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I don't know what happened. Clearly some file got corrupted in my /home folder. As such when I type my password, the system tries to log me in (purple screen) then dumps me back to the log in screen.

I can log in on command line (alt+F2) and I can log in as a different user normally.

Only entry in jouranlctl -f I can find relevant to this is a failure to write ICEAuthority file (I've tried to chmod it to me again, but it still says cannot write).

Any ideas?

Thank you.

Alex Kambas
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1 Answers1

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To check a common cause of this error...

  • boot to the GRUB menu
  • choose Advanced Options
  • choose Recovery mode
  • choose Root access
  • at the # prompt, type:

ls -al /home/your_username/.*author* # use the correct your_username

If you see either of these files owned by root:root...

-rw------- 1 root root 352K Apr 24 09:28 .ICEauthority

-rw------- 1 root root   58 Jun 23  2017 .Xauthority

Then...

sudo mount -o remount,rw / # to mount the disk as read/write

cd /home/your_username # again, use the correct your_username

sudo chown your_username:your_username .ICEauthority # use correct your_username

sudo chown your_username:your_username .Xauthority # use correct your_username

sudo chmod 600 .*author* # change the file(s) permissions

reboot

And retest your normal login.

heynnema
  • 70,711
  • Thank you. I've tried it. All files owned by the correct user. I created a new user and was able to log in fine with the new user. Reboot, and I could no longer log in with the new user either. So I gave up and installed 18.04 from scratch (already had a backup). – Alex Kambas May 03 '18 at 20:14