Mageia 6 Login problem

[johnb35]

Installed Mageia 6 with no problems. Rebooted and logged in numerous times also OK. Installed all updates in one go OK but when I rebooted I could not login although the login app was there and username typed in plus the password.
I noticed that in the top left Corner, the box that was titled Session did not have the word plasma as it did earlier. Is that the problem and if so how do I fix it, please ?.

Thanks in anticipation. John

[doktor5000]

I noticed that in the top left Corner, the box that was titled Session did not have the word plasma as it did earlier.

Well, what does it show now, or what can you choose there?

[johnb35]

Thanks.
It is empty showing nothing and attempts to type in the word plasma is impossible.
Cheers. John.

[doktor5000]

You should not type in something there, it should be a dropdown box where you should at least be able to select a basic fallback like IceWM.

Could you please switch to a tty via e.g. Ctrl+Alt+F2, then login as your regular user and check what is inside /usr/share/xsessions ?

[johnb35]

Thanks again.
I couldn't type anything in the box and the little drop down arrow did nothing.
The xsessions folder was empty, it had nothing in it. Unless a solution can be found soon, it looks like I might have to do a complete reinstall. Darn Darn Darn ,

John.

[doktor5000]

Well, actually you would only need to reinstall the package that provides that file - but you would also need to find out the cause why it went missing in the first place, which might be a bit cumbersome if you don't have a normal graphical desktop.
A reinstall with keeping your /home folder might take less time and nerves

[xboxboy]

Hey John! Good to see you still on the Mandrake/Mandriva/Magiea ride.

Can you login by adding '3' to the end of the kernel line in the boot menu? That'll only give you a CLI login, but it will be enough to see if any updates can sort it out or you might even be able to start x from there.

[jiml8]

How about this.

When you get to what should be the login screen, which apparently is broken, hit a ctrl-alt-F2. This will take you to a console window. Actually any of F2 through F6 will work for this.

In the console window, log in as root and you can start sorting things out. Usually, in my experience, there is something messed up in the KDE configuration when you don't get the proper login screen.

As a hint, the default display manager is called sddm, and the command line "service sddm start|stop|restart|status" will do the indicated things.

I find it necessary from time to time to shut down the display manager, shut down, clean up, and restart all the vmware workstation things, then restart the display manager to keep my system under control, and this is how I do it.

[johnb35]

Thanks good people. Sorry for the delay in responding.
Solved the problem by doing a complete reinstall and ensuring not to delete any item titled with "Plasma" in it.

Have rebooted many many times over these past days and haven't had any problems since.
I was in the habit of uninstalling any plasma item that seemed to be of no interest to me but one of them must be needed. Which one I do not know but am not going to waste any-more time trying to find out which one.

Cheers and thanks again for suggestions. John

[isadora]

Thanks John for getting back and inform about your experiences.