Jaunty's GDM Autologin doesn't work anymore

changing to an user question, autologin works for everybody else that's a configuration issue

Please change this back to an open bug. I had autologin working just fine under Ibex, then after I upgraded to Jaunty it stopped working, with no changes on my part.

Additional information: After I boot the machine up, when it arrives at the login screen, if I ssh in and do "/etc/init.d/gdm stop; /etc/init.d/gdm start", then gdm stops, starts, and logs in automatically like it's supposed to.

Top of my /etc/gdm/gdm.conf:

# Automatic login, if true the first attached screen will automatically logged
# in as user as set with AutomaticLogin key.
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=steve

gdm didn't change a lot recently and this issue is most likely not in the gdm code

Where do you suggest I look? It's true that back in Ibex I did use Ibex's control panel to set up autologin, but given the contents of /etc/gdm/gdm.conf (listed above), I'm not sure where the problem could be other than gdm.

I've changed the bug to a question so you can get people guiding you on figuring what is wrong in your configuration, you could start looking to /var/log/auth.log /var/log/messages /var/log/syslog, did you do any pam tweaking?

No hints in any of those files, and I haven't touched anything in pam ever...

I think that this should be converted back to a bug. I have experienced the exact same problem on a system that has undergone updates from etch-feisty-gutsy-hardy-intrepid-jaunty. The last upgrade was hardy-intrepid (without modifying or doing anything in intrepid before upgrading to jaunty)-jaunty.

Over the past several days I've also experienced issues with autologin whereby it will sometimes will drop to the gdm login screen rather than completing the autologin. Unfortunately the problem is random & therefore difficult to troubleshoot. If someone can provide provide information on what is the best method to trap, or which logs you'd like I'll be happy to help try and resolve the issue.

In my case, this bug appears after a clean install of jaunty, but has never been there since hardy...
I would be happy to help too !

does it work if you install the intrepid deb on jaunty?

hi, I got news !

i'm almost sure that after having done the following commands, autologin works again :

sudo update-rc.d -f gdm remove
sudo update-rc.d gdm defaults

@Paul: Interesting - I'll give that a try in a bit.

@Sebastien: I've just experienced the problem again following a reboot (soft reboot) on the problem machine. I did enter my username & password at the gdm login screen and the desktop is up, other than that I've not done anything else on the machine. If you'll let me know which logs you'd like to see I'll attach them.

> sudo update-rc.d gdm defaults

why would that make any difference if you didn't change the default?

> which logs you'd like to see I'll attach them.

/var/log{auth.log,messages,syslog} after getung the bug

Here you go. First portion is from morning boot w/autologon working, second part (May 10 11:53:10) is reboot & on that reboot autologin does not work.

could you activate the debug option in the gdm configuration tool and get new logs?

On 05/11/2009 02:00 PM, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> could you activate the debug option in the gdm configuration tool and
> get new logs?
>

Done:
/etc/gdm/gdm.conf:
[debug]
# This will cause GDM to send debugging information to the system log,
which
# will create a LOT of output. It is not recommended to turn this on for
# normal use, but it can be useful to determine the cause when GDM is not
# working properly.
Enable=true

I'll capture all of the logs + xsession-errors on the next
occurance/failure of autologin, or would you like just a reboot & the
same logs (auth.log,messages,syslog) following the reboot?

I've tried to search for the exact command i've made, copied from the internet. Maybe was it "sudo update-rc.d gdm defaults 13 01" instead of "sudo update-rc.d gdm defaults", i did this cause i've been trying to remove gdm but i've seen that a lot of gnome functions were not avaliable without it, so i needed to reactivate it.

Otherwise, i'm sorry but i can't help you anymore, cause i haven't got this problem anymore...

But i follow this thread !

See ya

Sebastien: didn't have to wait long. I restarted & on reboot autologin didn't work - instead got the gdm login screen. Attached are the logs w/gdm debug turned on.

Logs from today: autologin didn't work, got gdm login screen instead. Attaching auth, messages, and syslog.

i have the exact same problem! autologin works for a few days after ubuntu install, but then sporadically falls back to the login screen. it helped to deaktivate and activate again the autologin in the config-tool, but then some restarts later, it didnt take effect. so I changed the autologin manually in the gdm.conf and gdm.conf-custom - no effect. then i added the command "sleep 3" to /etc/init.d/gdm to the place before daemon starts - also no effect.

i have a 64bit system on ext4 and full-system-encryption. it was a cllean install from the alternate cd. all patches are installed.

please can someone fix this bug? its taking me crazy! :-/

hell yeah!! I discovered what couses the problem: preload! remove it from your system, and autologin will work again! the preload package in ubuntu repository is completely outdated (2 years old!), and if you want to use it, you have to compile it from source: http://sourceforge.net/projects/preload/

hope it works for you too!

