echo $USER returns root, even under non-root user

My main user account (sebastian) ended up seriously crippled and I wanted to create a new user to look for differences, but: - When logged in to tty as a new non-root user (e.g. guest), echo **$USER outputs root** - Cannot login in to GUI (xfce), since all user files system seeks in /root/ folder (where they dont exist), instead of the user folder, e.g.: - /root/.bash_profile: Permission denied - /root/.config/autostart failed, ignoring: Permission denied - /root/.config/systemd/user.control, ignoring: Permission denied - /root/.config/systemd/user, ignoring: Permission denied - /root/.local/share/systemd/user, ignoring: Permission denied - Invalid XDG_CONFIG_HOME directory /root/.config, program may behave incorrectly. - It happens to freshly created users (such as guest), while my main user is able to log into GUI (echo $USER returns correctly the user) Where can possibly be the problem? - /etc/profile is default, -rw-r--r-- root root - /etc/bash.bashrc is default, -rw-r--r-- root root - id: uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) - id guest: uid=1002(guest) gid=1004(guest) groups=1004(guest) - getent passwd guest: guest:x:1002:1004::/home/guest:/bin/bash - echo $HOME: /root (account was created by useradd -m guest, folder /home/guest was created automatically) - grep ^guest /etc/passwd: guest:x:1002:1004::/home/guest:/bin/bash - ls -l /etc/passwd: -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2002 Aug 13 15:43 /etc/passwd - paccheck --file-properties --quiet | grep permission: shadow: /usr/bin/newuidmap permission mismatch (expedted 4755) - Arch linux, xfce, Intel CPU/GPU