Hi,

> This user belongs to a number of other groups.
> $ grep ^alex /etc/group
> alex:x:1003:group1,group2

You're doing that wrong.  You just added non-existent users to your
"alex" group.  You should probably use the "usermod" command instead of
directly editing the file.

usermod -a -G group1 alex

Yes, thank you - got it backwards in my old age.