(Solved) Auto login...boots straight to guest account

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xox101
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(Solved) Auto login...boots straight to guest account

Post by xox101 »

Hi

I enabled the guest account on my system yesterday and completely forgot about auto login. Now my system boots straight to the guest account and for the life of me I can't see a way back into my account.

System settings are disabled for guest so no way to change it there.

Using Ctrl-Alt-F2 I can login to my account in terminal but am a bit lost as to what to do after that.

With this command sudo nano /etc/mdm/mdm.conf I opened MDM and added the line AutomaticLogin=false. Tried saving it and rebooting but with no change. Opening the MDM configuration file using the same command gives me a blank Nano window now so not sure what happened there.

Trying to do anything in the terminal within the guest account results in being asked for the password, I didn't set one so that is of no use either.

Seems to be a bit of a catch 22 situation to be honest! Anyone got any ideas as I'm sure I'm not the first to do this!
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
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austin.texas
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Re: Auto login...boots straight to guest account

Post by austin.texas »

Log out as "guest" and log in as your administrative user.
Open Menu > Administration > Login Window > Auto Login > set for correct user
Mint 18.2 Cinnamon, Quad core AMD A8-3870 with Radeon HD Graphics 6550D, 8GB DDR3, Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
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xox101
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Re: Auto login...boots straight to guest account

Post by xox101 »

But I can't open any admin settings in the guest account including Menu - Admin- Login Window. All of those settings have been disabled as the guest account does not have the proper permissions to open them. And I can't give it the proper permissions as I can't open any of the admin settings!

Ergo...Catch 22!

I need to know if it is possible to give the guest account sudo permissions from within the terminal so as to then be able to open the Login Window and change the Automatic Login settings.

Logging out of guest does nothing as it simply auto logs back into the guest account.
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austin.texas
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Re: Auto login...boots straight to guest account

Post by austin.texas »

Try to log in as the administrative user by doing "Switch User" instead of logging out of guest.
Mint 18.2 Cinnamon, Quad core AMD A8-3870 with Radeon HD Graphics 6550D, 8GB DDR3, Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
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xox101
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Re: Auto login...boots straight to guest account

Post by xox101 »

Tried that as well. Does the same...simply logs straight back into guest with no option to choose another account.
xox101
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Re: Auto login...boots straight to guest account

Post by xox101 »

Got it fixed following the instructions on this page.

http://www.webupd8.org/2012/06/how-to-u ... dm-in.html

Only difference was using Nano and having to copy and paste

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-session=unity-greeter
user-session=cinnamon
allow-guest=false

into the lightdm.conf file.

Reboot and lightdm gives me the option to log back into my account. Then deleted "guest" account and changed back to using MDM.

I hope this helps someone else and that if this is a bug it gets fixed!
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austin.texas
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Re: Auto login...boots straight to guest account

Post by austin.texas »

I am glad you got it worked out !
Please go to your first post, click EDIT, and add [SOLVED] to the title.
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