OpenSuse Leap 15.4 init 3 login incorrect

When I type

init 3

as SU or click Ctrl+Alt+F1 I am unable to login as SU. It says my password is incorrect.

Num lock is off. I tried changing to a very simple password.

This is the result of

localetcl status
is:


   System Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8 
       VC Keymap: us 
      X11 Layout: us

The result of

hwinfo --keyboard

is:

18: USB 00.1: 10800 Keyboard                                     
  [Created at usb.122]

  Unique ID: 8e8U.6e0Y7yQmQu1

  Parent ID: pBe4.2DFUsyrieMD

  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb2/2-2/2-2:1.1

  SysFS BusID: 2-2:1.1

  Hardware Class: keyboard

  Model: "Maxxter Wireless Receiver"

  Hotplug: USB

  Vendor: usb 0x248a "Maxxter"

  Device: usb 0x8514 "Wireless Receiver"

  Revision: "1.00"

  Driver: "usbhid"

  Driver Modules: "usbhid"

  Device File: /dev/input/event5

  Device Files: /dev/input/event5, /dev/input/by-id/usb-Telink_Wireless_Receiver-if01-event-kbd, /dev/input/by-path/pci-0000:00:14.0-usb-0:2:1.1-event-kbd

  Device Number: char 13:69

  Speed: 12 Mbps

  Module Alias: "usb:v248Ap8514d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc01ip01in01"

  Driver Info #0:

    XkbRules: xfree86

    XkbModel: pc104

  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

  Attached to: #20 (Hub)



21: PS/2 00.0: 10800 Keyboard

  [Created at input.226]

  Unique ID: nLyy.+49ps10DtUF

  Hardware Class: keyboard

  Model: "AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"

  Vendor: 0x0001  
  Device: 0x0001 "AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"

  Compatible to: int 0x0211 0x0001

  Device File: /dev/input/event0

  Device Files: /dev/input/event0, /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-0-event-kbd

  Device Number: char 13:64

  Driver Info #0:

    XkbRules: xfree86

    XkbModel: pc104

  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown



25: Serial 00.0: 10801 Console

  [Created at kbd.178]

  Unique ID: xoPc.5lXXuQkv_C5

  Hardware Class: keyboard

  Model: "serial console"

  Device: "serial console"

  Device File: /dev/tty7

  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown




I also reinstalled Linux from scratch and had the same problem. Could it be to do with a security feature bug?

How did you do this without being able to login - login works normally in the GUI?

I also reinstalled Linux from scratch and had the same problem. Could it be to do with a security feature bug?
I think so. It’s happened to me more than once, but I really don’t remember any specifics about repairing. I definitely did not reinstall. What I probably did was boot the installed system from installation media, or chroot from a rescue boot, then update the installation with zypper. In same manner I may have reset root’s password. Another possibility was booting into rescue.target, where root login worked, then exiting to finish a normal boot to multi-user.target. Anyway, these are things to try until someone comes up with anything more authoritative.

I will explain briefly how I discovered the problem. Before I discovered the 1-click multimedia setup tool, I was messing about installing, updating, removing and reinstalling libvcodecs, libxine and all that kind of stuff to get basic embedded html videos to work like on Facebook , and I must have deleted a lib file for KDE by mistake. So I lost part of my desktop, all icons, network manager, Internet and most functionality was gone, but I could login to YAST and change my password. I wanted to access init 3 to delete the KDE configuration file. I tried running in recovery mode, updating the system from my boot media but that failed to solve the init 3 login problem. I didn’t know how to reboot into command prompt. I wondered if I’d been hacked through a dodgy multimedia repository or something, so I just started again and reinstalled from scratch.

However, after installing everything again, I noticed that there is the same problem with init 3 login. So it seems like it’s a bug in the distribution. Although I don’t need init 3 now, it would be good to fix this login problem in case I have a need for it in the future, like resetting the desktop. The 1-click installation file for multi-media was great. I seem to have full multi media functionality now.

