Odd Things

[Wike1970]

Hi Everybody

I have a question which can a bit odd. I have laptop which I use to run Linux Mint 20.1. On Sunday 4 July the computer started as it should do. I came to the login screen and log in. On Monday 5 July I started it again and came to login screen, I type in my password to log in. When I hit Return the computer just went back to login screen again. I type in my password and again it went back to the log in screen. Why does this happen most of Linux distro I have tried? I have tested FerenOS and it happen to it too. Then I use Linux Mint 20.1 XFCE. The laptop I have is a Dell Latitude E6420 with a Intel i5 CPU at 2.5GHz and with a Intel HD Graphics 3000 in it. I change it HDD to a SSD because the HDD broke down and stop working. Right now I use Windows 10 on the laptop because I couldn't find the memory stick I had Linux Mint 20.1 XFCE on it. If I install Linux on it again. And this happens again is there any way to save it with needing to re-install Linux on it? And how does one do that? Hope someone can help with this problem.

Yours
Christer

 

[stan]

Why does this happen most of Linux distro I have tried?

I think I have a pretty good guess about this, but it's been a long time since I ran into it. Here is a picture of your keyboard and a description of how it works. Note all the orange colored characters that are on some of the keys. If you accidentally hit Fn+F2, you will activate those alternate keys instead of the primary keys. And this can cause you to enter the wrong password.... even when you know you are typing it correctly. The Fn+F2 toggles Numlock on or off, and you need to toggle it back when this happens to you. According to the link, this "feature" also needs a BIOS setting, so you may can permanently disable it there instead if you prefer. Another idea is to choose your password carefully on that laptop so that you do not use any of the keys with the orange colored characters.

Another possibility is that you are accidentally changing keyboard languages if you have more than one configured. I don't know the key combination to do that, but my money is on the Numlock solution.

Hope that helps!

 

[Deleted member 108694]

At the login screen do Ctrl Alt F1 to bring up the terminal/shell then try to login if successful run this code

sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

then

reboot

and try to login again
sometimes this is caused by a corrupted Xauthority file - sometimes using Wine and with Windows based games installed, with some games to use multiple key functions to play, but those combinations cause weird things to happen to Linux - like pressing shift 5 times in a row turns on sticky keys, while those combination are harmless in Windows in Linux it may be a different story, especially game cheat codes can do this.

 

[Wike1970]

Hi Again

I can tell that I don't think it is anything wrong with keyboard. Because if one types in password and it is wrong it will tell you it is wrong. When I type in password it turn like log in. Because the screen becomes black when I login normal on 4th of July. On the 5th of July the screen turns black but turns back to log in screen again. I check so I know type in correct password. So what could be wrong?

Yours
Christer

 

[Condobloke]

Did you try either of the suggestions made to you be @stan or @Lord Boltar ??

 

[Deleted member 108694]

Hi Again

I can tell that I don't think it is anything wrong with keyboard. Because if one types in password and it is wrong it will tell you it is wrong. When I type in password it turn like log in. Because the screen becomes black when I login normal on 4th of July. On the 5th of July the screen turns black but turns back to log in screen again. I check so I know type in correct password. So what could be wrong?

Yours
Christer

At the login screen do Ctrl Alt F1 to bring up the terminal/shell then try to login if successful run this code

sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

then

reboot

and try to login again - lightdm is your display manager