.49.0-2
ii dconf-gsettings-backend 0.49.0-2
ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.91
ii gir1.2-gdm-1.0 49.1-6
ii gnome-classic [x-session-manager] 49.0-2
ii gnome-session [x-session-manager] 49.1-3
ii gnome-session-bin 49.1-3
ii gnome-session-common 49.1-3
ii gnome-settings-daemon 49.1-2
ii gnome-shell 49.1-5
ii gnome-terminal [x-terminal-emulator] 3.58.0-1
ii gsettings-desktop-schemas 49.1-1
ii libaccountsservice0 23.13.9-8
ii libaudit1 1:4.1.2-1
ii libc6 2.41-12
ii libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 2.44.4+dfsg-1
ii libgdm1 49.1-6
ii libglib2.0-0t64 2.86.1-1
ii libglib2.0-bin 2.86.1-1
ii libgtk-3-0t64 3.24.51-1
ii libgudev-1.0-0 238-7
ii libjson-glib-1.0-0 1.10.8+ds-1
ii libkeyutils1 1.6.3-6
ii libnss-systemd 258.1-2
ii libpam-modules 1.7.0-5
ii libpam-runtime 1.7.0-5
ii libpam-systemd [logind] 258.1-2
ii libpam0g 1.7.0-5
ii librsvg2-common 2.60.0+dfsg-1+b1
ii libselinux1 3.9-2
ii libsystemd0 258.1-2
ii libx11-6 2:1.8.12-1
ii libxau6 1:1.0.11-1
ii libxcb1 1.17.0-2+b1
ii libxdmcp6 1:1.1.5-1
ii polkitd 126-2
ii procps 2:4.0.4-9
ii ptyxis [x-terminal-emulator] 49.2-1
ii systemd [systemd-sysusers] 258.1-2
ii systemd-sysv 258.1-2
ii ucf 3.0052
ii x11-common 1:7.7+26
ii x11-xserver-utils 7.7+11
ii xfce4-session [x-session-manager] 4.20.3-1
ii xfce4-terminal [x-terminal-emulator] 1.1.4-1
ii xfwm4 [x-window-manager] 4.20.0-1
ii xterm [x-terminal-emulator] 402-1
ii zutty [x-terminal-emulator] 0.16.3.20250303+dfsg1-1
Versions of packages gdm3 recommends:
ii at-spi2-core 2.58.1-1
ii desktop-base 14.0.0~pre2
ii gnome-classic [x-session-manager] 49.0-2
ii gnome-session [x-session-manager] 49.1-3
ii x11-xkb-utils 7.7+9
ii xfce4-session [x-session-manager] 4.20.3-1
ii xserver-xephyr 2:21.1.20-1
ii xserver-xorg 1:7.7+26
ii zenity 4.1.99-1
Versions of packages gdm3 suggests:
pn libpam-fprintd <none>
ii libpam-gnome-keyring 48.0-4
pn libpam-pkcs11 <none>
pn libpam-sss <none>
ii orca 49.4-1
-- debconf information:
gdm3/daemon_name: /usr/sbin/gdm3
* shared/default-x-display-manager: lightdm
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