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  1. Using Ubuntu 17.10 with latest updates (including running Gnome).
  2. Log in as account that is a member of the sudo group.
  3. Got to Settings->Details->Users
  4. Observe the accounts that have been there for years. Can't Add users nor edit [expected behavior]
  5. Click on Unlock button
  6. Wait.
  7. Observe that nothing has happened at all
  8. Click on it 200 more times
  9. Still nothing happens, nothing changes, no dialogs pop up, no nothing, User dialog isn't blocked. The graphic element of the Unlock button appears to 'go in' when clicked and sometimes an Ubuntu red border appears around it and goes away after clicking elsewhere.
  10. Reboot.
  11. Repeat. Same results.
  12. Search Google and find out that I'm the only person in the world with this problem; or I'm terrible at searching; or I don't understand buttons in 2018: either way, the overwhelming dismay is the same for any combination of these points.

I do most things from the terminal. In fact, I really do everything from the terminal. But, the GUI should work too. Any ideas as to why this is not working or my total misunderstanding of what is supposed to happen here would be appreciated.

Hovering over the button says, "Dialog is locked. Click to make changes." I am being trolled by a button.

TL;DR: Unlocking the Users configuration window does not do anything including Unlocking it so that I can edit/add new users.

**** UPDATE ****

Same thing happens when going into the Software & Updates program. Going to Other Software and pressing Remove on a package I want to get rid of does nothing. Add and Edit popup something. But Remove does Nothing.

vicmorrowshead
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  • Are you using the Wayland session or Xorg session? – Paul Tanzini Mar 25 '18 at 04:00
  • @PaulTanzini Well, $DESKTOP_SESSION returns 'ubuntu' but for 17.10, looks like it isn't clear what this means according to https://askubuntu.com/questions/904940/how-can-i-tell-if-i-am-running-wayland... – vicmorrowshead Mar 25 '18 at 13:38
  • @PaulTanzini ... Further clarification: it is Wayland. – vicmorrowshead Mar 25 '18 at 13:44
  • My suspicion is that this is a bug/"feature" of the Wayland session. Can you log out and sign into the Xorg session by clicking the gear icon in the log in box, then test the button? – Paul Tanzini Mar 25 '18 at 14:18
  • @PaulTanzini - definitely a good suggestion and I was convinced that it would work, but exact same result: no effect (clicking on Unlock). Definitely went into Xorg mode because the displays were reversed and the layout was different. – vicmorrowshead Mar 25 '18 at 14:55
  • This is sounding more like a sudo config issue on the account. Are other "admin" accounts able to use the button? From this account in Terminal, what is the output of "sudo -v" and "sudo -l"? – Paul Tanzini Mar 25 '18 at 15:41
  • @PaulTanzini So, here is what I get (logged in as the offending account): sudo -v returns nothing; sudo -V gives sudo version info such as 1.8.20p2. sudo -l gives Matching Defaults info (env_reset, mail_badpass, secure_path=xxx) and User xyz may run the following commands: (ALL : ALL) ALL. Now, though there are other admin accounts (and I can certainly create them from terminal), they do not appear on the GUI's login list and it looks like Ubuntu moved all this stuff around so I don't know where to enable them for GUI login (GDM, GDM3, Light DM, etc. nowhere seems to show what I need) – vicmorrowshead Mar 26 '18 at 12:09
  • So it looks like the account has sudo with privilege to run everything, which is good. Does the secure_path match this ?: /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/snap/bin – Paul Tanzini Mar 26 '18 at 17:34
  • @PaulTanzini Sadly, it is identical byte for byte. – vicmorrowshead Mar 26 '18 at 21:05
  • I am having the same problem even when I updated to 18.04! It feels like we are among the very few with that really annoying bug/issue! – Mohamed Y. Jun 25 '18 at 07:22
  • Don't use wayland but had this problem of a disabled "unlock" button on 19.10. For me it was solved by 1. sudo apt-get update 2. sudo apt-get upgrade 3. sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm 4. Log out then back in. Then the "unlock" was enabled. – gabore Jan 14 '20 at 20:08
  • @gabore, That didn't work for me. This problem appeared for me upgrading to 20.04.1 LTS under GNOME Version 3.36.3, Windowing System X11 – James Bowery Aug 24 '20 at 16:24
  • Hi, having the same issue here with ubuntu 20.04 - this might have something to do with chrome-remote-desktop, because the issue started when I installed it. Now at login the system reports that it encountered an internal error every time, and I am neither able to write on disks owned by root (with my sudo-abled user account) not click on that damn Unlock GUI button. – Maxime Beau Aug 23 '21 at 13:37

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