Hello.

Hello

So what should I look into doing to resolve the problem since the log has not provided any useful information to me.

How did you install Fedora 21 on this machine? Which image did you use?

There are some things you might be able to do (e.g. switch to a different login manager and see if that helps) but let's sort out what you're even running before I recommend that

I am running Fedora Workstation.

I installed it using a bootable flash drive.

Alright, Gnome and Gnome's desktop manager then

I'm not totally sure if this will work, but try doing this from the command line:

sudo systemctl stop gdm

exec gnome-session

I'm running KDE so can't check

Give me a second please. I am starting the computer back up right now.

alright

Should I use the root account or my personal account?

If your personal account has sudo privileges than it should work but root will definitely work

Okay, running the commands now. Will let you know in a second.

After running sudo systemctl stop gdm from the root account, the terminal was cleared and the following is now displayed in it:

[1.321060] usb usb1-port7: over-current condition

It's not letting me type anything else in.

That's probably not good but shouldn't have anything to do with logging in - can you get rid of it with CTRL-C?

Also, is anything plugged into the USB ports?

I am trying from a different terminal now under my personal account, and now I am getting:

"We trust you have received the usual lecture from he local System Administrator."

Don't worry about that, you're the system administrator. It just means don't use sudo to mess with other people's accounts in unethical ways

My mouse and keyboard are USB and they are the only things that are connected.

And both are working?

Yes

I typed the exec gnome-extension into the terminal and I am now on a new terminal line but the [David@localhost] thing has not appeared on the new line.

Yeah, it shouldn't. What that commands do is it starts gnome without going through the login manager first

Is it printing any error messages or anything?

Nothing, nothing at all.

Is something wrong with gnome then?

You got a comment on the question to the effect that it could be a video driver issue which is quite likely (usb errors notwithstanding). If this is the case trying a different desktop environment (e.g. xfce) might help. The fact that you don't have an internet connection makes this difficult though.

Alternatively you could try starting Gnome in classic mode, that might require less graphically

exec env GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=classic gnome-session --session gnome-classic

I tried changing to classic mode and it still happens.

Ah, nevermind then

As mentioned in the comment did you try looking in $HOME/.xsession-errors?

you can do this from the command line with cat ~/.xsession-errors

"cat: /home/David/.xsession-errors: No such file or directory"

What do you get if you just type startx?

Something printed in the terminal and the terminal closed.

The GUI has appeared and at the bottom there's an error:

"A Problem has Occurred: A problem in the gnome-shell package has been detected"

Not very helpful. Definitely sounds like a problem with gnome though. You could try installing another DE (I'm using KDE, xfce and lxde are more suited to older machines though) - is reinstalling a valid solution for you?

It may be possible to resolve the problem in other ways but that would likely be easier and is practical if you don't have any data on the machine yet

I have tried reinstalling from the same bootable flash drive before posting on SuperUser. The problem happens consistently every time.

The thing is that after running the startx command, I am logged in to my account and everything is working just fine.

Wait really?

I was not expecting that to happen

Yes

I just clicked log out, and it took me back to the terminal.

Interesting. And if you do startx again does it still work? What if you restart and go through the process again?

I do not know. I am in the process of trying it right now.

Also, by reinstalling I meant with another spin like spins.fedoraproject.org/lxde or spins.fedoraproject.org/xfce as they're geared toward older machines, but that might not be necessary if it works okay with gnome

The computer in question dates back to the XP era, so take that for what it's worth.

Running startx again from another terminal works again.

And after restart as well?

This time I did not get the error message at the bottom.

I am going to restart now.

Restarting now...

Okay. That's strange, it should be doing pretty much the same thing on startup

When I clicked restart, it asked me if I wanted to log out because it noticed that the root was logged in as well as 3 instances of my account.

Yeah, that's from all the terminals you opened

Each one is a separate login

Yeah.

:(

Tried restarting and using the user interface to log in. Didn't work. Get the same error.

Trying startx again now.