Ubuntu 14.04 Login Loop problem after appending .profile file in home folder

Question

Ubuntu 14.04 get stuck when trying to login my desktop. The screen goes black and soon after that the login screen bounce back.

Actually i added a line in /.profile file in last boot-up export PATH= .:$PATH and during next boot, it started to enter in loop.

login into tty1 showing

-bash: export: '.:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/lib/jvm/java-9-oracle/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-9-oracle/db/bin:/home/mohammad/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools:/home/mohammad/android-sdk-linux/tools' : not a valid identifier

entering any command in tty1 showing

-bash:<command name> : NO such file or directory

just boot in recovery mode and do cp /etc/skel/.profile /home/username/.profile where username is your username — Zanna, Dec 16 '16 at 18:30
you replaced username with your actual username in the command and rebooted right? and you still get the same error? — Zanna, Dec 16 '16 at 19:45
@Zanna yeah i used following command mount -o remount,rw / and followed by cp /etc/skel/.profile /home/mohammad/.profile . after this the .profile file is changed but unable to boot. — thebluemagician, Dec 16 '16 at 19:55
hmm OK... I think what I would try is to temporarily modify ~/.profile to export the default PATH (in recovery again, add to the end of the file PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games) but I am uncertain if something else may have got broken by your original action that I don't understand... — Zanna, Dec 16 '16 at 20:30
@Zanna, still didn't. it is necessary to have ,bashrc file at both home/mohammad and /etc folder — thebluemagician, Dec 16 '16 at 21:18
sorry I am confused, are you asking me or telling me? What are you doing to ~/.bashrc? — Zanna, Dec 16 '16 at 21:23
@Zanna, i asked, it is necessary to have .bashrc file in /etc and in 'home/mohammad folder — thebluemagician, Dec 16 '16 at 21:26
yes your system needs the systemwide bashrc /etc/bash.bashrc and your local bashrc ~/.bashrc. Why do you ask? — Zanna, Dec 16 '16 at 21:30
In which case, do cp /etc/skel/.bashrc /home/mohammad/.bashrc — Zanna, Dec 16 '16 at 21:35

Kaz Wolfe · Answer 1 · 2016-12-16T18:38:12.720

1

I'm guessing you wanted to be able to run commands in your current working directory without typing the prepending ./? Oh well, this is still fixable.

You've only messed up your own user profile, so we can use the root account to repair this damage. First off, you're going to want to boot into recovery mode on your system. From there, select the option that says root, which will drop you into a usable terminal.

From there, you want to cd to your user's home folder (/home/<your username>, the ~ shortcut will not work here). From there, edit your .profile file with something like nano or vi. Delete the line containing:

export PATH= .:$PATH

Be sure to also check .bashrc, .bash_profile and similar files just to be sure. Remove the same line there (if they exist).

If you do want to try this again, be careful to not include spaces in the profile, and be sure to add the . to the end, like so:

export PATH="$PATH":.

edited Dec 16 '16 at 18:38

answered Dec 16 '16 at 18:33

Kaz Wolfe

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nano .profile creates a new file instead of opening old one – thebluemagician Dec 16 '16 at 18:37
@TheBlueMagician Did you actually cd to your home folder first? – Kaz Wolfe Dec 16 '16 at 18:38
yeah, i cd to home directory root@blue:/home/mohammad# nano .profile – thebluemagician Dec 16 '16 at 18:42
using vi when i tried to open, it showig e303 unable to open swap file for ".profile", recovery impossible – thebluemagician Dec 16 '16 at 18:54
@TheBlueMagician Are you sure it was in just .profile and not something like .bash_profile? Does ll | grep profile show the file? – Kaz Wolfe Dec 16 '16 at 18:54
ll | grep grep profile does not show any file. i think it is missing – thebluemagician Dec 16 '16 at 19:05
Did you mean to type grep twice? – Kaz Wolfe Dec 16 '16 at 19:06
no sorry only with single grep – thebluemagician Dec 16 '16 at 19:14
i used this for new copy 'cp /etc/skel/.profile /home/username/.profile` but original problem still persist – thebluemagician Dec 16 '16 at 19:22

Ubuntu 14.04 Login Loop problem after appending .profile file in home folder

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