[BigSim]

I'm having some trouble logging in with my main account on my MacBook. It starts up fine, and loads past the "starting Mac OS X" window - but after that, I get an alternating blank blue screen with my pointer on it and a blank blue screen with the grey loading wheel thing. The Apple site suggests corrupt/incompatible startup items, but I can't log in to check them. I can't log in in safe mode either - after I enter my password, it takes me straight back to the login screen. I can, however, login as root, and when I do there's nothing in the Login Items menu in the Accounts preference pane for me to try and erase. I'm running 10.4.11.

I'm stuck. Any help would be greatly appreciated - thanks in advance

[Cold Warrior]

Hold down the shift key at startup (right when you power it on). This should take you into safe mode.

Also, have you recently upgraded or installed any software or hardware?

Do you have any devices connected at startup, e.g., external drives, printers, flash sticks, etc.?

[roller]

Have you tried running fsck?

By holding down command s, you will boot into single user mode (will have black screen with white writing). When the screen stops loading the text, you will be at a prompt. Type in sbin/fsck -fy (you will see this written a few lines above the prompt, btw). Press return.

The computer will run a file system check (fsck). If it corrects any errors, you will be notified that the system was MODIFIED. If it was modified, run fsck again. If "the system appears to be ok," type reboot and hope for the best...

Also, if you have or have access to DiskWarrior, it may be able to help you out.

Good luck...

[BigSim]

Thanks for your replies, guys.

Hold down the shift key at startup (right when you power it on). This should take you into safe mode.

Nah, safe mode's not working for me. I can login as root, but not the account I'm having trouble with. It sits there for a while with a blank sceren, and then takes me back to the login screen.

Also, have you recently upgraded or installed any software or hardware?

Not really - everything was working fine one morning before I went to work; I got home in the afternoon and couldn't login.

Do you have any devices connected at startup, e.g., external drives, printers, flash sticks, etc.?

Nope, it's just my MacBook by itself.

And fsck tells me my drive is fine, and I don't have access to DiskWarrior, unfortunately.

Any other ideas?

[Arkham_c]

Originally Posted by BigSim 

Thanks for your replies, guys.
Nah, safe mode's not working for me. I can login as root, but not the account I'm having trouble with. It sits there for a while with a blank sceren, and then takes me back to the login screen.

That sounds like a corrupted preference. Log in as root, go to the account folder in question, and rename Library to Library.aside, then try to log in again. If that fixes it, you can migrate back in things half at a time to see what's causing it. Use Finder labels to make it easy on yourself.

If moving Library aside doesn't help, I'd be surprised, but if so, let us know and I'll suggest something more involved (booting into single user mode, running all the disk repair tools, memory checkers, etc).

[roller]

You say you are having trouble logging into you "main account" which implies that you have another account you can log into without this issue? If so, you know it is not a system problem, but rather a user account issue. Do you have the system disk that came with the laptop? If so, boot to the disk (hold down the c key when restarting until you get to the gray apple). Open Disk Utility and try to repair the disk and permissions. Not sure that will help, but worth the try.

[BigSim]

Originally Posted by Arkham_c

If moving Library aside doesn't help, I'd be surprised, but if so, let us know and I'll suggest something more involved (booting into single user mode, running all the disk repair tools, memory checkers, etc).

Renaming Users/Simon/Library doesn't seem to work, unfortunately. Some of those other suggestions would be appreciated

Originally Posted by roller

You say you are having trouble logging into you "main account" which implies that you have another account you can log into without this issue?

Yep that's true - it's just the one account that has the problem. I tried repairing the disk and permissions - no go

[roller]

Running out of ideas... This is not exactly your issue, but maybe you will find something here that will help.

Apple Support Article

[steve626]

Originally Posted by BigSim 

I'm having some trouble logging in with my main account on my MacBook. It starts up fine, and loads past the "starting Mac OS X" window - but after that, I get an alternating blank blue screen with my pointer on it and a blank blue screen with the grey loading wheel thing. The Apple site suggests corrupt/incompatible startup items, but I can't log in to check them. I can't log in in safe mode either - after I enter my password, it takes me straight back to the login screen. I can, however, login as root, and when I do there's nothing in the Login Items menu in the Accounts preference pane for me to try and erase. I'm running 10.4.11.

I'm stuck. Any help would be greatly appreciated - thanks in advance

I think you should be checking the StartupItems folder in the Library folder at the root of your hard disk. You can check those when you log in as root. Also, in the Library folder in Preferences you may see files like

com.apple.loginwindow.plist
com.apple.SystemLoginItems.plist

both in your on username Library folder as well as the one for the whole computer at the root level of your hard drive. You could experiment with renaming these temporarily to see if one of them is causing the trouble.

Loging in as root and checking login items for that account won't solve your problem because it's the other accounts (not root) that are causing you trouble.

Some of your symptoms sound almost as if someone renamed or moved your user home directory. Is that a possibility? If so, there are ways to recover from this.

Finally, when you log in as root, can you see your original user directory and all the files in there? If so, one brute force solution (versus starting in on a science project to find to true cause of this) might be to backup all those files, then erase your hard drive and reinstall the OS and all applications and the original user accounts you had, and then migrate your user files back. While this sounds draconian, it really isn't much different from what one does when one buys a new computer and then migrates user files over.

Before such drastic measures, I would (a) purchase DiskWarrior and try it (it's a good investment for the long term anyway); (b) after backing up all important files, try an "archive & install preserving user settings" before doing a full erase of the disk, which should only be a last resort. I suspect other readers will suggest other things to try before such an drastic step.

If, when you log in as root, you cannot see your original user files at all (i.e. to back them up), then tools like DiskWarrior and TechTool Pro and Data Rescue are imperative because that might be a sign of serious disk corruption.

I would proceed cautiously, and doing that copy/backup of important files is essential before trying virtually anything at this point.

[chris v]

Quick and easy solution -- Log in as Root, move all you documents (and email, music, and movies, obviously) that you want to keep from the bad user account into the Shared folder, delete the account, make a new one, and move all the documents to it. You might have to re-create your environment as you like it (desktop pictures, dock items, etc.) but it's a quick fix. (back them up externally first. I had to throw that in so I won't get blamed for any loss that occurs)

I also recommend a going-over with DiskWarrior, just to be on the safe side, in case directory corruption was at the root of your problem.