I have the issue described here: after a sudden stop, I can no longer log in because the computer simply flashes the login screen whenever I enter the correct password.
I followed the solution described in the top answer to that question, and rebooted. However, the issue persisted.
I noticed that on login Ubuntu is asking for Alex; when I reset the password using the procedure there I was told that there is no account Alex, but cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd revealed an account alex, which I did reset the password for.
On the login screen I hit Ctrl+Alt+F1 to bring up ttyl1, which prompted me for username and password again. Entered alex and the same password as before, again, and this time it worked...I'm now logged into alex@alex-VirtualBox.
What's going on, exactly? How do I get back to logging in?
