KDM, WDM, and GDM login screen loops

[SagaciousKJB]

Something has gone wrong with my Linux installation. Any login-screen from any of the managers I've tried will simply display a black screen, and then present me with the login-screen over and over again.

I know that it is not a problem with Xorg or my drivers in any way because I can su to root and use "startx" to open up xfce. I haven't tested whether KDE works with this method because I don't know how to specify window managers with startx, but everything works just the way it should in xfce.

I've tried several things that have been in "[SOLVED]" threads on Ubuntu forums that haven't helped, and they mostly revolve around moving one's .kde directory to a backup, using dpkg-reconfigure to reconfigure xorg-server, using the recovery console to use the xfix, etc. None of that works however. I've tried to install and reinstall *dm (kdm, wdm, and gdm) already and this does nothing to solve the problem, and I've also got my distribution packages upgraded.

My system is a little "weird" in that I'm running Linux 2.6.29.3 on Ubuntu 8.04.1 because I want to use KDE3 but the default kernel's don't run well on my hardware.

I'm trying to avoid a reinstall, but I'm not sure if I should, because this problem occurred after a system failure. I had to hard reset the computer, and nothing seemed wrong for a few days, until I noticed that my encrypted hard-drive was corrupted and couldn't be mounted with LUKS any more. It was causing the system to hang at boot because aes_i568 would lock up and complain about unknown symbols. So I formatted the drive to stop the system hangs, and the looping login-screen problem began.

This caused a problem initially because /tmp was originally a symlink to a /tmp folder on this encrypted drive, but even after I made a directory /tmp, the looping problem persisted; could there be a /tmp file I lost causing all of this though?

Could it possibly be a problem with my /home/ disk? I'm running all of my files and application settings off of it just fine, so I don't see why it would be. I ran disk checks and all of my other disks were fine.

The only clues of a problem I have are these...

/var/log/auth.log

May 30 17:14:37 amd kdm: :0[7556]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session opened for user sagacious by (uid=0)
May 30 17:14:37 amd kdm: :0[7556]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session closed for user sagacious

This is the auth.log from when I try to log in. Clearly it shows a successful login, but immediately it just logs out. The only other log entry that matches this timestamp is from a daemon

/var/log/syslog:May 30 17:14:37 amd console-kit-daemon[6637]: WARNING: Unable to activate console: No such device or address

Here are log entries from everything in /var/log/ matching May 30 17:14x

/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:02 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:02 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:02 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:02 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:02 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:02 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:07 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:07 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:07 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:07 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:07 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:07 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:31 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:31 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:31 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:31 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:31 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:31 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:38 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:38 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:38 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:38 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:38 2009] client connected from 6024[0:0]
/var/log/acpid:[Sat May 30 17:14:38 2009] 1 client rule loaded
/var/log/auth.log:May 30 17:14:07 amd kdm: :0[7491]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session opened for user sagacious by (uid=0)
/var/log/auth.log:May 30 17:14:07 amd kdm: :0[7491]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session closed for user sagacious
/var/log/auth.log:May 30 17:14:37 amd kdm: :0[7556]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session opened for user sagacious by (uid=0)
/var/log/auth.log:May 30 17:14:37 amd kdm: :0[7556]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session closed for user sagacious
/var/log/daemon.log:May 30 17:14:07 amd console-kit-daemon[6637]: WARNING: Unable to activate console: No such device or address
/var/log/daemon.log:May 30 17:14:37 amd console-kit-daemon[6637]: WARNING: Unable to activate console: No such device or address
/var/log/syslog:May 30 17:14:07 amd console-kit-daemon[6637]: WARNING: Unable to activate console: No such device or address
/var/log/syslog:May 30 17:14:37 amd console-kit-daemon[6637]: WARNING: Unable to activate console: No such device or address

Anyway, that's the most descriptive narrative of the problem I can give, and the only information I can really ascertain. Here is some more info about my system, just to cover some bases...

Distro: Kubuntu 8.04.1
Linux Kernel: Linux 2.6.29.3
Hardware:
DFI LP JR 790GX-M2RS
AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE
2GB OCZ DDR2-800 RAM
XFX GeForce 9800GT 512MB PCI-E
Creative SoundBlaster Live PCI SoundCard
2 x SATA II WD500* 500 GB Western Digital HDDs
1 x SATA II WD1000* 1000 GB Western Digital HDD
1 x IDE WD60* 60 GB Western Digital HDD
1 x USB2.0 250 GB Maxtor OneTouch HDD


The system is usable thanks to startx, but I would really like to be able to get this fixed so I can use it properly. If worse comes to worse, is there at least a way to run startx as my own user account until I can reinstall?

[MikeTbob]

echo "exec startkde" > ~/.xinitrc

This should change the startx command to launch KDE instead of XFCE.

[D-cat]

I have suspicion of some setting in your home directory, since the root acct works.

I'd create another user account, then log in as the new user and see if you have the same problem.