Leopard Does Not Recognise My Password - Help!!

This is a good thread - with lots of suggestions, but unfortunately I have nearly tried them all and still cannot get back to my user account.

My problem started with messages about not being able to access the keychain and wanting to know if I wanted to return to default settings. I followed a suggestion in an apple document to delete an apple.com.security.plist (I think)

I had installed Leopard and was in at this point as Colin.V.Aldred but then this user name was not being accepted for various things I tried to do, but it did accept my old admin user name Colin Aldred. I used software update to update to 10.5.1 and then I found Colin.V.Aldred had disappeared from the log in and I have been struggling from there on.

I used the start up disk and reset passwords for both the above accounts and System Administrator. This allowed me to get in as 'root' so I could access my documents, but wouldn't let me log in as Colin.V.Aldred. In System Preferences > Accounts the lock is open and will NOT let me close it. If I try setting up a new account here using Colin.V.Aldred it just says the user name has already been taken, and doesnt give me the chance to revert to this.

When I tried going in using Command-S I typed in everything the Apple article suggested but at the end when I had reset my password it just said cannot change password as colinald (short form of Colin.V.Aldred) is disabled.

The thing I haven't tried is the archive and install but in putting Leopard on my powerbook I am down to only 4GB on an 80GB hard drive and I worry this might just fill it up so it is completely impossible to use.

Will archive and install put more stuff on and fill up my hard drive ? What exactly is the purpose of archive and install ? Anybody got any other ideas ? I have a friend who is also stuck, in a loop after trying to add the 10.5.1 update -is this where the problem lies? Also, reading that the problem originally comes from people having passwords of 8 or more letters, is the idea that any password we NOW use should be less than 8 letters ?

Any help you can give will be massively appreciated.

I like many other people had the same issue when I updated the 10.5 to 10.5.1.

I found another thread http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5797862&tstart=0

Which contained this post :

boot in Single User mode (hold S on startup), then VERY CAREFULLY (a mistake can erase your hard disk) type: ($ represents the prompt, don't type it, (RETURN) represents pressing return, not typing it).
$ rm /var/db/.applesetupdone (RETURN)
$ reboot (RETURN)

that will let you create a new admin user.

Worked like a charm for me, the only thing I needed to do outside of these instructions was to mount the filesystem $ /sbin/mount -wu / (RETURN) before the command line steps above.

Once you delete the .applesetupdone file above you run through the initial setup of the machine and part of this process is to create the main account. Create a temp user and let the setup finish. Once in as this new user you can change you old account to be "admin".

Log out and and in again as your old account, check you can do things that require authentication like "setup time machine" and again using you old account details. If successful you could go ahead and delete the temp user account and your back to square one. Fully functioning Mac OS X.

Hope this works for you!

Colin, I'm thinking you added a new problem on top of your old problem. I just read on MacFixIt that several people found their home user folder missing after the 10.5.1 update. Here's the story, with the fix:

Apple has posted a Knowledge Base article warning that your Home folder can seem to vanish into thin air. Well, that sounds scary! What's actually happened is that the folder has taken on "hidden" characteristics. The solution, Apple says, is to say this in the Terminal: chflags nohidden ~/

Apple's Knowledge Base article: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307033

As to your original problem, my wife's iMac had the exact same symptoms (including the lock in the Accounts preferences that would not lock) but I did get it fixed prior to the 10.5.1 update. I performed an Archive and Install but was very disappointed when the login problem didn't go away. Grrrr. The Archive & Install is always recommended with OS installations, but I never did it that way because I've done dozens of plain old Updates (on at least 5 different computers at home, going from 10.2 to .3 to .4 to .5) without a problem. The 10.5 update was the first one to give me trouble. Although Leopard seems at first blush to be a minor update in terms of features, there's a ton of new code under the hood. Lots to go wrong!

In any case, on my wife's computer the Archive and Install created a 13GB Previous Systems folder. That's either a drop in the bucket or a big problem. For you it's a big problem. And your 4GB of drive space is a BIG BIG problem. On any computer, once you get down to less than 20% unused drive space, your system will slow down; it's considered dangerous to go below 10%. You are at 5%. 'Nuff said.

I got my wife's user account back by following April's suggestion on this thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=5787456#5787456

Ignore everything on that thread except for the post from "For neXtSoft," which is signed "April." It worked for her, it worked for me and for Mikey53 -- after days of hair pulling and trying the more obvious things -- but I don't know why it worked. I'm aware of all the various ways of starting up from an installation disc, but I don't know why her way cured the login issue and the other ways I tried didn't.

