Cannot login

Similar problem here. Login recognizes an incorrect password. With a correct password, the Logging In bar shows briefly in the login pane, then the Leopard outer space background shows with nothing else for quite a while. Then a blue screen, followed by the login pane again.

I have not updated the system recently. All I can think of that might be different is that I disabled a few duplicate fonts in the user library using Font Book.

Safe Mode doesn't help.

Running fsck in single user mode shows no problems.

try the links on this [page|http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1541].

I already looked at that page. The only applicable suggestion (resetting the password from single user mode) did not fix the problem.

i had a similar problem last week

have 2 user accounts on my mac (mine and my wife's) and all of a sudden i couldn't log on - kept getting returned to the logon screen

i hand't upgraded or installed any software since the 10.5.2 update a few months back

in the end the only thing that 'fixed' the problem was doing an archive installation with the leopard disk

After an hour or so at the Apple Store, the Genius Bar guy couldn't figure out what might be wrong. "Maybe a one got turned into a zero," he speculated.

Archive & Install seems to have fixed the problem. Huh.

I just started having this problem as well. Just started happening this morning. However, I can log in to the Guest Account. When I do this I see that Spotlight is indexing my drive. I can't ever see how long the indexing process is going to take. I suspect never since I waited over ten minutes for the little Spotlight window to give me a time estimate but I never got one. Who knows. I didn't try to log into the other regular user account (other than my own account.)

I understand that the solution that has worked for many on this thread is to perform an Archive and Install. That's great--however I'd rather not have to go through the process.

I just backed up my machine two days ago using Time Machine. How would I fare it I started up from the Install DVD and chose the option to restore from a backup? Could I choose to restore the System Folder and see how that goes?

Would it be better? safer? quicker?