The 1-click installer for Leap users too often turns out to be a booby trap. It is recommended to disable any repos that a 1-click installs, except for Packman and opensuse-guide.

You could try booting into rescue.target by striking the E key at the Grub menu and appending space S to the end of the (usually wrapped) line that begins linu before proceeding. If you are able to login there, change the root password, then try a boot appending space 3 to boot directly into multi-user.target instead of graphical.target to check if root password works. If it fails, key in Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot normally, and report a bug about login failing on a fresh installation if a search for an existing one fails.

Messing around doesn’t work well with any system. 1-click installs can cause lots of trouble. Thus I always click “expert download” instead and proceed with copy&paste. It’s always a good idea to grasp what you are doing. I never failed to change run levels on all of my system installations made in the last decade.

1-click installs are nice temporarily. But they tend to develop into a nightmare when administering and maintaining a system throughout several years.

BTW: https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/540572-Installing-Packman-Codecs

I did follow all the manual instructions on here-

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Installing_codecs_from_Packman_repositories#Option_1:_OBS_Package_Installer

but embedded Facebook videos and other online content still didn’t work. I did have a basic understanding of what apparently needed to be installed and from where. I trusted the one click installer because it was from the Open Suse Community website and only uses the Packman repository, so for me it was a last option. Although your instructions look very good as well. Maybe I didn’t see your post because I was searching keywords like; enable multimedia support for opensuse leap 15.4, codecs, embedded videos etc.

I can say that this init 3 problem is definitely not the result of the one clicks or unofficial repositories, as the first thing I did when I reinstalled from stretch was to see if the same problem exits, and it does. I am going to try MrMazda’s solution now.

For a Link (URL) please use the “Link” button, that is the one with the globe.
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Installing_codecs_from_Packman_repositories#Option_1:_OBS_Package_Installe

It is NOT HTML, thus one does not use the HTML tags.

Opi is nice to browse and install if appropriate. Past experience tells me to ignore this large mess of packages it tries to install:

**erlangen:~ #** opi codecs 
Do you want to install codecs from Packman repository? (Y/n)  
Repository 'Packman' is up to date.                                                                                                                                                                                                            
Repository 'google-chrome' is up to date.                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Repository 'jalbum' is up to date.                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Repository 'myrepo' is up to date.                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Repository 'Haupt-Repository (NON-OSS)' is up to date.                                                                                                                                                                                         
Repository 'Haupt-Repository (OSS)' is up to date.                                                                                                                                                                                             
Retrieving repository 'Packman' metadata ...............................................................................................................................................................................................[done] 
Building repository 'Packman' cache ....................................................................................................................................................................................................[done] 
Repository 'Hauptaktualisierungs-Repository' is up to date.                                                                                                                                                                                    
All repositories have been refreshed. 
Loading repository data... 
Reading installed packages... 
Computing distribution upgrade... 
Nothing to do. 
Loading repository data... 
Reading installed packages... 
'ffmpeg' not found in package names. Trying capabilities. 
'ffmpeg-4' providing 'ffmpeg' is already installed. 
'vlc-codecs' is already installed. 
No update candidate for 'vlc-codecs-3.0.17.4-10.1.x86_64'. The highest available version is already installed. 
'libavcodec-full' not found in package names. Trying capabilities. 
'libavcodec57' providing 'libavcodec-full' is already installed. 
'libavcodec58_134' providing 'libavcodec-full' is already installed. 
'libavcodec59' providing 'libavcodec-full' is already installed. 
Resolving package dependencies... 

