[Eug]

I can boot up to the login screen with all the icons, but once I get there I can't click on any of the icons. I tried using a USB mouse, but that doesn't help.

I tried hitting CTRL-OPTION-COMMAND-RETURN and that worked and let me in...once.

After a reboot I got the same problem and tried the above key combination but get nothing.

I tried this, but it did nothing:

/sbin/mount -uw /
cd /Library/Preferences
rm com.apple.loginwindow.plist
rm com.apple.windowserver.plist
cd /Library/Caches
rm -r *
cd /System/Library
cd /System/Library/Caches
rm -r *
reboot

Sometimes if I wait 30 seconds, then I can get in. What gives?

In the meantime, I'm repairing disk permissions.

[is not]

Can you use your keyboard?

[is not]

I mean, try to use the keyboard with the first letter of any user, see if is selected and so..

Which OS are you running?

[Eug]

Originally Posted by is not 

Can you use your keyboard?

Actually, I can move my mouse around. I just can't click on any icon. So, I wasn't able to try the keyboard. (However, like I said, using control-option-command-return did work once.)

Originally Posted by is not 

I mean, try to use the keyboard with the first letter of any user, see if is selected and so..

I haven't tried that, but that's a good point. I wasn't aware that was possible, but on my other Mac I see that it is supported. You can use the arrow keys as well.

After I back up this computer again I'll give that a shot. (I already have a Time Machine backup, but I would prefer to have a standard bootable backup as well.)

It's about time I do a full bootable secondary backup anyway, since I like to have these backups prior to point updates.

Which OS are you running?

Doh! I should have mentioned it's 10.7 Lion. 10.7.2 specifically. 2010 Core i7 iMac.

[Eug]

There is definitely some sort of weird delay. Usually after a minute I can log on. The delay is there for both the mouse button and the keyboard. It won't allow me to access anything. If I press the arrow keys I get nothing... until the delay period is over. It's as if that once the login page is loaded, it isn't actually loaded, but that it's a dummy page that is there while the real clickable login interface is loaded. However, for some reason on my machine there is a delay in this process. (This is a 2 TB platter drive by the way. I don't have this issue on my MacBook Pro with SSD.)

I backed up the drive to a 2.5" external USB drive, and the delay is there too, although the delay seems shorter on this much slower drive actually.

This is very irritating.

[P]

I seem to remember reading that Lion adopts the iOS trick of showing a still image of the application loading to give the impression that it is ready sooner than it is. Your experience seems to support this - it seems that something very late in the bootup process is taking much longer than it should. Do the logfiles show anything useful?

(One of the first changes I noticed with Lion was how the screen now goes black immediately after pushing the power button and lets the S3 suspend process go on in the background, while SL only extinguished the display after that process was done. This is more of the same, I guess.)

[Eug]

Where should I be looking for the log files?

BTW, this behaviour persists after I updated to 10.7.3.

One of the first changes I noticed with Lion was how the screen now goes black immediately after pushing the power button and lets the S3 suspend process go on in the background, while SL only extinguished the display after that process was done. This is more of the same, I guess.)

Ah, that explains why sometimes when I was trying to force a power off it wasn't actually powering off. I must have let go of the power button too early (because of the black screen) and it went into sleep or suspend mode.

[P]

Try the Console app in Utilities - it lists all the interesting log files.

[waress]

I just can't click on any icon. So, I wasn't able to try the keyboard.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by P 

Try the Console app in Utilities - it lists all the interesting log files.

Yes, lots of log files there. Any suggestions as to places to start?

BTW, it seems that after the delay period, the screen now flashes, which tells me it's ready for login. Very odd.

I'm now wondering if I'll have to just wait until 10.8 comes out.

[Eug]

I think this may be a firmware issue.

I've been having an issue with rebooting off external drives.

So, I copied my iMac boot disk to an external drive and tried it on my MacBook Pro. It works just fine. No account select issue at all. So it's not my OS X install per se. It's the way my iMac interacts with the OS X install.

[reader50]

In Console, roll back the System Log. You'll see the boot sequence, with timestamps to the second. Look for gaps.

[Eug]

Hmmm... Interesting, from the System Log:

Code:
Mar 10 16:42:38 Eug-iMac-Core-i7 System Preferences[3633]: /usr/sbin/nvram boot-args (exit status 1)
Mar 10 16:42:38: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Mar 10 16:42:38 Eug-iMac-Core-i7 System Preferences[3633]: currentBootDevice: being checked by DiskManagement
Mar 10 16:42:38 Eug-iMac-Core-i7 com.apple.diskmanagementd[3639]: Can't access "efi-boot-device" NVRAM variable
Mar 10 16:42:38 Eug-iMac-Core-i7 System Preferences[3633]: 	currentBootDevice: DONE checking by DM copyDiskForBootPreference, err = -69794
Mar 10 16:42:38 Eug-iMac-Core-i7 com.apple.diskmanagementd[3639]: Can't access "efi-boot-device" NVRAM variable
Mar 10 16:42:38 Eug-iMac-Core-i7 System Preferences[3633]: currentBootDevice: (null)
Mar 10 16:42:38 Eug-iMac-Core-i7 System Preferences[3633]: Netboot rescan time interval set to 180 seconds
Mar 10 16:42:38 Eug-iMac-Core-i7 System Preferences[3633]:

Can't access "efi-boot-device" NVRAM variable

That doesn't sound good. However, I did see this reported here:

Originally Posted by Some random dude, in his blog

One of the messages when I was testing the Unix bless command indicated that the "efi-boot-device" NVRAM variable was not accessible. I then tried to examine it with the Unix nvram command only to get the "nvram: nvram is not supported on this system" error. I found the NVRAM error very odd And was surprised the computer was even booting if the nvram was defective. I then tried to reset the NVRAM as it was not operating properly.

Solution:
As it turned out the problem all along was that the NVRAM had corrupted and was non-functional. I did a hard reset of the NVRAM and all the problems went away immediately. To reset the NVRAM you just reboot and hold down Command, Option, P, and R as the computer boots, or see this Apple Document.

I've already tried to reset the PR.... err... NVRAM... several times weeks ago, but I'll try this yet again, once my backup of my data drive has finished. It's taking forever...

[Eug]

Weirdly enough, the solution is to remove my FW DVD burner, and then reset the NVRAM. If I reset the NVRAM with the FW DVD burner attached, I still had all the problems.