Preload isn't installed on my system, and I'm also having the
problem. :-(

On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 08:27 +0000, P-Baumgart wrote:

> hell yeah!! I discovered what couses the problem: preload! remove it
> from your system, and autologin will work again! the preload package in
> ubuntu repository is completely outdated (2 years old!), and if you want
> to use it, you have to compile it from source:
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/preload/
>
>
> hope it works for you too!
>

On 06/28/2009 01:27 AM, P-Baumgart wrote:
> I discovered what couses the problem: preload!

Nope - no preload installed here.

$ apt-cache policy preload
preload:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.4-5
  Version table:
     0.4-5 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Packages

But in the spirit of Philipp's changes, I added "sleep 10;" to the start
section of /etc/init.d/gdm, and that's gotten it working correctly for
three boots in a row. That's progress for me. NoOp, can you give that a
try?

Steve

On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 14:12 +0000, NoOp wrote:

> On 06/28/2009 01:27 AM, P-Baumgart wrote:
> > I discovered what couses the problem: preload!
>
> Nope - no preload installed here.
>
> $ apt-cache policy preload
> preload:
> Installed: (none)
> Candidate: 0.4-5
> Version table:
> 0.4-5 0
> 500 http://archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Packages
>

Sure - willing to give it a shot. Specifically where did you put it in the file? Can you give me a few lines from the file so that I don't put it in the wrong section?

Starting at line 47:

case "$1" in
  start)
        sleep 10;
        if grep -wqs text /proc/cmdline; then

I just added the "sleep 10;" line, everything else in that snippet is
original.

Steve

On Mon, 2009-06-29 at 01:17 +0000, NoOp wrote:

> Sure - willing to give it a shot. Specifically where did you put it in
> the file? Can you give me a few lines from the file so that I don't put
> it in the wrong section?
>

Thanks, done. The issue has been inconsistent, so I'll reboot a few times & wait a day or two to see how it goes before reporting back (unless it borks)...

hi all.
i've had the same issue (jaunty xubuntu fresh installation with intel video card).
it seems like paul's solution:
sudo update-rc.d -f gdm remove
sudo update-rc.d gdm defaults
works perfect.
later after playing with gdm and configuration autologin stopped working again and this helped another time.
btw. gdm default settings in rc.d is different than jaunty default settings.

Could anybody describe how to trigger the issue on a new install or try on karmic?

Maybe so.

When I emailed earlier that adding "sleep 10" to my /etc/init.d/gdm
script fixed the problem, I celebrated a little too quickly. It worked
for a while, but doesn't work any more. An earlier reporter's assertion
that removing the preload package, as well as my temporary experience of
the sleep command fixing the problem, makes me think that it's somehow
related to service load order and maybe disk speed -- maybe the login
command is reporting that the system hasn't finished starting up yet.
Anyway, perhaps if you build a system with the same packages as mine
you'll be able to reproduce it. I've attached my list.

On Fri, 2009-07-24 at 12:30 +0000, Sebastien Bacher wrote:

> Could anybody describe how to trigger the issue on a new install or try
> on karmic?
>

By the way, GDM was starting on my system with a default sequence number
of 20. I just did:

sudo update-rc.d -f gdm remove
sudo update-rc.d gdm defaults 99

And now the autologin seems to be working... I'll let ya know in a few
days or so if that's still the case.

Steve

On Fri, 2009-07-24 at 12:30 +0000, Sebastien Bacher wrote:

> Could anybody describe how to trigger the issue on a new install or try
> on karmic?
>

Autologin did not work on my compal jfl92 notebook. It seems that disabling AHCI in bios fixed this for me. Also boot speed was very slow with AHCI on.

