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I have the same problem as in this question but the solution mentioned here (removing Xauthority and autostart) does not solve the problem.

This problem is: I now have a log in screen which I did not have before and I dont know the password. (The problem likely started b/c of an autoremove after some problems with installing Lamp)

So I reset the password (grub -> recovery -> root) after remounting. But after rebooting, the newly set password for user is not accepted at login!

So the initial problem still exist: login screen which I don't want and I can not log in

I am Using 16.04.

Struggling with it for some hours now. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Additional Observation 1 altered text: I noticed what seemed two different root dirs. As pointed out below this has nothing to do with the problem

Aditional Observation 2: in my last session in which I was still able to work in Ubuntu, the cursor started to behave strangly as it had will of it's own. That's why I rebooted resulting in above situation

Additional Observation 3 I can not log in as Guest either. I get this error message: "Failed to start session"

Jan B
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  • "Additional Observation: in my root dir I did a listing (ls -a). I saw directories such as .cache .config .gvfs .nano .local. After entering .local dir, I went back to root again (cd /). Now I returned at the same root dir, but if I do ls -a again I get my normal directory structure, e.g. with directories such as bin, etc, lib, lib32. So, it looks like two different roots exist at the same time" --- makes no sense. "Root directory" is used in 2 senses, which is d'd stupid, but it is the custom: either "/root/" which is probably better refered to as "root's home", or better , "/root/", & "/". – Lew Rockwell Fan May 16 '17 at 18:26
  • Clearly your first ls was NOT of "/". Don't make any assumptions about PWD, the "present working directory", the nix near-analog of DOS "default directory" - it'll just confuse you. For one thing, PWD isn't on the path automatically like it is in some other environments. Use explicit full paths. When you log in as a user, normally PWD is /home/USERNAME/. When you log in as root (taboo on 'buntus) it typically is /root/, but if you open a graphical file browser as root, with sudo for example, it will probably open in /home/username/. Gets complex. Use explicit paths. – Lew Rockwell Fan May 16 '17 at 18:38
  • It gets complex indeed, but I get the message. Iater on I also noticed that one dir had a ~ sign. Anyway: this has clearly nothing to do with the problem (I will edit the text, as it distracts). Any idea what caused the strange login- password behaviour?? – Jan B May 17 '17 at 06:17
  • How I understand it you had an automatic log in configured and it is not working anymore? If you can't log in how did you delete those files? Did you use the tty to delete those files? – Ziazis May 17 '17 at 06:37
  • Correct: Basically two problems: 1) Autologin is not working anymore 2) Changed password is not accepted at login (and neither is the oringal pw that I found back) – Jan B May 17 '17 at 10:26
  • The assumed deletion happened likely as a result of the remove/purge/autoremove commands to fully remove appache2, or as a result of these commands apt-get -y install php7.0-mysql php7.0-curl php7.0-gd php7.0-intl php-pear php-imagick php7.0-imap php7.0-mcrypt php-memcache php7.0-pspell php7.0-recode php7.0-sqlite3 php7.0-tidy php7.0-xmlrpc php7.0-xsl php7.0-mbstring php-gettext as part of lamp installation procedure as per [link]https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/install-apache-with-php-and-mysql-on-ubuntu-16-04-lamp/ – Jan B May 17 '17 at 10:34
  • I say assumed deletion b/c I don't know which config files are changed/added if autologin is set through the system (contrary to using terminal). Anyway, these two files were missing: /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-myconfig.conf and /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-ubuntu.conf – Jan B May 17 '17 at 10:41
  • I added both files. Copied 50-Ubuntu from try-ubuntu session and 50-myconfig as per this site [link]https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutoLogin So as far as I can see autologin should be working again....but you guessed it.... it doesn't! – Jan B May 17 '17 at 10:44
  • @Lew Rockwell Fan: I noticed I can't login as Guest either -> "Failed to start session" – Jan B May 17 '17 at 11:11

1 Answers1

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I solved the problem

When I tried to log in as a guest i saw "“Failed To Start Session”. When trying to log in with my username I got the same message. When trying to login with a different password I got something like username or password not correct.

So... the problem was a messed up Undity Desktop.

I restored it with 'sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop'

See this site

Anyway @Lew Rockwell Fan, thanks for your time!

Jan B
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