Login screen password entry not working on systems with fingerprint support

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please execute the following command only once, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:

apport-collect 1915570

When reporting bugs in the future please use apport by using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

apport information

apport information

apport information

Thanks for the bug report. It appears this machine is configured for automatic login (which isn't working??):

  [daemon]
  AutomaticLoginEnable=true
  AutomaticLogin=sebastian

Please try commenting out those lines from /etc/gdm3/custom.conf and tell us if that avoids the bug.

Automated login is disabled here and I’m affecting by this bug too.

Is the password box misinterpreting some special character that's causing this?

I’m getting a lot of pam failures due to fingerprints in my logs:

févr. 12 08:21:51 casanier gdm-password][6277]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
févr. 12 08:21:51 casanier gdm-fingerprint][6278]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user
févr. 12 08:21:51 casanier gdm-password][6283]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
févr. 12 08:21:51 casanier gdm-fingerprint][6284]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user
févr. 12 08:21:52 casanier gdm-password][6289]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
févr. 12 08:21:52 casanier gdm-fingerprint][6290]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user
févr. 12 08:21:52 casanier gdm-password][6360]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
févr. 12 08:21:52 casanier gdm-fingerprint][6361]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user
févr. 12 08:21:52 casanier gdm-password][6366]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
févr. 12 08:21:52 casanier gdm-fingerprint][6367]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user
févr. 12 08:21:52 casanier gdm-password][6372]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
févr. 12 08:21:52 casanier gdm-fingerprint][6373]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user
févr. 12 08:21:52 casanier gdm-password][6378]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
févr. 12 08:21:52 casanier gdm-fingerprint][6379]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user
févr. 12 08:21:53 casanier gdm-password][6384]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
févr. 12 08:21:53 casanier gdm-fingerprint][6385]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user
févr. 12 08:21:53 casanier gdm-password][6390]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
févr. 12 08:21:53 casanier gdm-fingerprint][6391]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user
févr. 12 08:21:53 casanier gdm-password][6396]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
févr. 12 08:21:53 casanier gdm-fingerprint][6397]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user

Before getting into that state, I got very few in my logs, and after reverting my system globally, I don’t have those when logging in. I think this is the cause of the password prompt emptying.

I still can't reproduce this on my hirsute desktop, fully updated.

Please check if the problem is unique to:

 * Some special characters in your password; or

 * Other authentication methods being available, like fingerprint.

Seems to be fingerprinting linked.

You can’t type any characters (regular or special):
- you type a "a"
- the password prompt shows up a first character being input
- then, the password prompt is immediately reset to empty.

gnome-shell (3.38.3-2ubuntu1) hirsute; urgency=medium

  * Merge with debian, containing new upstream release (LP: #1915089)
  * debian/patches: Correctly handle login cancellation and failures.
    Ensure the GDM workers are terminated before restarting a new auth
    request, allowing fingerprint authentication to be restarted.
    (LP: #1915066)
  * debian/patches: Show errors on fingerprint failures and limit retries.
    (LP: #1865838)
  * debian/control: BD on gstreamer and pipewire, depend on gstreamer1.0-pipewire.
    Enable building with pipewire now that is in main and add runtime
    dependency on gstreamer-pipewire to gnome-shell (LP: #1901391).

-> I feel that the "Correctly handle login cancellation and failures" can be the cause…

Can you please modify your `/etc/pam.d/gdm-fingerprint` so that it will use:

 auth required pam_fprintd.so debug

And then provide me output from:
 - grep fingerprint /var/log/auth.log

It may be useful also enable debugging for gdm into your /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf (and provide journal)

No need for further testing, this seems to happen when a fingerprint reader is in the system but no prints are enrolled for the user.

So I'm working upstream to fix this to handle the unavailable-service case in shell.

Ok it's handled in https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1683

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-shell - 3.38.3-2ubuntu2

---------------
gnome-shell (3.38.3-2ubuntu2) hirsute; urgency=medium

  * d/p/gdm-Don-t-try-to-retry-authenticating-when-the-service-is.patch:
    - gdm: Don't try to retry authenticating when the service is unavailable
      (LP: #1915570)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <email address hidden> Tue, 16 Feb 2021 05:16:49 +0100

Hello Sebastian, or anyone else affected,

Accepted gnome-shell into focal-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-focal to verification-done-focal. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-focal. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

All autopkgtests for the newly accepted gnome-shell (3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.1) for focal have finished running.
The following regressions have been reported in tests triggered by the package:

update-manager/1:20.04.10.6 (ppc64el, amd64, armhf, s390x, arm64)

Please visit the excuses page listed below and investigate the failures, proceeding afterwards as per the StableReleaseUpdates policy regarding autopkgtest regressions [1].

https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/proposed-migration/focal/update_excuses.html#gnome-shell

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Autopkgtest_Regressions

Thank you!

Tested with another user with no enrolled prints, and login and locking operations work fine.

❯ apt-cache policy gnome-shell
gnome-shell:
  Installato: 3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.1
  Candidato: 3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.1
  Tabella versione:
 *** 3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 400
        400 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-proposed/main amd64 Packages

Also the autopkg tests regressions have been fixed.

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-shell - 3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.1

---------------
gnome-shell (3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.1) focal; urgency=medium

  * New upstream release (LP: #1921963):
    - Improve login screen accessibility
    - Prefer image-data hint over app-icon in notifications
    - Plugged leak
    - Fixed crashes
  * debian/patches:
    - Correctly handle login cancellation and failures (LP: #1915066)
    - Show errors on fingerprint failures and limit retries (LP: #1865838)
    - gdm: Don't try to retry authenticating when the service is unavailable
      (LP: #1915570)
    - Enable to use Escape to cancel auth requests (with limits) (LP: #1921929)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <email address hidden> Wed, 31 Mar 2021 00:50:16 +0200

The verification of the Stable Release Update for gnome-shell has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.