Authentication Failure Switch to greeter

Question

I'm experiencing a very annoying problem on Ubuntu 18.04.

Whenever my laptop resumes after being suspended I'm completely unable to login and get the error;

Authentication Failure Switch to greeter

The issue is well described here, although it seems no one has found a solution to it.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1733557

Is there any way to stop this from happening?

Update:

To anyone who comes across this, the shortcut to get to the greeter without having to reboot is Ctrl-Alt-F1.

Also if anyone of the people who voted to close this question had actually read the bug report above they'd see that users still report the same issue after upgrading to 18.04.

As long as you can access your account via tty, you can bypass it by this way: https://askubuntu.com/questions/557833/how-to-unlock-locked-session/611611#611611 — Aryo Adhi, May 25 '18 at 09:49
Thanks. This at least saves me having to do a reboot every time which is awesome! — Jonathan, May 25 '18 at 09:53
To anyone who comes across this, the shortcut to get to the greeter without having to reboot is Ctrl+Alt f1 — Jonathan, Jun 06 '18 at 14:30
I would like to reopen and post that you can use $ sudo apt install --reinstall lightdm $ sudo service lightdm restart — Michael Durrant, Sep 22 '18 at 00:18
@MichaelDurrant’s comment works according to Angela’s bug report command. — David Foerster, Sep 22 '18 at 08:22
@MichaelDurrant The post is open and awaiting your answer. Cheers! — Elder Geek, Sep 29 '18 at 14:59

score 21 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 22 '19 at 02:42

21

As per Michael Durrant's comment above and this post:

$ sudo apt install --reinstall lightdm
$ sudo service lightdm restart

Note: Running this command will log you out of your system. So, make sure to save your work before that.

edited Jan 22 '19 at 02:42

Pablo Bianchi

15,657

answered Oct 26 '18 at 00:31

Noel Yap

460

One time problem solved by reboot but then appears again. Suggested solution works for me. – Vlad Savitsky Dec 01 '18 at 15:47
1

WARNING: This works well. However, issuing these commands will log you out of the system. So, make sure to save your work before running these commands. – mindreader Jan 21 '19 at 20:03

score 4 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 31 '18 at 13:51

4

I resolved the issue by a simple restart.

edited Oct 31 '18 at 13:51

Melebius

11,431
9
52
78

answered Oct 31 '18 at 08:37

Shah Tirthesh

51

Authentication Failure Switch to greeter

2 Answers2