curme Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 It all started when I wanted to watch a dvd I got from Netfilcks. Totem and VLC wouldn't play it. I googled and someone side I needed more codecs. So I download some codecs from Synaptic. Several hours later (I'm on dial-up) after the codes are downloaded, I still can't watch "No Reservations" with Catherine Zeta-Jones, so I reboot, to see if that would work. I thine got the message, "Your Session only lasted less than 10 seconds... try a 'failsafe' session". I boot into my "failsafe gnome" session, and got some info from ubuntu forums on how to fix my problem. I reboot into recovery, type in some sudo commands, reboot. Now I can't even get into a 'failsafe sessions'. I get the smae error message, and then a new one talking about my home folder: "failed to create file /tmp/gconf-test-locking-file-GK7G97... Permission denied (errno=13) All I wanted to do was watch a movie! :cry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyro Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 heh.. thats bad. now do you have any other WM installed there? like fluxbox or kde, try to create New username and then try logging in back to gnome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curme Posted April 20, 2008 Author Share Posted April 20, 2008 heh.. thats bad. now do you have any other WM installed there? like fluxbox or kde, try to create New username and then try logging in back to gnome. All I can get is the log-in screen that is broken and the terminal in recovery mode, and I don't know how to create a new user from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foub Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 All I can get is the log-in screen that is broken and the terminal in recovery mode, and I don't know how to create a new user from there. Well, you could use the Windows all purpose fix and just format and start over. Use LIVECD to back up what you want to first, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mitch00 Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 Umm in terminal type "adduser" (no quotes), fill in all the data, then log in with that user. Then type "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg -phigh" (again no quotes). Type "startx" and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curme Posted April 20, 2008 Author Share Posted April 20, 2008 I actually fixed one problem by: sudo chmod 777 /tmp chmod 600 .Xauthority sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart Now I only get the message that my "session lasted less than 10 seconds", but at least I can log into gnomefailstart now! :D I just need to figure out the "Your session only lasted less than 10 seconds. If you have not logged out yourself, this could mean that there is some installation problem or that you may be out of disk space. Try logging in with one of the failsafe sessions to see if you can fix this problem." (I have plenty of diskspace). And then, when everything is fixed, I have to figure how to watch dvds! :o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foub Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 (edited) I actually fixed one problem by: sudo chmod 777 /tmp chmod 600 .Xauthority sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart Now I only get the message that my "session lasted less than 10 seconds", but at least I can log into gnomefailstart now! :D I just need to figure out the "Your session only lasted less than 10 seconds. If you have not logged out yourself, this could mean that there is some installation problem or that you may be out of disk space. Try logging in with one of the failsafe sessions to see if you can fix this problem." (I have plenty of diskspace). And then, when everything is fixed, I have to figure how to watch dvds! :o I personally don't need to play DVD movies on my computer since I have a nice DVD recorder for my TV, but this may help you watch DVDs on your computer. http://www.stchman.com/dvd_rip.html Edited April 20, 2008 by Foub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curme Posted April 22, 2008 Author Share Posted April 22, 2008 (edited) Hopefully I can get this fixed before Hardy Heron drops. I can log into Gnomefailsafe, here is my error message when I try to log in regularly. I get the "Less than 10 seconds blah blah" but the actual xsessions error file says: /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default:62:Syntax error: end of file unexpected (excepting "fi") gdm [6050]: ERROR: session-child-run: Execution of Presession Script returned 70. Aborting. aborting... Aha! It was excepting 'fi'! Wha..? :huh: EDIT: By the way, that's Foub. I'll try it. Edited April 22, 2008 by curme Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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