[NTLUG:Discuss] Unable to log into KDE

[Leroy Tennison]

On 01/27/2014 07:51 PM, Wayne Dahl wrote:
> All,
>
> I've had an issue with my computer.  I installed Kubuntu 13.04 on a
> fairly new computer I've built on 2 separate hard drives, one with the
> OS and one with /home.  It was unstable, locking up to the point that
> the only way I could do anything with it was a hard reset.  After one of
> these episodes, upon reboot and after a hard drive check run by Kubuntu,
> the login prompt comes up for KDE, but when I put in my password for my
> username, it acted like it was going to log in only to return to the
> login prompt.  I could put in a wrong password and it would tell me it
> was wrong.  I put in my correct password and it would chew on it for a
> few seconds, look like it was going to log in and then return promptly
> to the login propt with no error message.
>
> Thinking something got hosed in the install and, because the
> installation across the two hard drives was unstable (I think the OS
> drive has something wrong with it...I haven't used it in a very long
> time), I reinstalled on the same drive the /home partition is on, which
> is how it was installed in an old tower I had that had the motherboard
> crap out in it.  Long story short, after reinstalling on the same hard
> drive that it worked flawlessly on before, I still can't log in.  I get
> the KDE login screen, put in my password and get the same behavior as
> before, it goes right back to the login screen with no errors.
>
> I'm sure this is probably something simple, but I really have no idea
> what to look for on this one.  Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
A couple of ideas/suggestions.

Download a live CD, boot it with both drives in the system and "hardware 
check" both drives, might as well check memory while you're at it.  You 
didn't say what hardware so I assume it's configured correctly.  Since 
it doesn't seem like you're concerned about data loss, erase both drives 
and repartition with somewhat different partition sizes (insure that any 
history is gone) using known-stable file systems (such as ext3) if you 
were using something else.

Reinstall the OS on the suspected good drive only create a different 
non-root user name (again, "different" is the key operative phrase).  If 
you still have problems begin to suspect other hardware.  The reason I 
say this is that I learned this "lesson" the hard way - after two rounds 
of OS weirdness (on two different hard drives) only to reboot to a 
totally trashed disk (the best I could do was see fragments of the 
partition file systems) I began to suspect the motherboard.  After 
changing motherboards everything was fine.  I never found out what 
exactly was wrong (although I suspect the disk controller) because I 
really wasn't interested in going to the time or trouble to do so.

You didn't say whether you had changed the OS when this started 
happening.  If you did the check the web for known problems.