I am facing an issue with my Fedora 38 and 39 systems. When I start the system, it boots up normally and prompts the login window. However, after selecting the user and entering the password, the screen shows a blank window for some time and then returns to the login prompt. It usually takes 5-6 attempts before the default GNOME desktop environment starts successfully. Once logged in, I checked the Problem Reporting application, which shows that “gnome-shell quit unexpectedly.”
In my case I don’t know if it ever goes back to GNOME log-in, but I noticed after entering my password, sometimes it’ll just sit at a gray screen with X cursor for up to a minute (longest I’ve waited before rebooting).
I had it happen since late F38 or F39, still happening as of a few days ago on F40, and I’ve found no solution (this had me give up using Linux lately).
One workaround was if I was using GNOME on Xorg (selected at log-in Gear), I could unplug and plug back in my 3.5mm speakers on the gray screen to get the cursor to change from a X to a regular cursor, and from there Win+L to lock the session. I could unlock and use GNOME fine then. This was only possible from Xorg (not Wayland). My laptop is a Dell 5591 with a combo headphone jack and plugging stuff into it gives a headset/headphones/mic prompt.
That originally had me thinking it was audio-related, but I’ve had it happen every audio-related scenario I could think of (onboard on/off, USB audio, no external HDMI).
I’m thinking the workaround only works because it does something invisible to GNOME’s focus and lets it take the Win+L lock combo.
Problem persists in F40, have the same issue here.
sometimes flawless login Gnome (on X11)
sometimes gray + x-cursor
all with the same configuration
Workarounds for me:
Ctr+Alt+F4 (or other tty), wait for about 10 secs, Ctr-Alt+F2 back:
- an Authenticate Window is presented when returned, with Gnome Desktop grayed out/blurred that my user should give password again → cancel will be enough (no password needed) → issue gone
or, sometimes a switch to F1 and login again with same user will work too or, just reboot (1x is mostly enough, sometimes more)
No errors in log (sometimes complaining about “offered two different identities”, not related to the ‘F1 switch and 2nd login’ workaround)
Issue occurs rather random to me. It just happens sometimes (when i test it by booting 10 times, about 3 times the issue occurs). Doesn’t seem hardware related -issue is on my laptop and also on my PC with totally diff hardware, esp videocard- so won’t bother you with specs.