Can no longer get a login screen in openSUSE 12.3

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I’ve got an openSUSE 12.3-x86_64 installed 2013 with Gnome and XFCE, Kernel 3.7.10-1.45.desktop (which is the DE I normally use).
It’s updated and well working since then. And I have not done any updates, installations or configuration changes since at least one year.

Since two weeks I cannot start openSUSE12.3 for the first time every day and reach the graphical login screen, Screen is just black with the marker arrow in white in the right low corner. I can move the arrow-indicator with the mouse though.

A few notes of what I’ve tried:
When logging in from a opened terminal and trying to ‘startx’ the system reports 3 possible errors:
-Xauth: file ~/.serverauth.2195 does not exist
-Fatal server error: cannot move file /var/log/Xorg.1.log to /var/log/Xorg.1.log.old
-xinit failed: usr/bin/Xorg is not setuid, maybe that is the reason
use a disply manager (strongly recommended) or adjust /etc/permissions.local

Manually moving /var/log/Xorg.1.log to /var/log/Xorg.1.log.old doesn’t help,
next time I run startx system reports “cannot open /var/log/Xorg.1.log”.

Searched your forum and found among others these two threads:

  1. https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/477083-Console-login-only-and-startx-failed/page2;
    [kde] [SOLVED] libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.9’ not found (required by libqscim.so) - Ubuntu Forums:
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=808045

  2. https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/456567-Cannot-startx-unless-Superuser

-After some time I thought this was out of line, since (my assumption) this is not the way X or login is handled during system d boot. And besides, X seems to run. It’s just the login screen that fails.
Therefore I instead tried to follow the messages during boot and, afterwards, trying to study the logs using the terminal:
The only “failed” remark was about LSB in /var/log/boot.log:

[1;31mFAILED[0m] Failed to start LSB: Configure network interfaces and set up routing.
See 'systemctl status network.service' for details.

The last I can note -and also the one I can read when I run “shutdown -h”- is Reached target Graphical interface.
I can also find this in /var/log/messages

2015-11-05T12:23:02.076683+01:00 larse3 systemd[1]: Reached target Graphical Interface.

In /var/log/messages though I can read a few “failed” remarks:

gdm-simple-slave[1613]: WARNING: Failed to give slave programs access to the display. Trying to proceed.
gdm-launch-environment][1855]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_variant_compare: assertion `!g_variant_is_container (a)' failed
module-alsa-card.c: Failed to find a working profile.
  • some concerning bluetooth (that works fine)

If, the first week, I shut down and start openSUSE again (reboot doesn’t work) I normally reach the graphical login:
(When checking ~/.serverauth.2195 does not exist -but this time not causing any problems. ~/.Xauthority exists.)

Since this week this no longer helps: I cannot reach the login screen in any way:
Starting 12.3 from openSUSE-13.1 or Super Grub Boot disc gives the same result.

Even if my 12.3 is considered old it’s my everyday working system, extremely well configured, built out with some complicated installations (GnuRadio AIS, ADS-B and Navigation software) and it is from where I maintain my servers.
That’s why I ask for your help.

Would be very grateful for any hint of how I can search for what causes this!

Best regards

Lars

2

That’s because 12.3 is past it end-of-life. You should upgrade to a newer opensuse release.

3

Well, thank you for your remark nrickert](https://forums.opensuse.org/member.php/49759-nrickert) !

Perhaps you didn’t read the full thread, esp the bottom lines?
You see; I don’t build up a fully functional and compentent everyday working system provided with the software I need every 8th month or even every second year.
Of course I follow and install the subsequent versions of SuSE. First when I find a fairly bugfree and stable version I’m prepared to configure up a new working system! Happens with SuSE in my experience every 3rd or 4th year.

Perhaps 12.3 is “Dead” in your world or in the meaning “maintained by the distribution”. In my world it’s fully alive till it totally crashes.
F.y.i. I maintain fully functional installations of 9.3 and 10.3. Perfectly working for the tasks I designed them for ;-).

I added the lines you quoted just for information, that I had excluded that the login error had been caused by any of that.

Perhaps you’ve got a suggestion for how I can diagnose the login screen problem? From the system’s perspective it’s just a minor problem. The system as a whole is still working. It’s just that I’m not used to work in rl 3 :-(.

Best regards

Lars

4

Well, I did read it all.

