Terminal is stuck and will not function

Given that you've reset the prefs, I would check the MacPorts forums or aircrack for help on what it isntalled that is hijacking your shell.

It has possibly change /etc/profile, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, or ~/.profile.

By default, it is not used.

You can delete it by running this as a command, with the "Run command inside a shell" option selected:

rm ~/.bash_profile

In Terminal, select New Command from the Shell menu.

If you think you messed up .bash_profile in your home account, it can just be deleted.

Do that, then restart Terminal.app and see if it logs in.

Have you got access to another Terminal application (if not download the free iTerm2) ?

If so, check to see if you have files called

~/.bash_login

~/.bash_logout

~/.bash.rc

~/.profile

If so, delete them. Restart Terminal. If the problem remains, examine (but don't delete)

/etc/profile

and post the contents here.

Message was edited by: softwater /please note the first four file names have a dot before them after the slash/

Create a new user account in

 > System Preferences > Users & Groups

Log in to the new account. Does the Terminal app work?

Both of those things are normal.

You should do two things now.

First, go back to your normal user account and go to

 > System Preferences > Users & Groups

Click the tab marked 'Login Items'. If you see anything related to the software you recently installed, delete if from the list (to do so, you highlight the item in the list and hit the — minus button underneath the list; do not choose the 'hide' checkbox). If you're not sure about any of the items in the list, just remove everything entirely.

Restart the mac, log into your normal account again and see if Terminal works.

--------------------------------------

If no, do the second thing:

Log into the new 'test' account; open Terminal.

At the command prompt, type

bash

press 'return' then type

login

press 'return' then type

(your normal user name, that is the name of the account having the problem, not the test account)

press 'return' then type

(your normal password)

press 'return' then type

cd ~/; ls -alF

Look for those four files I talked about earlier. If they exist do

rm filename

press 'return' and repeat for any you find. Then type

cat /etc/profile > ~/Desktop/profile.txt

Press 'return'. Log out of Terminal and the account. Log back in to your normal account. Test to see if Terminal works.

If not, return to this page and post the contents of the file on your desktop called 'profile.txt'.

softwater wrote:

Look for those four files I talked about earlier. If they exist do

rm filename

press 'return' and repeat for any you find. Then type

Just to be clear 'filename' should be replaced with the actual name of the files I gave in the list earlier (e.g., .bash_login and so on)

No need to delete bash history. But you do need to find your bash profile.

Go back to Terminal in the other account. Repeat the 'bash' and 'login' commands as before. Then type

cd /etc

press 'return' then type

ls -alF

Is there a file called 'profile' in the list?

If yes, type

vi /etc/profile

press 'return' then

-- --- -- -- -- -- - --

EDIT: Press 'esc' on the keyboard, then type

:q

Press 'return' then type

-- --- -- -- -- -- - --

cp /etc/profile ~/desktop/profile.txt

If no, report that back here.

Everything "Softwater" has been telling you is good.

Your /etc/profile looks good.

Back to an earlier question about 'bash' in the title, that is the default title information when running the 'bash' shell, which stands for Bourne Again Shell, which is a double joke, as the original shell was written by Steven Bourne, and 'bash' is a rewrite, so it was Born Again :-) The shell is the bit of code that reads the keyboard, executes the commands you enter, and directs the output back to the terminal. There are other shells, but 'bash' is the default for Mac OS X, and it is good shell.

The fact that you could create a new account and NOT have the problems says your problems are local to your home directory. Anything global would have affected the 'test' account, but they did not.

I'm betting you overlooked .profile, as it does not contain 'bash' in its name, and it is very common for 3rd party command line installation instructions to suggest adding something to .profile.

If you could, would you please use the Terminal -> Shell -> New Command to try removing .profile

rm .profile

rm .bash_profile

rm .bash_login

rm .bashrc

The other 3 are because I want to be sure. DO NOT include an ~ nor any wildcard characters such as *. Just enter what I have shown via individual Finder -> Shell -> New Commands (Command-Shift-N for short).

Then try starting a new Terminal session

If this does not work, please consider using Terminal -> Shell -> New Command to provide a listing of all the files in your home directory (you may edit the list for anything that does not include a dot at the first character, but if the file listed is not sensitive please consider leaving it in the list you post

/bin/ls -laeO@

You can triple click on the last line, then scroll back to the beginning of the list, and SHIFT-Click to select all of the lines. Then Command-C to copy it. Finally paste it into a text editor, such as TextEdit so you can clean it up (filter out stuff we should not see).

I am hoping that again trying to remove any shell related initialization scripts will clear this up and you will not need to tell us what is in your home directory.