Gnome 3 - Blank screen after user login, but not for root

[pocketfuzzies]

First, let me apologize if this has already been asked and answered, but after doing several searches, I didn't come across it.

I have upgraded to Gnome 3, and I do use systemd. The problem is that after I login using gdm as my user, I get the blue background, and the gnome environment for maybe 3 seconds, and then the screen goes blank/black. I can still see the mouse pointer, and I can still move the mouse, but right clicking doesn't bring up a menu.

If I login as root, everything is fine. The session starts, and remains active. In fact, I'm writing this post while logged in as root.

If I manually execute /usr/bin/gnome-session as my user from the console, gnome starts, and remains active, but it doesn't show any applications, so starting it this way is useless. Besides, I would really like to be able to have a functioning session as my user by logging in through gdm.

I've had this problem for about 2 weeks now, and I had been hoping that some update would magically fix this, but it has not. If I need to post some configuration files in order to get help debugging this issue, please let me know which files, and I will gladly do so. I just can't figure out what's different for root v. my user. I have an Nvidia video card, but I can't see how I would've configured it differently for user v. root.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[krokoziabla]

Have you tried this?

Code: Select all

$ rm -rf /your/home/.gnome*

If you don't have problems with root then it should be your private GNOME settings which cause the crash of GNOME session. Try to remove them completely so that GNOME would use the default (safe) ones.

[pocketfuzzies]

I just tried the suggested command, and that didn't change anything. Logging in as my user still only briefly displays the default background and toolbar at the top, before going all black and just having the mouse be active. It's like gnome is at least partially crashing?


Any other suggestions?

[alexcortes]

Try to create a new user and then login on it. If it works you will know there are something broken on your user and if don't, there are some other system related issue.

[pocketfuzzies]

Thanks for the suggestion! After creating a new user, I was able to login and do stuff as usual with that user (I'm typing this reply from the new user's account).

Do you know how I can either

a) Figure out how to fix my old user, or
b) effectively switch my old user, at least the user name and the home directory, to point to this new user?

[pocketfuzzies]

I fixed my old user's account and now it logs in, and stays active (I'm posting from my normal user's account). I had to delete the /home/user-name/.config directory. I'm sure I could've deleted individual directories under that in order to know exactly which directory was the culprit, but I didn't have the patience to do that. Making the new user clued me in that the .config directory might be the issue.

Before upgrading to Gnome 3, I was using compiz, emerald and other experimental stuff that Gnome 3 doesn't support. Even though I had un-emerged all of those things, some of the configurations were still there, and I'm sure that some of the default gnome configuration had been polluted too. I tried deleting /home/user_name/.gnome* as suggested here, but there are gnome directories under /home/user_name/.config also, and those are the files that matter.

Thanks for the help.