Had the problem too since I installed xubuntu-desktop (while already having ubuntu-desktop), removed it and manually removed Xfce packages: the autologin wouldn't work anymore.
Solution in msg #33 seems to have fixed it.

sorry if what i will say won't make a lot of sense but here is how i solved the problem in my pc:

1st i noticed that in gdm.conf file both AutomaticLoginEnable and TimedLoginEnable were true although i had disabled timed login using startup manager.

and the second thing i did was to put a higher value at GdmXserverTimeout. I set it 20 and automatic login works again for me

what value did you have for the timeout setting before?

10 secs

Trying Kazabubu's suggestion to extend GdmXserverTimeout cleared it up for me. At least it's been fine for the last week plus, I've rebooted many times.

Okay, here's my hypothesis of what's going on:

1) Note that Rami said boot was slow for him until he turned off AHCI, and then when he disabled it boot sped up and the problem disappeared. The AHCI-slowing-boot thing sounds like some weird BIOS/kernel interaction, but note: auto login didn't work when boot was slow.

2) The system I'm experiencing this on has a very, very slow old hard drive (5400 rpm 1/3 height 40 gigger from like 7 years ago), so boot is always slow.

3) I'd noticed that when this problem happens, X would start coming up, then it would go away, the system would go back to the console, X would start up again and get to the gdm login screen. Like I would expect to happen if the gdm script was timing out, killing X, and starting it again. It probably didn't time out a second time because the system was no longer as busy with processes starting up in the background.

So the next thing would be to look at the code and see if gdm still honors the AutomaticLogin after having timed out once. If not, there's the bug, and it's going to be more relevant as efforts to parallelize the boot process continue.

Steve

Hello,

I'm having the same issue here on an Jaunty installation. The autologin feature was working OK until recently, I think the problem appeared the last 2-3 weeks.
Haven't touch anything on my installation expect the normal updates.

John

This bug affects me too.

>sudo update-rc.d -f gdm remove
>sudo update-rc.d gdm defaults
did not help.

I have a specific issue. I have created Ubuntu-based distribution for my office. On most machines autologin works but on one it does not. All machines were unpacked from the same installation image. It is weird but there is no AutoLogin features in GDM parameters file /etc/gdm/gdm.conf (they are present, but disabled). And autologin is enabled in the GUI, on some machines it works and on one it does not.

What files should I submit to help you?

Hi,

Can you try extending GdmXserverTimeout to see if that helps? Maybe try
setting it to 20 or 30?

Steve

On Tue, 2009-12-01 at 14:11 +0000, .kkursor wrote:

> This bug affects me too.
>
> >sudo update-rc.d -f gdm remove
> >sudo update-rc.d gdm defaults
> did not help.
>
> I have a specific issue. I have created Ubuntu-based distribution for my
> office. On most machines autologin works but on one it does not. All
> machines were unpacked from the same installation image. It is weird but
> there is no AutoLogin features in GDM parameters file /etc/gdm/gdm.conf
> (they are present, but disabled). And autologin is enabled in the GUI,
> on some machines it works and on one it does not.
>
> What files should I submit to help you?
>

Yes, value 30 probably helped.
Maybe that's because the computer experiencing troubles has integrated SiS chipset and video card and I know that SiS chips are very slow.

New results.
Autologin works...mostly.
If I shut down the computer using Power button (not long press, just press and quick release), the "Welcome to GNOME" screen appers.
Any other shutdown method (including Reset and "accidental" loss of power by disconnecting power cord) - works.
What else can I try to resolve this?

What's your GdmXserverTimeout now? And does doubling it resolve the
problem?

Steve

On Thu, 2009-12-10 at 06:34 +0000, .kkursor wrote:

> New results.
> Autologin works...mostly.
> If I shut down the computer using Power button (not long press, just press and quick release), the "Welcome to GNOME" screen appers.
> Any other shutdown method (including Reset and "accidental" loss of power by disconnecting power cord) - works.
> What else can I try to resolve this?
>

Current value is 30.
Will increasing it to 60 increase start-up time?

No.

That value just tells gdm how long to wait for X to start up before
deciding that X has hung, to kill it and try starting it again. So my
guess is that if the machine is slow:

1. X takes longer to start than GdmXserverTimeout allows, because other
background processes started during boot are getting themselves
initialized and keeping the system busy.

2. gdm kills X and tries to start it again.

3. By this time, most of the background processes have finished
initializing, so X starts up quickly enough this time to avoid getting
killed by gdm.

4. I'm guess that for some reason, gdm doesn't honor the autologin after
having killed X once.

If I get a little time I'll take a look in the gdm source to see if
that's a correct explanation...

Steve