You seem to have a display problem, but you didn’t say what display card your system has.

In any case, fixing problems like this is difficult with a no-longer supported version.

5

You seem to have a display problem, but you didn’t say what display card your system has.

-No, no one asked before you did ;-). It’s an old Radeon card x300se, radeon driver and a Philips Brilliance 109p4 screen.
-I spent some time configuring it with the help of this forum:
https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/478669-Configuring-graphics-with-older-hardware-in-openSUSE-12-2
and because the configuration was rather intricate I finallly wrote a guide:
http://www.lee-mactux.org/public_html/Digital/Linux/x/Grafik-config.html but in swedish.

Anyway, I respect what you say, you are a “flux”, but have a bit hard to fully believe in what you say? Because:
1st: X in my SuSE12.3 is working, just not the login screen. (Xorg.0.log does not indicate any problem and -from above- “I can move the arrow-indicator with the mouse”)
2nd: On the same machine I have installed: Windows Vista, 7, LinuxMInt 13 & 17, OpenSuSE13.1, Slackware 14.1 and Ubuntu (whatever?)
All the Linux’s are using the same graphics card and configuration without any problem up to today.

If I may guess, I’ve got a problem with my system d booting the system not to “target Graphical interface” but to the graphical login screen?

6

Okay. That was not completely clear from the initial post.

What login manager are you using? If you are not sure, look in “/etc/sysconfig/displaymanager”. Look for the line that begins “DISPLAYMANAGER=”.

7 
What login manager are you using?

gdm

After this, I’ll have to say Good Night!

But I’ll be back tomorrow.

Best regards

Lars

8

Do you ever log into the GUI as root?? If so you can damage things.

  1. check you home/user directory and see if any files are owned by root. this can cause problem. In particular ~/.Xauthority

  2. try another test user (not root). Never ever log into a GUI as root!!!

  3. Your description of the problem is vague ie what exactly happens when you try to log on?

9

Well gogalthorp,

perhaps you didn’t note my Good Night, but thanks anyway!

Do you ever log into the GUI as root??

Who said I did.

  1. Allready done: No!
  2. I normally use my own.
  3. I don’t know how I possibly can be more specific? Anyway I thought I had described that I cannot log on in rl 5.
    Perhaps I could send a photo from the screen? But attachments are not allowed.
    If I try a last description in text, as specific as I can:
    When I start up SuSE12.3, just as 13.1, I normally get a black screen, an arrow indicator (mouse) and a grey colored rectangel with my user name.
    If I move the indicator to that rectangel and left-mark it -or just press Enter- I get a white rectangular field for writing my password.

What I’ve tried to describe by “not reaching a login screen” is that the grey colored rectangel never turns up/shows, and hence I’ve got no option to log in with my password.

Now I have to bid you Good Night! And will consequently be very late back tomorrow

10

try a different dm like xdm?

11

The reason to use a test user is that it could be a config in your home that is the problem also the error you got from starting from command line seem to point to an ~/.Xauthority file that is now owned by root. And that is the reason I asked about you ever logging to the GUI in as root because one of the possible problems is change of ownership of several different files in your home which can interfere with logging.

I still don’t understand What you describe does not sound normal anyway. I Use KDE thus I use kdm not gdm but In any case you can change the DM you use it does not have to be the one associated with your Desktop.

You can post to any video/picture site and give us the URL

12

On Thu, 05 Nov 2015 22:36:01 +0000, Larsed wrote:

> Well gogalthorp,
>
> perhaps you didn’t note my Good Night, but thanks anyway!

There’s no requirement to answer when someone replies - replies come at
the replies convenience, not the asker’s convenience. You should get a
notification that you can use to get back to the thread after you’ve
rested and woken up.

>> Do you ever log into the GUI as root??
> Who said I did.

Nobody did. The question wasn’t an accusation, it was a question.
People ask questions when they’re trying to help someone who’s having
problems - something to keep in mind is that anyone who’s helping you
doesn’t know anything about your specific situation beyond what you tell
them.

Have a good evening. :slight_smile:

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

13

Well hendersj and of course gogalthorpe, I sincerely apologize for my temper!
The hour was late and the amount of exclamation and question marks made me feel like accused.

