FC-4: wtmp? utmp? "Can't start session due to some internal error"

[William F]

I installed FC-4 on my Dell Dimension Dual boot computer. I got the "Congratulations" screen at the successful conclusion of Installation. I ReBooted and played with newly-installed FC-4 for an hour. All was well.

When I booted up the newly- FC-4-updated computer the next morning I immediately got a screen which said:
“Cannot start the session due to some internal error” I clicked “OK.”

The screen then says:
“Your session 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 diskspace. Try logging in with one of the failsafe sessions to see if you can fix this problem”.
(I was nowhere near out of disk space)

A check box appears before: “View details (~/.xsession-errors file)” another check box: “ OK”

I clicked OK and got a screen saying:
/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp
/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: running: /usr/X11R6/bin/sessreg -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x “/var/gdm/:0.Xservers” -h “” -1 “:0” “william”
session_child_run: Could not exec /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession gnome-session

I filled in my user name and my password as one always does at Login time.

Then the same screen appeared: “Cannot start the session due to some internal error.”

A check box offered "OK." I clicked OK.

User Login Screen appears again. I filled out my user name and password and clicked OK and the same screen appeared again, viz. “Cannot start the session due to some internal error.”

You are offered the Session choice. If you click on Session down below and slightly left, you get a screen offering:
1.Last Session
2.Default System Session
3.Gnome
4. KDE
5.Failsafe Terminal
I tried 'em all. The only one which Does NOT produce the “Cannot start the session due to some internal error” screen is #4, Failsafe Terminal. Clicking on Failsafe Terminal produces a screen:

“This is the Failsafe xterm session. You will be logged into a terminal console so that you may fix your system if you cannot log in any other way. To exit the terminal emulator, type “exit” and an enter into the window. Checkbox offers OK
I clicked OK.
That produced a familiar screen: “Cannot start the session due to some internal error”
And then the cycle repeats itself if I keep on clicking the OK's, etc.

I was never never able to open the “Failsafe xterm session". I wouldn't have known what to do there even if the screen had opened.

I clicked on Reboot and as the screen scrolled by during shut down there was one RED font “Failed” which read, “Stopping NFS Locking.”

Any help or guidance will be much appreciated.
If this error has been discussed on the Forum previously please help me locate it herein.

Thank you,

William :)

[Cantrade]

I just posted about the exact problem you are describing. Have you resolved it yet??

Cantrade

[William F]

I had to break down and re-install FC-4 from scratch and the problem was cured.
Good Luck
William

[psychedelic]

I have this *exact* same problem also. But this is also my nth time installing.

Previous issues were xorg failing after install (I had gui fine during install however). So i switched from Nvidia to my onboard graphics card. Installed, and then got this error.

Any help?

[fsck]

Last time I saw this problem, turning SElinux off fixed it. As root: "setenforce 0"

(edit)turning selinux off is not a "fix", it's a hack, but I haven't properly got my head around selinux yet to tune the configuration properly. Just so you know.

[dwflo]

Last time I saw this problem, turning SElinux off fixed it. As root: "setenforce 0"

(edit)turning selinux off is not a "fix", it's a hack, but I haven't properly got my head around selinux yet to tune the configuration properly. Just so you know.

Can SELinux affect sound problems? I am curious as I have an issue I can't seem to resolve and I have this hunch it is SELinux.

Dave

[mesut322]

When Linux first starts it's possible to choose the kernel to start into using Grub. At this screen choose a kernel, then hit enter. Press the "a" key and the following line appears...

grub append> ro root=/dev/volGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet

At the end of this line, leave a space then type in a 1,2,3 or 4. This will set the mode that the kernel boots into.

Once at the command prompt enter...

yum remove gdm

then

yum install gdm

Once the installation is complete reboot. The PC should now boot as normal.

Good luck

Mesut

[CJesson]

“Your session 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 diskspace. Try logging in with one of the failsafe sessions to see if you can fix this problem”.
(I was nowhere near out of disk space)

A check box appears before: “View details (~/.xsession-errors file)” another check box: “ OK”

I clicked OK and got a screen saying:
/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp
/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: running: /usr/X11R6/bin/sessreg -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x “/var/gdm/:0.Xservers” -h “” -1 “:0” “william”

William :)

My system did the approximately the same thing. At the end of the above error message mine also said...

Failed to execute message bus daemon: No such file or directory EOF in dbus-launch reading address from bus daemon.

So I did some reading and came up with this solution that worked for me. Login as root in a terminal session or gnome session (I used a gnome session) change directory to

/home/user_name/.gconfd

Replace user_name with the name of the user you are trying to fix it appears to be william in the above example. In that folder you will find a file call

*saved_state
or
*saved_session

Delete this file then logout as root and login as yourself. Worked for me. I am responding to this post from the previously unusable session.

Good Luck! hope this helps

CJesson

[craig.cochran]

At the GRUB:

Login as single user
(Press 'e'; Press '↓' Kernel; Press 'e')
Type: single and press enter

At the prompt:
Type:
"setenforce 0"
Once completed type:
"init 3"
(CLI)

You will be able to login as root once.

Once you login type:
"yum remove gdm"

After these steps you are free to reboot.

Once removed type:
"yum install gdm"

Good luck

[jhp]

hi. i'm having a similar problem, i can only login to gnome with ldap users if i login as runlevel 3 first and then startx manually, root works fine from runlevel 5.

the exact output of my error is this


/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp
/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: running: /usr/X11R6/bin/sessreg -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x "/var/gdm/:0.Xservers" -h "" -l ":0" "john"
/etc/X11/xdm/Xsession: line 76: /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session: No such file or directory
/etc/X11/xdm/Xsession: line 76: exec: /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session: No such file or directory


i've been through umpteen searches on google and am totally stumped as to why i'm receiving this error. it seems to do it on both FC3 and K12LTSP (FC4 based).

having been at it for the best part of two days i have tried all these things-


checked permissions on /tmp
checked permissions and availability on users home folder
checked disk space on both nfs and local server
uninstalled / reinstalled gnome-session
uninstalled / reinstalled gdm


i don't know which file it is referring to in the error, ssh-agent, dbus-launch and gnome-session are all in /usr/bin.

if anyone out there has any idea at all why this is happening i would be extremely grateful- it's one of those problems that just shouldn't really happen! :)

TIA

john

[jhp]

found the solution so i thought i'd post it up.

happens when a user doesn't have a default shell defined in their user details. in my case, the ldap acls didn't allow public reading of the loginshell attribute.

thought it seemed a bit odd. :confused:

[cmuench]

Thank you very much. You have saves me alot of hard ache.