I really need some help here because I’m totally stuck with my Ubuntu 18.04 setup. It seems like I’m in this endless login loop, and it’s driving me crazy! Every time I try to log in, I enter my password, and instead of taking me to my desktop, it just kicks me back to the login screen. I mean, I double-checked my password, and I’m pretty sure I’m entering it correctly.
I started digging around online for solutions, and it seems like this is a pretty common issue, but nothing I’ve found so far has worked for me. I tried rebooting a few times, hoping it might magically fix itself, but no luck. I looked into the .Xauthority file and checked its permissions, since I read that could be a culprit, but I’m not really sure what I’m looking for. I’m kinda lost here.
Someone mentioned something about checking the lightdm or gdm logs, but those are just too technical for me. I’m not super savvy with the command line, but I’m willing to try things out if someone can guide me through it. I’ve read that sometimes, the problem can stem from a misconfiguration in the display manager. Is there a way to switch display managers that might help?
Also, I’m just worried about losing data if I go too deep into troubleshooting. I just want to get back to my work and not spend hours trying to fix this. Has anyone faced this annoying issue and could share what steps you took to resolve it? Or any tips on what to check? Seriously, any help would be appreciated because I feel like I’ve hit a brick wall here. Thanks in advance for any advice you can throw my way!
Stuck in Login Loop on Ubuntu 18.04?
Hey, I totally feel you. The endless login loop can be super frustrating! Here’s a list of things you can try to get back into your desktop without pulling your hair out:
First, let’s check the .Xauthority file. Open a terminal (you can access it by pressing
Ctrl + Alt + F2
to bring up a terminal login). Login with your username and password:If the owner is not your username, you can change it by running:
Low disk space can also cause issues. You can check your disk space with:
If your root partition is full, try to free up some space.
Even if it seems technical, you might find some helpful hints in logs. You can check the gdm logs by running:
Look for any errors that stand out.
If you’re using gdm, you might try switching to lightdm to see if that helps. Install lightdm using:
During the installation, it’ll ask you to choose a display manager. Choose lightdm. After that, reboot with:
If things still aren’t working, you can boot into recovery mode. Restart your computer, and hold down
Shift
during boot to access the GRUB menu. From there, choose the Advanced options and select Recovery mode. Then, you can try the root option to access a root terminal and make any necessary changes.Just be careful and remember to back up any important data if you can! If none of this works, you might want to consider asking for help on forums like Ask Ubuntu or Reddit.
Good luck! You’ve got this!
The login loop issue you’re encountering on Ubuntu 18.04 is indeed frustrating, but there are several steps you can take to diagnose and potentially resolve it. First, ensure your .Xauthority file is owned by your user account and has the correct permissions. You can check this by accessing the terminal (you can switch to a terminal session using Ctrl + Alt + F1) and running the commands:
ls -la ~/.Xauthority
to view the permissions andchown your_username:your_username ~/.Xauthority
if you need to change the ownership. Additionally, confirm that your home directory is not filled to capacity by usingdf -h
to check available space. If space is an issue, clear up any unnecessary files and try logging in again.If the problem persists, examining your display manager settings can be beneficial. Ubuntu 18.04 typically uses GDM, but you can switch to LightDM if needed. To do this, first, install LightDM by executing
sudo apt install lightdm
in the terminal and follow the on-screen prompts to select it as your default display manager. Afterward, restart your system. It’s advisable to also look into the log files located in/var/log/
(likelightdm.log
orgdm3.log
) for any error messages. These logs can provide useful clues about what’s going wrong. Remember, any commands you run won’t erase your files, but always ensure your data is backed up before making significant changes.