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7

I have selected the setting 'Automatic Login' from within the default Gnome 3 Ubuntu 17.10 control panel app, but it keeps resetting to 'off' after every restart and does not allow me to automatically login.

Any ideas?

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up vote 11 down vote

I had to force the loging screen to use xorg and not wayland (not yet supported by nvidia drivers).

Edit as root the file /etc/gdm3/custom.conf.

sudo nano /etc/gdm3/custom.conf

Change the line

#WaylandEnable=false

to

WaylandEnable=false
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  • 2
    Thanks a lot, this works for me in combination with: AutomaticLoginEnable = true AutomaticLogin = <my user name> – amDude1848 Nov 11 '17 at 18:25
up vote 2 down vote

Same issue. I've originally changed the "/etc/gdm3/custom.conf" and simply enabled the "AutomaticLoginEnable=True". This was the whole issue: I didn't notice that "True" has to be lowercase.

EDIT: I was wrong. My autologin works because I'm NOT using the gnome-xorg (the default option for ubuntu) but the gnome classic session. I can't manage to get the gnome-xorg session to work properly unless I setup a timedlogin which is a little unpleasant.

EDIT 2: Ok, I finally got enough of this issue, since it's getting ignored. To solve my issue, since I don't care the least about gdm but I still want to use chrome, I've installed lightdm and changed the autologin in the user settings.

In other words:

sudo apt install lightdm

followed by the usual change in the user settings for the autologin.

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up vote 2 down vote

I think i've found the problem, try to edit /etc/gdm3/custom.conf and write AutomaticLoginEnable=true instead of AutomaticLoginEnable=True in my case

(full lowercase for the word "true")

or uncomment this line if it is...

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  • I don't think it's necessary because my /etc/gdm3/custom.confis already "AutomaticLoginEnable=true" but it was commented. I just uncommented it. – Redbob Oct 24 '17 at 11:58
  • In mine it was written AutomaticLoginEnable=True and I had never edited it manually.... Maybe it cal help some people if not you ;) – Paul ALBERT Nov 3 '17 at 11:27
  • 1
    Unfortunately, even for me this solution worked, @Pöl Halbert... I uncommented, because it was true. But, switching in Details > Users panel, it turns Trueand False. Even changing Trueto true, autologin didn't work. – Redbob Nov 6 '17 at 1:32
up vote 0 down vote

I can confirm that it's a bug in Settings app. When changing the 'Automatic Login' flag under Details->Users it writes True/False values for AutomaticLoginEnable in "/etc/gdm3/custom.conf". After manually writing the value AutomaticLoginEnable=true the auto-login works.

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    This doesn't work for me. The AutomaticLoginEnable=true was remarked out in the file, but activating it, didn't change anything. – Simon Rigét Nov 2 '17 at 15:10
  • @SimonRigét - as you already wrote in your answer, both variables are required for auto-login: AutomaticLoginEnable and AutomaticLogin with username. The Settings app writes both variables, but the bug is that it writes True/False with capital letters. – Julius Nov 4 '17 at 22:06
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    This solution didn't work for me, @Julius and @SimonRigét, not regarding if it's trueor True, the result is the same: nothing works. These two statements are present in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf: AutomaticLoginEnable and AutomaticLogin – Redbob Nov 6 '17 at 1:28
up vote -1 down vote

I had to set two variables, to make it work:

$sudo gedit /etc/gdm3/custom.conf

And insert the lines:

AutomaticLoginEnable = true
AutomaticLogin = <my user name>

The settings app is buggy, to an extend where it's getting useless as of 11.2017. Hopefuly that will change :)

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