Bug#852607: Bug#794316: several bug reports involving inability to unlock desktop

[Simon McVittie]

This bug report seems to be mixing up several distinct situations that
all have the common symptom "I can't unlock the screen shield".
That makes it much less likely that any of them will get solved, so I'm
trying to disentangle them.

When reporting bugs against a commonly-used component, please try to
make the subject line as specific as possible (for instance mentioning a
distinctive log message) - otherwise we get followups from users who see
vaguely similar symptoms for different reasons, and it all gets horribly
mixed up.

On Sat, 01 Aug 2015 at 11:01:31 +0200, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> My laptop screen had been locked for a while.  I typed the password and
> nothing happened.  After a few seconds, the screen went blank again.
> 
> Looking at journalctl I observed:
> 
> gdm-session-worker[23803]: <5>AccountsService: Failed to monitor logind
> session changes: Too many open files

I'm taking this to be the canonical description of #794316.
If this is your bug, please send any follow-up messages to
794316 at bugs.debian.org only.

All the reports of this bug seem to be for Debian 8 'jessie' (gdm 3.14).
Has anyone seen *this specific bug* (not just similar symptoms)
with a later version? It might well have been fixed upstream in the 2
years of development since that version was released.

On Fri, 05 Feb 2016 at 11:56:36 +0200, Timo Juhani Lindfors wrote:
> I see this today too (gdm3 3.14.1-7 on amd64 Debian 8). strace shows
> 
> 3654  <... inotify_init1 resumed> )     = -1 EMFILE (Too many open files)

I think you have been seeing #794316, same as Daniel. See above.

On Sat, 09 Apr 2016 at 10:25:50 +0000, Ignacio G. Dupont wrote:
> I have noticed that gdm-session-worker instances occurs only on unsuccessful
> login attempts.
> 
> Once the fs.inotify.max_user_instances limit is reached /var/log/messages shows
> error logs like:
> 
> Apr  7 10:05:25 jessie gdm-session-worker[3789]: <5>AccountsService: Failed to
> monitor logind session changes: Too many open files

I think you have been seeing #794316, same as Daniel. See above.

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 at 10:50:28 -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:
> I had an issue where login didn't work.
...
> Anyway, when I fixed the .profile error and rebooted, the problem with
> gdm refusing to start was gone.

You are seeing a separate issue: a syntax error in ~/.profile is treated
the same as a login session that instantly ends (because that's effectively
what it is). Please send any further messages on this subject to
852606 at bugs.debian.org only.

On Tue, 21 Jun 2016 at 18:16:50 +0200, Quentin BUISSON-DEBON wrote:
> Same issue here but without the blank screen --> Just a freeze of gdm3 with the
> login screen.

I think this is a third, different bug, which we are very unlikely to be
able to do anything about without more information (for example syslog
or Journal messages around the time of the freeze).
Please send any further messages regarding this one to
852607 at bugs.debian.org only.

Both the reports of this bug seem to be for Debian 8 'jessie' (gdm 3.14).
Has anyone seen *this specific bug* (not just similar symptoms)
with a later version?

On Sat, 24 Sep 2016 at 14:55:08 +0200, Anonymous wrote:
> Similar/same problem here, with Jessie 8.6 / Gnome 3-3.14.1-7; the lock screen
> was unresponsive after the desktop was locked for some time.

I'm going to say this is the same bug as Quentin's, although "the lock
screen becomes unresponsive" isn't really much to go on.
Please send any further messages regarding this one to
852607 at bugs.debian.org only.

Regards,
    S