About root login: I never log in as root in a graphical environment (in SuSE that is 5), when in any trouble I open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+F1-7 and as second possibility log in as root.

gogalthorpe: I am not familiar with picture posting sites, can you perhaps suggest one? Or can I perhaps use suse paste? I made a poor shaky camera pic of a working login screen yesterday night that I could post.

What I in text have tried to describe is that in a normal login screen The Plymouth boot image has gone, the screen is totally black, down in the right corner I see my mouse arrow/indicator that I can move with mouse. And finally, exactly in the mid of the screen a greyish rectangel with my full username prewritten appears. If I just press Enter on the keyboard (or left mark the rectangel with the mouse) a white rectangular space for writing my password appears.

When I don’t reach what I call “the normal login screen” Everything looks the same, except there is no greyish rectangel in mid screen containing my full user name appearing. When I press Enter: Nothing happens.

I 've since yesterday noted some things concering my initial remarks concerning the logs:
Since I opened this post I’ve had one normal graphical login screen (out of 5 boots). I saved the /var/log/boot.log and messages from that session.
I noted that in a boot that gave me the normal graphical login screen all the “failed” log remarks that I listed in my first post also appeared when everything concerning graphical login was normal. That is, they are not critical for this problem.

And please don’t misunderstand: I am grateful for the suggestions I get

14

I found a workaround for the picture description, although not exactly like my log in screen:
In https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?title=Install_Display_Managers there are two pictures that are fairly similar to what I mean with a “normal graphical login screen”:
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?title=File:Gdm.png
and (if I refer to what I wrote happens after I press keyboard Enter)
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?title=File:Gdmsessions.png

When I don’t reach the normal graphical login screen: Take the first picture above and imagine there is no framed “Sign in” rectangel containing the normal users full name.
The screen is totally black, except for the arrow/mouse indicator that is movable.

Does this make it somewhat clearer?

15

And to Parent Penguin and gogalthorpe again:
I’ve tried your suggestions about using another DM. With a somewhat ashamed remark: I had not checked I had kdm installed.

xdm worked but gave me a fairly “dull, grey” login screen. After log on it took about 1,5 - 2 min before my graphical desktop appeared.
kdm -since it was not installed- gave me xdm.

Anyway, these suggestions give me an emergency way to get into my XFCE or Gnome DE.

Thank you both!

The ideal should be to find out what the issue with gdm is. If gdm is the problem?

16

About gdm, if gdm should be the problem:
I’ve got gdm-3.6.2-4.2.1.x86_64 installed.
It’s from what I can see it’s the latest version, but according to Yast there are two variants of this version:
One from OpenSUSE-12.3-OSS. one from OpenSUSE-12.3-1.7. Both with the same package name.

Could it be any idea to reinstall gdm, or perhaps try both. If they really differ?

17

Since this appears to be random ie sometimes works sometimes not maybe a hardware problem If you can get on use smartctl to check the dives. man smartctl for detailed instruction on use.

18

Well, it took some time, partly because I had a note in my backhead about never running any smart tool on a mounted disk.

The disk is old, some 5 000 hours lifetime and contained errors, but passed Overall Health and #1 Extended offline, # 2 Short offline and # 3 Short offline tests without errors. And finally under Attributes were listed 7 Prefail Attributes, none near or under Threshhold. -It’s hard to evaluate but I did consult a few “interpretors” and to me none of the smart reports seemed critical. -Of course I can always install a newer disc (but 5000 compared to MTBF or AFR is not much) and I’ve never met any OS installation problems or CRC-problems during it’s lifetime.

You remarked that the issue seemed to be random. Perhaps I’ld say intermittent. But when I started this thread it seemed permanent. That is just as I wrote the first time -two weeks ago- it appeared only when I started 12.3 for the first time one day, not the rest of the day. Next week, this one, it appeared every time I tried to boot 12.3. -And -what do you know- since yesterday the login screen problem has not appeared at all! In 6 boots. -This made me think back. And I know that from september 15th up to october 20 this machine was never started at all. When I started it for the first time after that the issue debuted. -Perhaps it is related in some way? -Anyway, you and Parent Penguin provided me with a “way out” if it should ever occur again: xdm/kdm. -So I think it’s time to put an end to this thread and thank you for the suggestions!

But before I do I should be glad for hearing your opinion of reinstalling gdm? And, since you had hard to understand how the issue manifested: Did you understand my last efforts to explain?

Regards

Lars