Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

BigMark · Dec 22, 2002, 04:18 AM

I downloaded 10.2.3 last night and applied it to my PowerBook G3/500. Things were running fine this morning until I logged out to log back in as root.

I logged in as root, but was then immediately brought back to the login window with the list of users. After checking the password was correct, I found this is now happening with all users- I simply can't login. Typing in the password just brings me right back to the login window.

I've started up in single user mode and run fsck etc. etc. but I can't figure out what is wrong. Has anyone experienced something like this?

Thanks

Angus_D · Dec 22, 2002, 07:24 AM

Have you tried looking in the system.log file for any error messages? Boot into Single User, type "more /var/log/system.log" and hit spacebar until you get close to the end

Also note that you should not log into the GUI as root, it's a recipe for disaster.

BigMark · Dec 22, 2002, 05:49 PM

thanks for the reply. I haven't checked out the system.log yet.

Logging into the GUI as root is fine if you know what you're doing

BigMark · Dec 23, 2002, 10:56 PM

Just for those kind hearted souls who have helped me with this (......), I am still suffering from this problem.

I delved into the system log, and from the pertinent info I can decipher, there is alot of mentioning of Timbuktu not being able to be "launched prebound".

Secondly, there is mention of a crashdump being written to the login.window crash log

Thirdly, and maybe most significant, "loginwinde [447]: (CSYNC DEBUG) : GetProfileBySpaceFromShmem returned NULL for 'GGGG'" : Calling Dispatcher"

Anyone know what the hell this means?

awaspaas · Dec 24, 2002, 12:37 AM

Have you tried running repair disk permissions? I had a very similar problem and that solved it.

awaspaas · Dec 24, 2002, 01:18 AM

[dp, sorry]

moki · Dec 24, 2002, 03:53 AM

Originally posted by BigMark:
thanks for the reply. I haven't checked out the system.log yet.

Logging into the GUI as root is fine if you know what you're doing

I realize this doesn't help your problem, however, I have seen many, many people who "knew what they were doing" but managed to inadvertantly muck up their system while logged in as root (usually they mess permissions up so regular users don't work properly anymore).

ZackS · Dec 24, 2002, 11:05 AM

Logging in as root in 10.0 and 10.1 were recipies for immediate disaster. The Finder would set bad permissions on anything you touched. With 10.2, things are better but just performing routine tasks while logged in as root can turn an OS install into a permissions nightmare.

chris v · Dec 24, 2002, 12:31 PM

Originally posted by BigMark:
Just for those kind hearted souls who have helped me with this (......), I am still suffering from this problem.

I delved into the system log, and from the pertinent info I can decipher, there is alot of mentioning of Timbuktu not being able to be "launched prebound".

Secondly, there is mention of a crashdump being written to the login.window crash log

Thirdly, and maybe most significant, "loginwinde [447]: (CSYNC DEBUG) : GetProfileBySpaceFromShmem returned NULL for 'GGGG'" : Calling Dispatcher"

Anyone know what the hell this means?

Can you boot into OS 9 and delete the loginwindow.plist files?

Just a thought.

CV