Terminal Not Working

Create a new user account and let us know if they problem is there as well.

OK. That's good.

Did you happen to create a .bash_profile (or .profile) file in your home directory, or maybe something else did? If there is one rename it (or move it) temporarily than try to launch terminal.

The OS doesn't not create those files. You did somehow and at some point. You won't be able to see these files using anything except the terminal. Make sure that other user is an admin user, log in as the other user, do "sudo bash" to get a root shell, then go over to your original account's home directory and delete/fix your .bash_profile.

You can look for them like Etre suggests, or install a trial copy of PathFinder. It's similar to Finder and you can view hidden files (it's free for 30 days.)

http://www.cocoatech.com/

Eric

You speak the truth.

Etre, you have any idea what's amiss?

Curious. Perhaps some application you installed has hacked up your account. See if you can find out the full path to your shell. I think you can find that in System Preferences > Accounts > Advanced.

-U!,

Has anyone been playing with

/etc/profile

Or

/etc/bashrc

These files may or may not exist, but if they do, you should investigate them.

For example, my /etc/profile looks like

# System-wide .profile for sh(1)
if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
 eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi
if [ "${BASH-no}" != "no" ]; then
 [ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
fi

and my /etc/bashrc looks like

# System-wide .bashrc file for interactive bash(1) shells.
if [ -z "$PS1" ]; then
 return
fi
PS1='h:W u$ '
# Make bash check its window size after a process completes
shopt -s checkwinsize

I would look at Terminal -> Preferences -> Startup and see what "Shells open with" is set to.

Has the /usr/bin/login program been replaced with a script or a different version.

At anytime in the past, did you use Terminal -> File -> Use Settings as Default?

I know I'm playing 20 questions, and just fishing for a likely cause.

Message was edited by: BobHarris

Sorry to ask, but is your user account on your Mac also called "-U!"? I'm not sure, but I wonder if it has anything to do with the "-u" parameter your terminal is complaining about.

Oh that's a good thought!

You could try creating another account with a similar name, say "-V!" and see if it has the same problem.

I think renaming the user account won't change all of the low-level stuff that was set when it was created. And if you really want your user account to look like that, you could even try it in reverse, like creating another account called "dummyuser" for example and then renaming it to "-W!".