Gnome shell does not work with one user, but it works with a newly created one

Question

EDIT: As of now, I identified that the culprit is some setting in .config/dconf/, since I already restored all the rest of my original home dir to the newly created home dir, and it works fine. I still have to identify which dconf setting is causing problems.

I am under Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS, Gnome 42.4. When I try to login under Gnome, the screen remains grey, and nothing else happens. This was working fine, and I am not aware of anything particular that may have happened. I created a new user, and it works fine.

What are possible solution attempts? (from less to more invasive)

This question is similar to Gnome-session broken for specific account, works for other accounts but that other is quite old, so the methods might not apply.

To begin with, I have no files/directories ~/.gnome* or ~/.gconf*.

Related:

vanadium · Answer 1 · 2022-10-11T13:00:49.647

Lacking a clue on what specific setting may cause your account to malfunction, you could reset your entire account, preserving your old home directory including the user files and user configuration.

To do so, log in to another account that has administrator privileges. If you do not have that, log in on a recovery prompt from the Grub menu or from a remote shell.

Following commands must be performed as root user. If you are in a different user account, open a terminal prompt with root permissions using:

sudo -i

Following commands 1) rename your old home directory 2) create a new home directory, 3) set appropriate ownership and permission and 4) initialize bash configuration.

mv /home/sancho /home/sancho_old
mkdir /home/sancho
chown sancho:sancho /home/sancho
chmod 755 /home/sancho
cp -r /etc/skel /home/sancho

On a recovery prompt, reboot the system typing reboot. In another account, type exit to quit the root prompt, then close the terminal, and log out from that account.

After this, you should be able to log back into your account, which will be factory reset. All your user files and configuration data are available in /home/sancho_old. You now can move user files over. If desired, you also can move selected configuration data over, e.g. a .thunderbird directory, but be careful not to copy over the problematic configuration of the old account.

Gnome shell does not work with one user, but it works with a newly created one

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