Re: Not a request for help, but an explanation?

On 09/05/2024 11:40, Borax Man wrote:

On 2024-05-08, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Yesterday, I installed the latest kernel in my mint MATE 20.3 desktop
here. It advised me to reboot, so I selected the reboot option after
closing all programs, and away we went. It rebooted fine and I got a
login prompt, that looked oddly different. I think it had my full name
instead of nothing above the login prompt.
>
And no matter what I typed in as password, it wouldn't accept it.
>
Thinking I might have to repair something from a live installation disk,
I decided that at least a hard reboot might be worth trying, and with a
proper power off it rebooted as normal.
>
Anyone have a clue as to what that might have been?
>
I am the only user on the system. It's mine, all mine, and one else ever
uses it.
>
>

 We should first establish whether the problem is authentication, or
something else.
 Are we talking about a graphical login prompt, or the console, text
mode login prompt?  Do you get an error message?  What does it say?
How does it fail?
 

It was  a normal GUI login screen except that instead of a normal input box, it had my full name over it, possibly as if I was not the default user.
But I am the ONLY user!

Try switching to a text based virtual console, pressing CTRL-ALT-F2
should do it.  Then try logging in with your username then password.
If that logs in, then at least your credentials still work.  Type
'logout' then enter to logout of the text prompt and press CTRL-ALT-F7
to go back to the graphical prompt.
 

Cant reproduce it. As I said it only happened when I rebooted rather than shut down the system

At the graphical prompt, is it asking specifically for your password,
or for a username?  Is there a way to change the username, or type it
in?
 

As I said, it only prompted for the password.  And failed to accept it.
This is a mint login screen:
https://fostips.com/login-background-linux-mint-21/
As you can see normally it has the default login name above the password entry on the left.
In the odd case it had my FULL name ABOVE the whole box on the RIGHT.
I am wondering if it had defaulted to an unknown user on soft restart

Let us know how you go.

As I said, hard reset restored normal behaviour. It was only a curiosity as to why a soft restart might have been different....
--
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Josef Stalin