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Try that Options menu in Ubuntu’s login screen—recently, I happened to use for shutting down without logging-in—and the system will refuse to let you login again. It is apparently a Gnome bug, and I am surprised at the level of its buggyness, considering how polished the rest of Ubuntu is—so far as UI and usability go.

I logged in via Failsafe Terminal and did the following—thanks to those instructions via Ubuntu forums.

1. cd /home
2. chown username:username username -R /home/username
3. cd username
4. chmod 755 * -R /home/username
5. chmod 644 .dmrc
6. chmod 644 .ICEauthority
7. exit
8.  
9. Download this example: /inputfiles/fix-ubuntu-login.txt

Stay away from using that Options menu in Ubuntu’s login screen.

Update: Replace username with your actual username in the commands above.

Update 2 [Dec 2008]: This problem has now been fixed in the current ubuntu version [8.10].