Well, seems that when I tried to add the user via the terminal, it threw up a message (Not in these exact words):
“User folder already exists, not writing skeleton (or key) files.”
As I have done for years, I added a few partitions to mount as /home/USERNAME during OS install, then after install I would have my user folder as /home/USERNAME which is a partition mounted to home. Later, when I add users I add a partition to mount in /home with their user name, and when they login for the first time, the drive gets populated with everything that needs to be there. It also works by adding the drive and mount point in fstab, and then creating the user.
Well now it doesn’t work anymore!
I also remembered that I had the same problem years ago, maybe on Antergos, or even before then when distro hopping: I had to comment out the new users drive in fstab and delete the user, reboot, and login as the new user, and it would create a user folder in /home. Then I rsynced its content to the user drive (mounted in /mnt/USERNAME), force delete the user folder, and finally un-comment the drive in fstab, reboot, and viola’, the user can login.
Strangely that’s exactly how I always have it for the initial user, and had no problem with it for a long time. Most of the time the home/USERNAME drives are already populated from before I reinstalled the OS, and it finds the files, and doesn’t overwrite any, and I can create the user, login, and It’s like I never reinstalled the OS. This time (every 2 years) I want everything fresh because leftovers from programs and obsolete stuff from changes to software… gets too much, making it harder to navigate, wasting space.
The EOS installer let me partition and mount them that way, and put its needed user files on the partition; no problem.
Looks like I have work to do.