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Suddenly, I am unable to login to my user account. I have activated the root account and I am able to login to that root account, but I can't login to my user account. I am very sure it is not a password error.

When I login to my user account, the screen flickers and, again, it is showing the login screen. Sometimes a popup appears in the top right corner with an error message as you can see below:

Error Message Screenshot

Install Problem
The configuration defaults for GNOME Power Management have not been installed correctly.
Please contact your computer administrator.

Can anyone help me solve this problem? I have posted this same question in ubuntuforums, but still no solutions have helped me.

BeastOfCaerbannog
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karthick87
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  • The popup is too small to read anything. Can your home-partition be full? – user unknown May 12 '11 at 13:53
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    Can you login at the console? Hit Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get a console prompt. Then,try logging in as your regular user. That'll help us narrow things down. Also, have a look at ~/.xsession-errors and /var/log/Xorg.0.log (if you can log in from the console). Post anything that might be relevant. – Scott Severance May 12 '11 at 14:52
  • For the first command i don get any output and for the second command "No such file or directory" – karthick87 May 14 '11 at 10:04
  • By "no output," do you mean that ~/.xsession-errors exists but is empty? And have a look at the directory to see if perhaps the name of Xorg.log is different on your machine: ls /var/log/X*. – Scott Severance May 16 '11 at 11:58
  • Drop to a TTY (Ctrl-Alt-F1) then login, then run sudo dpkg --configure -a - that's fixed this issue in the past for me. – jrg May 16 '11 at 16:05

1 Answers1

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This is more a workaround than a solution, since a solution isn't possible until we know what the problem is (hence the troubleshooting questions I've asked above).

Clearly, some of your settings are corrupted. Try doing this from a console (Ctrl+Alt+F1):

mkdir configuration_backup

# Get rid of any possible dotfiles that might cause trouble. You
# might not have all of these, and you might need to modify this
# list a bit. The files/directories will go to the newly-created
# configuration_backup directory so you can restore them if
# appropriate.
mv .config .dbus .gconf* .gnome* .gtk* .local .metacity configuration_backup

After this, you should be able to log in graphically. However, these steps will destroy many of your settings (unless you restore everything from configuration_backup. You'll have to redo them. If you can provide more details about your situation, there might be a solution that won't destroy your settings. Or, it might be easier to just accept this workaround and simply redo your settings.

If you later decide you want to restore your settings, look in the backup directory (~/configuration_backup) and find the name of the file or directory you want to restore. If you can't see what you want, use ls -A (command line) or Ctrl+H (Nautilus) to see the hidden files. I recommend that you first backup and delete the file/folder of the same name in your home directory. Then, copy one file/folder at a time to your home directory (e.g., cp -a ~/configuration_backup/.config ~), logging out and back in each time to make sure your old config files don't break your system.

Scott Severance
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  • Where i have to move this file configuration_backup – karthick87 May 16 '11 at 12:14
  • @karthick87: It's a folder, not a file. You can put it anywhere. The point is to get those dotfiles out of your home directory. You could even delete your dotfiles, but deleting them removes the option of restoring them if your problem isn't solved. With the dotfiles gone, then the programs that use them will create new ones with default settings. Hopefully, then you'll be able to log in. – Scott Severance May 16 '11 at 14:17
  • I dont want to loss my existing softwares and files. Any other way ? – karthick87 May 16 '11 at 15:06
  • @karthick87: You won't lose your software and data files. You'll only lose your settings. There's no other way I know to tell you unless we can figure out what the real problem is. Since you haven't provided the troubleshooting information I asked for above, I can't help you any further on that front until you provide more information. – Scott Severance May 17 '11 at 05:36
  • I have installed shutter,teamviewer and some other software. When i look into my home directory. It shows the following folders .shutter .teamviewer. But your solution doesn't backup all these softwares right ? – karthick87 May 17 '11 at 08:38
  • @karthick87: It doesn't back up those files/directories because you don't need to delete them; they're irrelevant to logging in. Additionally, let me reiterate one more time: even if you deleted everything in your home directory with a name beginning with ., you wouldn't lose any software; you'd only lose your settings/customizations. Any important files will automatically be re-created with their default contents. – Scott Severance May 17 '11 at 12:00
  • How to restore back ? It will be useful if you write the command for restoration.. – karthick87 May 18 '11 at 14:14
  • @karthick87: I edited my answer with info. Really, though, there's nothing complicated here. You just put the files back where you took them from. You can do it from the command line or the graphical environment. Your choice. – Scott Severance May 18 '11 at 15:30