login loop in Ubuntu

[bevacqua]

nvm is causing me a login loop in Ubuntu. I'm using a zsh shell.

If I rm -rf ~/.nvm the problem goes away, but when I install nvm again, the problem comes back.

[koenpunt]

It looks like /usr/sbin/lightdm-session has problems with nvm.sh, not zsh.

[bevacqua]

yeah, the issue indeed is with nvm, I'm not very proficient with shell scripting, otherwise I'd fix this and submit a pull request, any thoughts?

[ljharb]

What's lightdm-session? Can you try your OS without using that, and see if the problem still occurs?

[dosten]

@bevacqua you can comment nvm call in ~/.profile and ~/.bash_profile instead of remove all nvm.

[bevacqua]

@ljharb lightdm is the display manager in the default distro of Ubuntu

@dosten I know, but the rm -rf statement is faster, I can just install it back afterwards

[creationix]

I'm well aware of lightdm and how it's the default dm for unity in ubuntu, but I'm not familiar with how people set zsh as their default user shell. What is involved in doing this? How would I go from a stock ubuntu install to reproducing this issue?

[bevacqua]

See zsh.sh in my dotfiles. I just use chsh

chsh -s `which zsh`

[afucher]

This line in ~/.profile is causing Login Loop for me:
[ -s $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh ] && . $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh # This loads NVM

I comment this, and can login again...

I found this here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/395942/node-js-nvm-causes-xubuntu-login-loop-with-profile-line?newreg=51bd58007f2145b6b9f3cefe5cedc962

[dosten]

@afucher what is the content of your .xsession-errors file?

[afucher]

the same from the issue:
/usr/sbin/lightdm-session: 24: /home/fucher/.nvm/nvm.sh: Bad substitution
/usr/sbin/lightdm-session: 504: /home/fucher/.nvm/nvm.sh: Syntax error: "(" unexpected (expecting ";;")

[dosten]

@afucher try changing the shebang in .nvm/nvm.sh to #!/bin/bash. works for me if i use another shell instead sh (ex: bash, zsh)

[ljharb]

Since nvm.sh has the #!/bin/sh shebang, it should really work by itself. While it's great that it can work by switching it to bash, that means that we're using bash syntax in a non-bash script, and that's the real issue that needs fixing.

[dosten]

In my system sh is a symlink of dash. can be dash the problem?

[bevacqua]

No. I don't have that symlink and I get the same syntax errors
On Dec 29, 2013 4:27 PM, "Diego Saint Esteben" notifications@github.com
wrote:

In my system sh is a symlink of dash. can be dash the problem?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/334#issuecomment-31323314
.

[abhishekbhardwaj]

I'm getting the same error as well. Here's what I've in my .xsession-errors file.

.nvm/nvm.sh: 24: .nvm/nvm.sh: Bad substitution
.nvm/nvm.sh: 504: .nvm/nvm.sh: Syntax error: "(" unexpected (expecting ";;")

As soon as I enter my password on the login screen in Ubuntu, the screen goes black for a second and then it brings the login screen back. Tried this with the newest version of NVM on GitHub.

Had this in my .profile:

[ -s $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh ] && . $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh

Removing that line immediately made Unity work.

[gwokae]

My workaround is move this line [ -s $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh ] && . $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh # This loads NVM from ~/.profile to ~/.bashrc

[abhishekbhardwaj]

@gwokae Did it stop the login loop?

[afucher]

I think the problem is that sh cannot make dynamic substitution... If nvm force to put this in bash and not in /.profile, it will works fine.

[magp]

@abhishekbhardwaj : gwokae solution solves the loop (at least on my system)

@gwokae Thanks for this, saved my day!

[gwokae]

@abhishekbhardwaj Yes, it works for me.
@magp You're welcome

[afucher]

I'm new in Ubuntu (Linux)..so what is the difference between @gwokae solution, or put source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh to ~/.bashrc as the README say?

[gwokae]

@afucher These two files are just start scripts when user login. ~/.profile will firstly execute when user login. After ~/.profile executed, shell's start script will executed ( in bash it will be ~/.bashrc ). This stackoverflow explains very well.

[abhishekbhardwaj]

@gwokae Thank you very much. It works on my system too! 👍

[BradMcEvilly]

For Mac OSX use
. ~/.nvm/nvm.sh
in ~/.profile
and be sure to remove
[ -s $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh ] && . $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh
at the bottom of nvm.sh

[ljharb]

~/.profile isn't a thing on Mac OS X that I'm aware of.

[avoliva]

I'm using BASH and getting the same exact error in my .xsession-errors. Once I stopped loading nvm it worked.

[BradMcEvilly]

@ljharb ~/.profile doesn't exist on Mac OS X by default. You need to create it in your home directory.
For more info, see:
http://trickortip.com/312/andres-felipe-diaz-2/where-is-the-profile-file-in-mac-os-x-lion-mac-terminal-trick.html/
or
http://superuser.com/questions/1031/profile-in-mac-os-x