Hmm! I can't log in.

[Mortimer]

I hadn't sat at my Pi for a couple of days, so I thought I would do an update.

So I did a reboot first. This took longer than usual, and rather than boot to desktop as it usually did, it presented a login box, with a drop down set to "Pi". I put in the password, the screen goes black, the login dialogue reappears. If I put in a wrong password, I get a red "Incorrect password, please try again", which suggests that I am getting the password right, but the login process is simply not working.

Any ideas?

I can only assume that the system has updated itself, which i didn't think it could do, and maybe it hasn't completed properly.

[B.Goode]

Maybe taking you too literally, but are you really trying to log in as user Pi?

Have you tried user pi instead, which is the usual default?

[Mortimer]

It's a drop down box, and isn't complaining that the password entered is wrong. It just goes back to the login dialogue every time. If I deliberately put the wrong password in, it tells me the password was wrong and asks me to try again.

[B.Goode]

I haven't been in this situation, so this is only guesswork in the absence of other sources of advice...

Maybe this is a symptom of no free space on the root filesystem?

There are recent posts that give details of how to modify the bootable microSD card to get into an emergency shell to allow you to check and clean up.


Edit: found this one that looks appropriate - viewtopic.php?p=1149467#p1141795



(So is Pi the everyday username for access to your system?)

[Mortimer]

Afraid so. I just use it for tinkering. I did at least change the password

I'm just going to burn a new image to the card. I just wanted to try and understand what had happened.

[Mortimer]

Burnt a new image to the card and everything is back to normal.

Very strange!