Jump to content

My user is broken [solved]


yossarian
 Share

Recommended Posts

Hi everyone,

 

New day, new problem. :wall:

 

I was working on a document with Open Office, tried to save the document in .doc format, and got an error message that a Java runtime machine is missing. I tried to open a firefox browser to start looking for that java machine when my computer totally froze. Didn't respond to any combination of keys (even Ctrl-Alt-F1, I think it's going to runlevel 3).

 

So I made a hard reboot to the computer. Now I can't login with my old user. After typing the password I get a black screen for a few seconds, and then I get back to the welcome screen of the user name. I can login with root, so I guess something is messed with my user.

 

:help:

 

Thanks.

Edited by yossarian
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you can get console, login as you, type cp .kde .kdex press enter then type rm -r -f .kde press enter (answer a if you get a choice of y/n/a). Log out of console and try to login via the gui. The most you will lose if this works is you personalized desktop settings which you will find backed up in .kdex, simply copy what you want from there to restore your settings.

Edited by spinynorman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you can get console, login as you, type cp .kde .kdex press enter then type rm -r -f .kde press enter (answer a if you get a choice of y/n/a). Log out of console and try to login via the gui. The most you will lose if this works is you personalized desktop settings which you will find backed up in .kdex, simply copy what you want from there to restore your settings.

 

Sure, I'm going to try it. but I should have mentioned I use Gnome, not KDE. Does your recommendation still apply?

 

And a later comment:

I tried to do it, but I don't know where the .kde file is saved. Anyway, I logged in to my user from the terminal and typed "cd..", and got a message that I am not permitted:

bash: cd: ..: Permission denied

 

So maybe something is wrong with the permissions of the account?

 

And an even later comment:

I tried running

chown -R username:username /home/username

from root. I didn't help either.

Edited by yossarian
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, I guess sometimes no news is bad news. So if I can't solve the problem, maybe I can work around it?

 

I thought to remove the problematic user and to make a new user with the same name. Will it work? Will all the preferences and files (Firefox bookmarks, for example) will be associated to the new user?

 

Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No it most likely wouldnt work as they would have diffenent uids but you could try to install another desktop like kde or xfce and see it that works....

 

oh btw maybe you could try to rename or delete .Xauthority from your user account or .serverauth.xxxx

Edited by ffi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No it most likely wouldnt work as they would have diffenent uids but you could try to install another desktop like kde or xfce and see it that works....

 

oh btw maybe you could try to rename or delete .Xauthority from your user account or .serverauth.xxxx

 

And if I delete the user and then manually set to the new user (with the same name) also the same uid? Still not recommended?

 

I'm afraid I'm newbie to Linux. Can you direct me to those files you suggest to delete? In what folder ar they saved?

 

Regarding installing KDE - I tried it once, and the results weren't good. I installed Mandriva from the live CD so I only have Gnome, and I prefer not to get into new adventures at the moment... More than that: Even if I did succeed in installing KDE, that wouldn't help, because I line Gnome much more. I'd like to emphasize that I can log in as root, so I have access to all my files.

Edited by yossarian
Link to comment
Share on other sites

they are in your home directory. I also had the same problem once and tried to create a new user with the same name but didnt have much luck

 

When I'm logged in as root, in my user's (not root's) home directory I see only the "regular" folders (Desktop, Documents, Download, Music, Pictures, Video and tmp).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No it most likely wouldnt work as they would have diffenent uids but you could try to install another desktop like kde or xfce and see it that works....

 

oh btw maybe you could try to rename or delete .Xauthority from your user account or .serverauth.xxxx

 

You're a genius. I owe you my life! :luv: It worked! It worked like a charm. It was dark, but then I've seen the light and I've got my life back!

 

WOW, you really saved me, thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...