Recently, Ubuntu has stopped working by not allowing me to access the desktop. It is quite strange.
Once Ubuntu has booted up to the username screen, I type in my username and password to log on. It brings me to a blank screen with nothing on it. This happens to all of the user accounts. When I press the Power button on my computer, I see the loading process where it says:

Executing login scripts... [OK]

and then some network stuff when it freezes. I have no clue what to do here because I've only worked with the GNOME desktop in Ubuntu and only 2 times when modifying the boot.1st file in the console/terminal but I have no clue what commands do in the terminal/DOS-like screen because I haven't used that before other than the command "sudo".

Could someone tell me how to fix this problem please? Any input would be appreciated.

After you get your login screen, press ctrl+alt+f1. This will put you in a console. In this try to login with your username and password.
Can you login through this method?

Please post the boost.1st file here. Also, do NOT edit it unless you know what you're doing. Furthermore, try logging in with the Command Line Interface.

xboxrulz

I agree with this way of diagnosis. This will allow us to know where your problem comes from : unix problem, graphics problem or network problem.
If you can log in to the ascii terminal (by mean of ctrl+alt+f1) this will mean that your Unix has no basic problem.
Did you happen to change your IP network address recently ? or did you happen to manually modify your /etc/hosts or /etc/inittab file ?
Yordan

I knew what I was going with the boot.1st file. I edited it to allow Windows to boot if no option was chosen during the boot screen. Otherwise it would boot into Linux as default and that would make other users mad.

I will try using the Command Line Interface to login. As I said earlier, I know nothing about the console part of Linux.

I guess you aren't familiar with the command line interface. Our current goal is simply to see if the Unix guetty will accept your user login and your password.
A second thing : when you arrive at the console login prompt, try typing "ifconfig -a" #(without the quotes)
in order to see what your current IP configuration is.
Regards
yordan

Also, doesn't Ubuntu clear the boot-up sequence after boot-up? I hate Ubuntu because it never prints out a verbose version of what's going on.

xboxrulz

Ok, I have tried some suggestions and here are my findings:

If I press CTRL+ALT+F1 right when I choose to boot Ubuntu (with the orange bar loading), it shows me the booting sequence (something like Autoexec.bat ) and then returns me to the graphical login screen, where the problem occurs once I log in.

If I press CTRL+ALT+F1 at the graphical login screen, I login using the command interface and get brought to a command interface prompt where I don't know any commands other than 'exit' and CTRL+ALT+DEL.

If I press CTRL+ALT+F1 when it is frozen after logging on using the Ubuntu login screen, it shows me the boot sequence and I know that the computer freezes right after Executing local scripts or Executing login scripts.

If I login normally using the Ubuntu login screen and wait approximately 10 minutes or so, I get an error message saying that the GNOME Desktop Manager has encountered an error, some themes may not load properly....

How can I fix the GNOME Desktop Manager so that it doesn't encounter an error to hold up my login sequence?

These may be long shots but read this bug description. Is this specifically the problem you're having?
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/contro...nter/+bug/61381


Also, cat /etc/passwd and check what your login shell is. It's not /sbin/nologin which is good! What is it?

Yes that is exactly the problem I'm having. I'll try some of the suggestions that were posted in that forum. Thanks for the link.