can not start graphical environment normally

[ekkli]

Hi all,
I have installed F18 since late January, until then I used to work with Debian, I don't know a lot about linux, just the basics.
Besides Gnome 3.6, I also installed Cinnamon and Mate for test reasons and I ended up using cinnamon as my basic graphic environment.

Suddenly, last Friday, after the login screen, the system doesn't start any graphical environment.

I hard-rebooted and tried another session and it was the same situation.
No matter what graphical environment i tried, nothing starts and it only shows the classic blue gnome screen.

So, i press ctrl+alt+F2, and then I press

startx

in the terminal and then it starts the Gnome.

It seems like something "broke" in the X windows manager and it can not start normally.
In all other ways the system works fine, it just can not start normally after the login screen.
I haven't found out how to start cinnamon manually.
I also installed xfce from terminal but nothing changed.

Is there any way I can start cinnamon manually from the terminal ?
Is there a command to remove and then reinstall the X windows manager?
Have you got any idea about what broke and how to fix it ?


thanx in advance for your time and your patience, this is my first post in the english language i have ever done

[sidebrnz]

Next time this happens, don't just run startx. Do this first:

mv .xsession-errors xsession-errors

You need to do this first because when you run startx, the old file (from your last, failed session) will be overwritten and this will preserve the evidence. Then, once you've gotten things running, come back here and post the contents. I don't know if I'll be able to help any further, but if not, somebody will.

[ekkli]

"no such file or directory"

I also tried locate or find .xession-errors and I got no results (after sudo updatedb).

there is no way to start cinnamon manually from terminal ?

[Ahmad Samir]

If the display manager being using is GDM then the session log is at ~/.cache/gdm/session.log .

[ekkli]

the file
session.log.old
looks like this:

 :   w q 0 M   l
  )           ; !   R 6   v X        y   _ '         8 } y m -     4   i _   , 
j   + " * j v ;   3   S \ x       % & b @   s   >   Y `     _   M   d j p      
  m     * j v   0 3       x   8 D 2   6   ;   W   k     p 5    / c   @ c ^     
t   ` 4   m R %     g $ 8   p   < t J       Q   S     #     h @ y   _     ' n  
t   ` 4   m R % b   g $ 8   p   < t J       Q   S     #     h @ y   _     ' nW 
  > `   D m R   b   g         A <   J + 4 4    W M           =   L ( ) )       
m [   ;   c U   X     ' ,           l   ; z e T                 x )     A   vK 
        c z       u   z   X   M   =   '     g     D          f =   T   H o (   
v   j     ) k m $   1         K 9 N k     H   H            j    v5           Z 
v   j     ) k m $   1   9  X       { *         { R     E     R |     2   t   u 
      + i ) k   $     q     C   9   k       " H   ) ,     D   O ! T       , X v
U q r +                   Y /     # k     ) " H 1     V c D   O   6  3t 5   A  
          \ 8   . m     B     7   # Y   E )   * 1   $       -   8   t - z w t H

the same happens with the file session.log


is it important what the file Xorg.1.log shows ?
if yes, it's too big and I can't post it here

[PabloTwo]

You can grep for just the error messages from your Xorg log files:

grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log
grep EE /var/log/Xorg.1.log

[ekkli]

do you think it's fixable ?

[sidebrnz]

The fact that there's no .xsession-errors shows that the issue isn't with X, because it's not even starting. That means that your greeter, gdm is the issue, which explains why startx works from a command line.

[ekkli]

The fact that there's no .xsession-errors shows that the issue isn't with X, because it's not even starting. That means that your greeter, gdm is the issue, which explains why startx works from a command line.

how can I fix this ?

edit :
I tried

sudo yum reinstall gdm

it reinstalled ok but didn't fix the problem

[PabloTwo]

What is the output of this command?

ls -l /etc/systemd/system/default.target

It should be:

lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 36 Mar  8 10:46 /etc/systemd/system/default.target -> /lib/systemd/system/graphical.target

[sidebrnz]

BTW, you don't need to use screen shots to show the results of your command. Just highlight the lines you need with your mouse and use Edit->Copy. Then, simply paste it into your reply. HTH, HAND.

[ekkli]

What is the output of this command?

ls -l /etc/systemd/system/default.target

It should be:

lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 36 Mar  8 10:46 /etc/systemd/system/default.target -> /lib/systemd/system/graphical.target

it's the same, isn't it ?

lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 36 Feb 13 19:18 /etc/systemd/system/default.target -> /lib/systemd/system/graphical.target

except the difference in the date

[PabloTwo]

Yes, it's the same, and as it should be. Just thought that would be one thing to check to make sure it wasn't pointing to /multi-user.target (console mode).

[sidebrnz]

Try running this command as root:

cat /var/log/messages | grep gdm

Look through the output for anything that looks like an error, especially something that reports that gdm has crashed, or terminated unexpectedly.

[ekkli]

it says something like that many times

Mar 20 23:23:17  gdm-simple-slave[796]: WARNING: Failed to give slave programs access to the display. Trying to proceed.
Mar 20 23:23:19  systemd-logind[713]: New session 1 of user gdm.
Mar 20 23:23:22  dbus-daemon[728]: dbus[728]: [system] Rejected send message, 2 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.53" (uid=42 pid=1402 comm="gnome-shell --mode=gdm ") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" member="GetAll" error name="(unset)" requested_reply="0" destination=":1.16" (uid=0 pid=931 comm="/usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon --no-daemon ")
Mar 20 23:23:22  dbus[728]: [system] Rejected send message, 2 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.53" (uid=42 pid=1402 comm="gnome-shell --mode=gdm ") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" member="GetAll" error name="(unset)" requested_reply="0" destination=":1.16" (uid=0 pid=931 comm="/usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon --no-daemon ")
Mar 20 21:23:28  gdm-simple-slave[796]: WARNING: Failed to remove slave program access to the display. Trying to proceed.
Mar 20 21:23:28  gdm-simple-slave[796]: WARNING: Child process -1207 was already dead.