[SOLVED] Installed but Accessible only to Root

[dhinds]

After reaching the login screen and typing the password for the user, the screen fades and then the login screen reappears.  I am not able to reach the desktop. If I type a different password, I'm told it is incorrect, which does not happen when I type the password used to install Sparky Mate 3.1 64 bits, but I don't enter, either.



So I login as root, which is OK but am not able to update (only the Update Settings opens - Synaptics works OK however) or enter the User Settings from the Control Panel (which opens but doesn't resolve and I have to force it to quit). I also had to recreate 15 email accounts which were associated with my User and redo my panels, reinstall my windows PIM EccoPro (with no listing in the Applications menu, this time - I have to open it from Caja).



I have tried logging in as a single user and changing the password as root but all I get is a list of options such as lock, unlock, expire, status etc and none have allowed me to recreate or change the User Password - nor am I asked to provide a new one.



I have checked the Debian Forums and this is relatively common problem at present.



If I knew in which file the user password data is located perhaps I could change or reactivate it there.



I am in Sparky as root at the moment.   It's functional, but I would prefer to repair this problem.



TIA for your suggestions.

[pavroo]

Log in to the system in recovery mode, it will ask you for a root password only.

Try to change your password:

Code:

passwd your-nick

Then reboot and try to log in as a normal user.

If it does not work, log in in recovery mode again and create a new user:

Code:

adduser new-nick

Create an user nick different then you have now and reboot.

Let me know is any change.

[dhinds]

Quote:

Quote from pavroo on October 17, 2013, 21:56

Log in to the system in recovery mode, it will ask you for a root password only.

Try to change your password:

Code:

passwd your-nick

Thanks for the rapid and definitive response.  I already tried something similar without success, so I want to be sure I understand you correctly.



I should mention that the Sparky installation asks first for the user's full name, then the user name, which is the same as my user name on the forum.  However:  The login screen presents my full name, for some reason.



So when you suggest:

Code:

passwd your-nick

I am going to type

Code:

passwd +  my full name

,



which is what the login screen already shows (or I could try logging in as dhinds).



Then I am going to type the new password



And then retype it.



But that is what I already tried, without success.  (I rebooted and the same thing happened].

Quote:

Then reboot and try to log in as a normal user.

If it does not work, log in in recovery mode again and create a new user:

Code:

adduser new-nick

That I did not try.  I logged in as root and tried to do that from the Control Panel, but couldn't.

Quote:

Create an user nick different then you have now and reboot.

Let me know is any change.

Alright, I'll do that and get back to you.  (And if I didn't understand you correctly, please let me know).

[dhinds]

I was able to create a new password for the original user but neither the new nor the old password unlocks the desktop.



OTOH, I was able to create a new user and that one allows me to enter and change the status of both users (which I couldn't do as root) but all configurations and accounts are absent so I am going to continue to log in as root.



I still don't see anything I can select to check for updates (just see the frequency of checking for them), although I suppose there is a code for doing that.



In conclusion, I am satisfied with the system and intend to continue using it.  (If I can get back into the original user account fine, but logging in as root has it's advantages).  Also, the one windows program I installed under Wine now appears in the Applications Menu under Other.



For some reason each desktop is different from the preceding one, but I have things working well enough on this one (root).



Thanks for the effort, pavroo.

[pavroo]

I don't have space on my machine now, but I will organize some soon to make the mate 64bit testing installation.

[dhinds]

Quote:

Quote from pavroo on October 18, 2013, 17:02

I don't have space on my machine now, but I will organize some soon to make the mate 64bit testing installation.

Sounds good.  Take your time.  I now have a working user account and have my email accounts installed in root.



And if you can think of a way for me to access the original user account, let me know.



Thanks again for the attention.

[LePyrat]

I know the problem has been "solved", but I encountered exactly the same problem as dhinds, so I will add some elements (:

- when I try to login, the login screen reappear as is

- when I enter a wrong pwd, it tells me the password id not good, so the problem is not here.



I installed sparky 3.2.1 xfce



- I can login as root, so I should be able to solve it like dhinds



It is exactly the same symptoms : I have installed without problems, has a root pwd different from user pwd.  However, there maybe a gotcha with the login/user name system.



As a real user name, I put "LePyrat" ; and as a username "lepyrat" (only the case change here ; dhinds did something similar for his install) .



At the login screen, it is "LePyrat" which appears (i.e., the real user name), shouldn't it be the username ?



Anyway, I will delete the normal usr account and recreate one from root, and it should be okay I think ?



If you want more details, tellme while it is fresh in my mind !



And thanks for the great job pavroo, it works very well globally (my older wheezy partition works perfetc, no loss of data or anything, quite painless install, love it !)

[LePyrat]

I recreated the user account, so nothing critical, still !

[pavroo]

Quote:

At the login screen, it is "LePyrat" which appears (i.e., the real user name), shouldn't it be the username ?

No, it's fine.

Quote:

Anyway, I will delete the normal usr account and recreate one from root, and it should be okay I think ?

You can try.

Anyway, there is similar problem, solved too, have a look:

http://sparkylinux.org/forum/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=95" class="bbcode_url">http://sparkylinux.org/forum/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=95

[dhinds]

The same problem occurred with Sparky Mate on two different computers.  In the second case the resolution was achieved by editing the fstab and returning the home partion to the correct setting.  (If the home partition isn't found, that user can't log in).



But the final solution (at least to date) was to install Sparky Ultra Openbox on both computers.  This was easy to do thanks to the applications pavroo provides that allow us to backup the configurations of our applications.  Also, I have aways kept my data in a separate partition, accessible from any OS.



The origin of the problem is apparently a bug in Debian and it sometimes affects Ubuntu and it's derivatives also.  I have a number of Debian and it's derivatives installed and sometimes they access the partitions of Debian or it's other flavors as if they were their own.  But it's still the best base in town!

[LePyrat]

Thanks dhinds anf pavroo, I was busy at work so I couldn't update but on sunday when I  del/add again the user, the problem happened a second time (yes, that's sad !) And after modifying conky to follow the external partition one of the cpu-core was not shown anymore, etc etc. But otherwise, it was fast and I had a good time using it !



I am now back on the wheezy partition (which by an "effet de bord"  has its clock change from UTC to UTC -9 ???  Weird things happening, I will try to understand that when I have the time.



Anyway, the second time the user account problem happened I already had the /home directory changed to another partition of the disk (it may be this partition problem),, and I was not using the sparky tool to add/del user/group etc.,  (that's a dud, looking on the internetz for shell-cmd-fun  when the answer was in the system option menu !!!), so there may be some things I didn't do well !  I am still not linuxian enough to handle all that root/ownership stuff I think.



I may try openbox or fstab-fun , but for now that's all. Thanks again ! Keep you in touch if it happens again/find a solution

[LePyrat]

Just for the fun : I start my computer today and the clock on my wheezy partition is back to the chinese locale (which I have never setup, it was on UTC before) ....



GNU/LINUX IS FULL OF MAGIC !!