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I was using these commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get install gksu
gksu nautilus

I needed to move some files from one account into another & then I wanted to rename some of the accounts. I got a failure message & my desktop wallpaper went black.

I logged out & now I cannot log into ANY account at all. One account is my son's (with his school homework on it) & the other is mine (an admin). There is no password on my son's but I have one on mine.

I cannot get into either account...I am brought back to the login screen. I can't even get to a terminal to make any changes. Any help would be appreciated!

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  • What I'm telling you is no solution but a resource to get the data stored in your HD. Boot from a Live USB or Live DVD and then you can access the data stored in your HD. It'd be wise to back it up.
    – user123492
    Nov 2, 2013 at 18:49
  • I guess you have "rename(d) some of the accounts" by renaming the home folders. Is it right? If this is the case, then you can use a LiveCD to re-rename the folders back to their original names. Nov 2, 2013 at 19:24
  • Andrea, you are correct. I was renaming some folders. I posted this on the Ubuntu Forums which described what I was doing: ubuntuforums.org/… Nov 2, 2013 at 19:52

1 Answer 1

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If you hold [shift] during boot you will get a textmode menu.
Choose (recovery mode)

After boot you will be greeted by a colorful texmode screen choose root

Make the system read/write

mount -o rw,remount /

add a new user to your system:

adduser emergency

give this sudo permission:

addgroup emergency sudo

just reboot with reboot and login with your freshly made account.
If this all works out OK you can start repairing the things that went wrong.

Good Luck :-)

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  • Thanks for your edit Elfy, I completely forgot that one.
    – thom
    Nov 2, 2013 at 19:31
  • I successfully created an "emergency" account & was able to access my data. I got a couple of notices saying there were some things that are wrong but I could not report them... However, I did rename the folders to their original names & rebooted. Yet I am still unable to log into either the Admin or my son's account. I can login successfully to the "emergency" account but the other 2 continue to bring me back to the login screen. Nov 2, 2013 at 20:17
  • You probably hosed some very important files, but don't worry. Just make new accounts for you and your son. Then copy the contents from the old accounts to the new ones. If that all works OK then you can delete the old accounts and directories. Don't forget to backup the hidden files in your respective home directories.
    – thom
    Nov 2, 2013 at 20:23
  • I have an "emergency" account created with sudo that I was able to get into & run a terminal window. I deleted the old "Leslie02" and the "username" account. They did not show up when I used the GUI to bring up the User Accounts. So I logged out of the "emergency" account & tried to log in to the new accounts I set up...and was brought back to the login screens just like before. So I am no further along that I was. Nov 2, 2013 at 21:40
  • If you couldn't login in your new accounts then you didn't create them properly. It is not enough to just make some directories. After you logged in as "emergency", press on the cogwheel icon on the launcher-bar and then press on the users and accounts icon. If you only see one "person" in the left pane, just add two more.
    – thom
    Nov 2, 2013 at 21:53

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