User not visible on lock screen and in the settings menu

This problem started when I upgraded to Fedora 32 over a month ago. I’ve been putting this off because I have a little busy and I generally just ‘Log Out’ or ‘Suspend’ but now it’s becoming annoying.

Basically, after the upgrade to 32 I got the whole setup tour which you get on installing Fedora for the first time. I thought I had lost all my data on my old user however turns out the user is still there. I just have to access it by clicking ‘not listed?’ on the lock screen. This is annoying by itself but what’s even more annoying is the fact that it’s not visible in the Settings app as well.

The user is still there in /etc/passwd with the id of 1000.

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Hi @puipuituipui

Welcome to the fedora community.

It looks like you created a new user after the update. There is really nothing to worry about. You can regain access to your old account. I assume you are familiar with the terminal. Do the following on the terminal:

sudo ls /home

that should list all the user folders on the machine. That should remind you about the username you used before (because one of the folders will bear that username) Let’s use old_username as the example henceforth

sudo useradd -c puipuituipui old_username
You can replace puipuituipui with any text you want to see on the login screen.
Your old user should be recreated now. You should get a message telling you that the old user folder exists, and that nothing will be added to it.

sudo passwd old_username
Type your old password twice (or a new one to change it)

Logout!

You should now be able to login to the old user account with the password you just set

First off, thank you for the quick response.

When I entered this command: sudo useradd -c puipuituipui old_username
I got this: useradd: user 'puipuituipui' already exists

The thing is the user still exists but isn’t visible in the login screen and in settings. I can still login using the ‘not listed?’ option in the login screen.

Strange.

Its GDM right?
when you login using “not listed”? What does the following command output?

command:
id

Try that again with the new account (the account you use after the update). What do you get? Did you modify any file in the following path?:

/etc/gdm/

on id
I got uid=1000(puipuituipui) gid=1000(puipuituipui) groups=1000(puipuituipui),10(wheel) context=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023

Nope I’m an amateur to Linux and avoid anything which remotely sounds scary. My user just disappeared after the upgrade. Oh and I just noticed the settings app behaved like there are no users other than the one I made after the upgrade. Like not only does it not display my old account but it also doesn’t allow me to delete my new account or remove administrator privileges.

I guess if there was a way to somehow create a new user (which I accidentally did while trying out the useradd solution. The new user behaves normally.) and link it to the existing files and pull this off cleanly. That would do it.

Also check out this:

getent passwd $(id -n -u)
getent group $(id -n -g)
grep -v -e ^# -e ^$ /etc/nsswitch.conf

busctl --no-pager introspect org.freedesktop.Accounts \
/org/freedesktop/Accounts/User${UID} org.freedesktop.Accounts.User

Here’s the output:

[puipuituipui@puipuifedora ~]$ getent passwd $(id -n -u)
puipuituipui:x:1000:1000:Archit Bhonsle:/home/puipuituipui:/usr/bin/fish
[puipuituipui@puipuifedora ~]$ getent group $(id -n -g)
puipuituipui:x:1000:
[puipuituipui@puipuifedora ~]$ grep -v -e ^# -e ^$ /etc/nsswitch.conf
passwd:     sss files systemd
group:      sss files systemd
netgroup:   sss files
automount:  sss files
services:   sss files
shadow:     files sss
hosts:      files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns myhostname
bootparams: files
ethers:     files
netmasks:   files
networks:   files
protocols:  files
rpc:        files
publickey:  files
aliases:    files
[puipuituipui@puipuifedora ~]$ busctl --no-pager introspect org.freedesktop.Accounts \
> /org/freedesktop/Accounts/User${UID} org.freedesktop.Accounts.User
NAME                          TYPE      SIGNATURE  RESULT/VALUE                             FLAGS
.GetPasswordExpirationPolicy  method    -          xxxxxx                                   -
.SetAccountType               method    i          -                                        -
.SetAutomaticLogin            method    b          -                                        -
.SetEmail                     method    s          -                                        -
.SetHomeDirectory             method    s          -                                        -
.SetIconFile                  method    s          -                                        -
.SetLanguage                  method    s          -                                        -
.SetLocation                  method    s          -                                        -
.SetLocked                    method    b          -                                        -
.SetPassword                  method    ss         -                                        -
.SetPasswordHint              method    s          -                                        -
.SetPasswordMode              method    i          -                                        -
.SetRealName                  method    s          -                                        -
.SetSession                   method    s          -                                        -
.SetSessionType               method    s          -                                        -
.SetShell                     method    s          -                                        -
.SetUserName                  method    s          -                                        -
.SetXSession                  method    s          -                                        -
.AccountType                  property  i          1                                        emits-change
.AutomaticLogin               property  b          false                                    emits-change
.Email                        property  s          ""                                       emits-change
.HomeDirectory                property  s          "/home/puipuituipui"                     emits-change
.IconFile                     property  s          "/home/puipuituipui/.face"               emits-change
.Language                     property  s          ""                                       emits-change
.LocalAccount                 property  b          true                                     emits-change
.Location                     property  s          ""                                       emits-change
.Locked                       property  b          false                                    emits-change
.LoginFrequency               property  t          230                                      emits-change
.LoginHistory                 property  a(xxa{sv}) 230 1578496039 1578496511 1 "type" s "t… emits-change
.LoginTime                    property  x          1595087010                               emits-change
.PasswordHint                 property  s          ""                                       emits-change
.PasswordMode                 property  i          0                                        emits-change
.RealName                     property  s          "Archit Bhonsle"                         emits-change
.Saved                        property  b          true                                     emits-change
.Session                      property  s          ""                                       emits-change
.SessionType                  property  s          ""                                       emits-change
.Shell                        property  s          "/usr/bin/fish"                          emits-change
.SystemAccount                property  b          true                                     emits-change
.Uid                          property  t          1000                                     emits-change
.UserName                     property  s          "puipuituipui"                           emits-change
.XSession                     property  s          ""                                       emits-change
.Changed                      signal    -          -                                        -
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Looks like a similar issue:

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Yup modifying the /var/lib/AccountsService/users/user_name did the trick.

Thank you for the quick response. I was often told it would be difficult getting support for Linux but this was amazing.

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Don’t forget to tick/mark the post that solved your question (for future reference)

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