Issues logging in

Desktop Environments Plasma
1

Hello,
I am having issues logging into my Plasma installation. When I try to login after a recent reboot, it just says “Login Failed.” I was messing around with my shell earlier today, as I changed it to fish, but I believe I set everything up correctly. I have tried to login via TTY as root and as my usual login, but it always says password incorrect. Is there anyway to save my installation? I really need this system to be back online tomorrow, so any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Steam

EDIT: I am sure that my password is correct, as I had it written down, and have used it so many times that I know it by heart and muscle memory.

2

You could try using a different keyboard if you have one available.

You could also try booting from an ISO disk or USB drive and then arch-chroot into your installation to investigate and fix it.

3

You can go in and reset your password if something botched it up on you.

Chroot in and then do

passwd username

This can be done for both your username and root if both are botched up.

[liveuser@eos-2021.04.17 ~]$ sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
[liveuser@eos-2021.04.17 ~]$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
[liveuser@eos-2021.04.17 ~]$ sudo arch-chroot /mnt
[root@archiso /]# passwd derek
New password: 
Retype new password: 
passwd: password updated successfully
[root@archiso /]# passwd root
New password: 
Retype new password: 
passwd: password updated successfully
[root@archiso /]#

How to chroot if you don’t know how:

And as long as you can chroot (which is always, as long as you still have partitions) you can save an installation. It’s the joy of Arch.

1 Like
4

Maybe the keyboard layout isn’t correct? Maybe ‘y’ and ‘z’ are swapped etc. Try to write your password inside the user name input fields, so you can see if somehow it got messed up.

5

Yeah, I’ve tried that already and it looked correct. I will try chrooting in in a little while.

6

With a chroot and a password reset, it won’t matter if the keyboard is correct or not. It should be the same incorrect sequence after, and then they can look into a possible keyboard issue. Although, it will probably need another password reset again after hahaha.

I have had something break my password a couple if times in the past. It’s not normal, but it’s not impossible.

7

Maybe this one?

https://archlinux.org/news/sorting-out-old-password-hashes/

1 Like
8

If the login just fails (for example from display manager) switch to a virtual terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F2) and log in there once. https://archlinux.org/news/sorting-out-old-password-hashes/

:thinking:

9

Alright, so I was able to chroot in and change my password, however I still am unable to login both via GUI and TTY. I changed the password to an easily typed one to avoid the keyboard layout playing a factor in it. Any ideas as to what to try next? (Also I was chrooted in correctly as my folders showed up when I ran ls)
Thanks,
Steam

10

Also, for some reason, I wasn’t able to mount my /mnt/boot folder; it said that it wasn’t a mount point.

11

Please post response to fdisk -land we can help you chroot properly.