I have a similar issue, in my case it is related to ldap automount maps. We ran into this same issue in 10.04 and ended up adding a condition in the autofs upstart script to wait for a network connection, as well as in the gdm (now lightdm) upstart script.
Bottom line is that the autofs startup is happening before it should. Nothing I've tried in upstart seems to make a difference, and I have 80 netbooks to get out to students/teachers that require this functionality. I concur with Kevin Phillips that uninstalling network-manager is a non- starter. Could be a reasonable band-aide for certain situations, but would fail miserably for mobile or wireless. ** Description changed: After rebooting and logging in, I am prompted with "no home for user. logging in with /". looking for a running autofs I find it not started. Executing "sudo service autofs start" starts autofs. After "cd ~" my home is mounted and available. This error is erratic, but only on 12.04 systems. 10.04.4 LTS, 11.04, or 11.10 are not affected. AFAICD autofs is sometimes started by upstart without the necessary services running (mainly DNS, just because Networking is not completely up) making autofs bail out. Starting it later it finds all necessities and starts. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04 Package: autofs (not installed) ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-24.39-virtual 3.2.16 Uname: Linux 3.2.0-24-virtual x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu8 Architecture: amd64 Date: Fri Jun 1 08:16:46 2012 InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 10.04.1 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100816.2) ProcEnviron: - TERM=xterm - LANG=en_US.UTF-8 - SHELL=/bin/bash + TERM=xterm + LANG=en_US.UTF-8 + SHELL=/bin/bash SourcePackage: autofs5 UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-04-12 (49 days ago) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Server Team, which is subscribed to autofs5 in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1007273 Title: autofs does not start automatically after reboot To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/autofs5/+bug/1007273/+subscriptions -- Ubuntu-server-bugs mailing list Ubuntu-server-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-server-bugs