[The OSX Guy]

Hi MacNN Folks!!!

This is my first post here. I am usually lurking around the forums looking for answers to small problems. This has has me really stumped though.

On this past Friday (3/23) our OS X server downloaded the 10.4.9 update. It asked if I wanted to install the update, I picked yes and it procedded to install it. After the reboot, the login window was not showing up. I tried rebooting using SSH and it still is not showing up.

I have tried to rebuild the com.apple.windowserver.plist and com.apple.loginwindow.plist in the /library/preferences directory but alas I keep hitting a

According to my crash log on the server, the server is stuck on IMAPD and it says it keeps crashing. Our server is also running my school districts email server and website. The server itself is up and running, but the login window does not show up at all. And this started happening after the 10.4.9 update was applied.

Any clues? Thanks

[imitchellg5]

It sounds like you could have a bad HD. Try booting from another HD with 10.4.9. And welcome to MacNN!

[mfbernstein]

Likely the upgrade hosed a necessary framework or shared library (that imap and the boot-sequence need). Can you boot in single-user mode? If so, try and download the combo 10.4.9 updater and manually run the install package. That may overwrite whatever got corrupted with a good version.

If that doesn't work, I'm afraid reverting to your most recent backup may be the best option. While bad hard drive is a possibility, the timing makes a software issue much more likely.