The following 35 NEW packages are going to be installed: 
  gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-bad-codecs gstreamer-plugins-bad-lang gstreamer-plugins-libav gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-ugly-codecs gstreamer-plugins-ugly-lang libSoundTouch1 libavtp0 libgssdp-1_6-0 
  libgstadaptivedemux-1_0-0 libgstbadaudio-1_0-0 libgstbasecamerabinsrc-1_0-0 libgstcodecparsers-1_0-0 libgstcodecs-1_0-0 libgstisoff-1_0-0 libgstmpegts-1_0-0 libgstsctp-1_0-0 libgsturidownloader-1_0-0 libgstva-1_0-0 libgstvulkan-1_0-0 
  libgstwayland-1_0-0 libgstwebrtc-1_0-0 libgupnp-1_6-0 libgupnp-igd-1_0-4 liblrdf2 libmicrodns1 libmodplug1 libnice10 libopenaptx0 libopenh264-7 libspandsp3 libsrtp2-1 libzbar0 pipewire-aptx 

35 new packages to install. 
Overall download size: 5.8 MiB. Already cached: 0 B. After the operation, additional 15.1 MiB will be used. 
**Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): **n 
Loading repository data... 
Reading installed packages... 
'gstreamer-plugins-good' is already installed. 
No update candidate for 'gstreamer-plugins-good-1.20.4-1.1.x86_64'. The highest available version is already installed. 
Resolving package dependencies... 

The following 30 NEW packages are going to be installed: 
  gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-bad-lang gstreamer-plugins-good-extra gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-ugly-lang libSoundTouch1 libavtp0 libgssdp-1_6-0 libgstadaptivedemux-1_0-0 libgstbadaudio-1_0-0 
  libgstbasecamerabinsrc-1_0-0 libgstcodecparsers-1_0-0 libgstcodecs-1_0-0 libgstisoff-1_0-0 libgstmpegts-1_0-0 libgstsctp-1_0-0 libgsturidownloader-1_0-0 libgstva-1_0-0 libgstvulkan-1_0-0 libgstwayland-1_0-0 libgstwebrtc-1_0-0 
  libgupnp-1_6-0 libgupnp-igd-1_0-4 libiec61883-0 liblrdf2 libmicrodns1 libnice10 libspandsp3 libsrtp2-1 libzbar0 

30 new packages to install. 
Overall download size: 4.8 MiB. Already cached: 0 B. After the operation, additional 12.8 MiB will be used. 
**Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): **n 
**erlangen:~ #** 

You are asking for issues to occur in the long term when installing packages you really don’t need. None of my machines suffers from any of the problems you reported above.:wink:

I would just like to announce that I discovered the problem and solved it!

I followed MrMazda’s advice and successfully logged into rescue.target by adding Space S to the line in the GRUB edit screen. However I still had the same problem in the multi.user.target that I accessed by rebooting with SPACE 3 at the end of the line he mentioned.

However, instead of typing SU (Super User) as my user name, I typed root, and then I was successful logging in. I haven’t used Linux in 10 years, and in a mini Linux course I did I learned to login as as SU. Is this normal? Do I still need to report it?

I appreciate you both for your input, help, advice and feedback. I will make sure I use the proper link feature next time to quote a website. It seems to too late to edit the post now, unless you think it’s worth contacting the administrator over it?

I a;lready wondered about you using the word SU. I thought it was a misspelling of the command su.

Indeed, the name of the superuser (uid=0) is root since > 50 years.

Just to clarify I used su in lower case always, whenever I tried to login. That’s what I meant.

Please always consider that character case is important.

And also, just as an extra: always use

su -

which is short for

su -l

and there is an equivalent “long option”

su --login

but never plain su. That is a security item.

Hi, just to clarify I used the lower case

su

ALWAYS whenever I tried to login, so it wasn’t a spelling error, only above as I am used to writing acronyms in capitals. Sorry for the confusion. So here the su login is not being accepted. Should it be in this case?

I am not sure what you mean with “here”.

Thank you very much for your advice and corrections. I am learning a lot.

By “here” I meant what Mrmazda referred to as “multi-user.target” and also the screen that appears after typing init3.

A ini t3/multi-user system is a normal system. Before GUIs where introduced, this was the normal operational case for a Unix system. And, as always, you log in with a "normal’ user and then “become root” when needed. And yes, my (strong) advice is to use su - for that.