Login woes

§$%$##*- meaning arrgh.

sorry, my login settings are again scrambled. Mac OS X does this repeatedly and regularly by itself to me, so I guess it's a feature.

But every new fresh installation sets the login to "automatic", and after a little while I find myself presented with a request for my password, which in itself is no problem. The 2-4 minutes waiting and looking at the spinning cursor before the login screen appears is one.

I cannot select any other user than myself and the login pref pane unter SystemPrefs gives me the infinte spinning cursor. Neither can I reset it to "automatic" nor can I create a new user account, nor change passwords from there. I did regain access by booting from an X cd though and by resetting passwords. This solved the 2-4 minutes wait state issue.

Where, oh Lord, does Mac OS X save these settings?
After looking throughout the .nib and .object files I thought it would be somewhere in com.apple.loginwindow, but I do not see it there. Can it be that this is in Netinfo?(Haven't found it there)

Mac OS X differs a lot from "normal" UNIX as it has these bypassing features and seems not to use standard places for things.

Anyone with a little insight, please? I don't want to reinstall again.

...sooooo, I now found out at least something. The console output brought it to the light. There is some network activity that times out before login or logout is successfully terminated.

For what lookupd is looking only hell knows. A time server? A name server? A local netinfo server? Why on earth is it looking for some network resource if nobody did instruct it to do so?

The shiny new underpants of UNIX now really show off.
So what do I have to do? I must go to the terminal and rearrange search orders by manually typing in some cryptic stuff like this, which I now understand, but Lord nows how long I'll remember:

1. Create a file called lookup.txt like this (better to use pico)
-- cut here --
{
"LookupOrder" = ( "CacheAgent", "NIAgent", "YPAgent" );
"name" = ( "lookupd" );
"MaxThreads" = ( "12" );
CHILDREN = (
{
"name" = ( "groups" );
"LookupOrder" = ( "CacheAgent", "NIAgent", "YPAgent" );
},
{
"name" = ( "users" );
"LookupOrder" = ( "CacheAgent", "NIAgent", "YPAgent" );
},
{
"name" = ( "hosts" );
"LookupOrder" = ( "FFAgent", "CacheAgent", "NIAgent", "YPAgent", "DNSAgent", "NILAgent" );
},
{
"name" = ( "netgroups" );
"LookupOrder" = ( "CacheAgent", "NIAgent", "YPAgent" );
}
)
}
-- cut here --
2. enable user root in your NetInfo
3. change to user root (su - )
4. change to the directory where your lookup.txt is located.
5. execute the command:
niload -r /locations/lookupd / < lookup.txt
6. done

This stuff is curtesy by macnn fora. It didn't grow in my garden, so I put credit where credit is due.

However, fiddling with my old UNIX bible doesn't help much, because all of this NetInfo stuff is pretty much off of "normal" UNIX.

I cannot help, but how is Apple Support dealing with this kind of stuff?
Quote:"We did pass your request and failure report to superior tech help for further investigation. They are trying to repeat your issue and will contact you asap."



This will be a nightmare for the "average joe user" and Apple service dept as well I guess.

Mac OS X as default by spring? :eek:
Not without a netinfo bible at hands!

My two cents. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: Kate ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by starfleetX:
<strong>I guess your Mac really does hate you, Kate. </strong><hr></blockquote>

...you have not heared about my Finder being now a bilingual app, no?

Some of the entries of the Finder menu is US English, some is German, some of it used to be Italian. However, this multi cultural menu did not hinder it from working.
This was so after my last clean installation, which included a dedicated sweeping of diskspace before the clean install took place.

BTW, if you look at the Apple TIL about strange things during startup don't follow their advice referred to as "advanced step". It renders your Mac OS X system garbage.

P.S. Anybody interested in magic? Mount a disk image and open it, so it gets displayed in a Finder window. Click the desktop and create a new empty folder. Alas! The new folder is displayed not on the desktop, but in the disk image window, but without icon. Click the window and the new folder falls back to the desk.

Mysteries of a new system and Unixy underwear to scare away the brave, what more can you whish for?

[quote]Originally posted by Code Master:
<strong>Gee Kate, you're having all the problems...
CD</strong><hr></blockquote>

After using the above posted setup my login woe is gone.
I can happily stand the multilingual Finder, the big and clumsy buttons and pull down menus that break nearly all web pages are more annoying.

Please do not suggest another install! This is number seven in my list done during the last two weeks, my nerves are thin as my bank account!

I am anticipating the next installation session when 10.1.2 gets released, which will be soon enough to kick me down the cliff. <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />

[quote]Originally posted by ThunderPoit:
<strong>

kate, i believe this is not magic or a bug, ]</strong><hr></blockquote>

..interesting to hear, for me this works only with Finder windows showing a mounted disk image, nothing else. It would have appeared before and I checked right now, but cannot repeat the same behaviour with normal windows or application windows.

Must be a toggled bit on my install CD then....