Good luck -- Mark

P.S. I'm taking back my 'nuff said concerning your hard drive. Go buy a 160 GB hard drive immediately, whether you get your login problem fixed or not. I've replaced the hard drive in my Ti PowerBook three times -- it's not hard if you have the right screwdriver. http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/powerbookg4/PB_G4_HD_upgrade/pb_g4_hdupgrade.html

The drill: I put my old hard drive in an external Firewire case, do a fresh OS install on the new hard drive, then follow the prompts after rebooting for migrating my old user data over to the new drive via Firewire. (I've also used Carbon Copy Cloner to simply clone my old drive over to the new one, but I'm not sure about CCC with Leopard.) If you feel uncomfortable doing that yourself, the Apple store (or many third parties) will do it for you, some with overnight service. Just google it.

I went through this entire shuffle when I installed Leopard on my iMac. Ended up having to take it in to an Apple service center after 5 days of failed "fixes". Before I install Leopard on my other Macs, is there a patch or a file that can be uploaded BEFORE the install to avoid the same problem on my other machines?

I solved the most basic problem, i.e. to log in at all after a Leopard "upgrade" and am now able to use my Mac as the System Administrator after resetting the root password. Thanks!

However, I'm unable to re-create my old user profile in System Preferences - Accounts. I can only see the administrator and "guest" in the panel on the left and when I try to add a new user with my details, a prompt tells me that "name is used by an other user".

I'm prepared to set myself up with a different user name, but am afraid that I won't be able to get all my old files back.

Any ideas how this could be solved?

I have lost all networks printers and my machine does not recognize my username and password. I have tried to reboot with the Leopard system disk and reset the password (multiple times). That did not work.
I have tried http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306840 multiple times. Each time I get to step 11 of 13 and my keyboard does not work. Any ideas? I have been a mac user since the Mac Plus w/128K and this is the most frustrated I have ever been. Any help would be appreciated.

This is a frustrating upgrade but part of the problem is that the whole underpinnings of the OS has been upgraded. This is definitely one upgrade where it pays to wait for a few patches to appear.

The keyboard - is it a wireless keyboard? If so, do you have an USB keyboard you can use?

Deuk of Windsor,
You are a star. This worked perfectly for me. It has put an end to hours of frustration.
Thank you.

Mine went down today, 11/20/07, 8 days after my warranty ran out on this
little 2004 November, iMac.
Leopard has been the most difficult OS since I started with Mac and that was
in 1989. I sometimes miss the hardy and helpful OS 9.2.2
First with this one it was printer drivers. Got that one fixed.
Then it would not turn back on. Fixed.
Now yes, add me to the "Does Not Recognize My Password" gang.
System Administrator, not!
So the thing is to follow The Duke of Windsor and see what happens?
OK.
Back later.

I followed Duke of Windsor's easy to follow instructions:
:I went through this issue too. This might help some of you I hope:
If you've reset your passwords (including the System Administrator) using the Leopard Install Disk then:
1. In System Preferences -> Accounts click the 'Lock' and you're prompted for a user name / password
2. type 'root' for the user name (without quotes)
3. type the reset password for your System Administrator account

That did the trick for me...

For this helps "
And then had to register this mystery "root" guy, then set up my Time Machine
to the back up drive. Restarted as me, and then had to unlock things again,
but instead of me, I had to use "root" to unlock.
SO! THANKS MAC, you have now opened up a few thousand computers to possible
hack since you've made us all use the same administrator name.
Of course breaking password codes will take a while on some machines.
AmI being paranoid? Do I have any reason to trust anything that the
myriad set of undergraduates are doing with our Leopard code? No.
No trust at all.
I did try to reset with my regular self but that was a no go for now;
I can only hope that a more adventurous Mac guy/girl will come along
and figure out a way around this new problem. It came a day after the
"SECURITY" upgrade. Yea! Sarcasm!

I was really hopeful this would work.. I get to the New Password part and it freezes.. can't write anything.. This is so useless.. Is there one solution that works for everyone?

What about the Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs option? Would that help at all? Too scared to do anything with it.. Don't want to screw it all up even more!

I ended up calling Applecare and was told that as the "root" user, it was not possible to modify other users' accounts or to copy backed-up files into the home folder of a new user.

Reluctantly, I ended up doing an Erase / Install with Leopard (insert Leopard Disk, hold down c key during start-up then follow instructions) and copying the different parts of my back-up home folder into the home folder of my newly created user profile.

I ended up going through my files in detail and cleared out a lot of dead wood, which leaves me with a crisp and clean Mac. At least I've got something to show for all the trouble I went through over the past days!