Blank (lighted, but black) screen with cursor at bootup

I had the same issue with my 2008 iMac and Apple support walked me through the fix yesterday...

1. Shut the computer down by holding the power button for 10 seconds

2. Restart the computer and press shift at the same time until you see the progress bar start moving

3. Once you reach the point where your screen goes dark and you see the cursor, type the first letter of the username for your computer, then hit Enter, then type your password, then hit Enter.

4. After a moment, you should see the spinning beach ball

5. Your screen should then move on to something along the lines of "Completing OSX Installation" (I can't remember the exact wording). Let it finish. After that it should go to your normal desktop and the issue should be fixed. (If your screen goes pitch black during this process, hit the space bar. I thought it wasn't working, but the screen was just sleeping).

Apparently it's an issue with an automatic update that never quite got past the login screen.

Hope this helps!

This was very helpful. I was stuck after trying every logical work-around and this did the trick. Thank you!

Just wanted to bump this up for anyone else having trouble with the updates, the solution sounds crazy and I thought it wouldn't work, but sure enough, fixed the problem!

Hurraayy! solved my problem! I was thinking shipping mine to repair shop! Thanks alot!

The jesseinma works for me. I am writing this from my mac. BUT

Do you know if the mac work fine after reboot having applied the jesseinma's process?

Same problem, but this didn't work for me at all. Wound up having to reinstall an older OS and re-upgrade back to 10.9.2. Is this problem likely to repeat? Is it a consistent issue or more likely a glitch? Thanks.

THANK YOU! it was easy when I remembered my MAC's name! simple.

Thanks you again.

This isnt working for me... What am i doingw rong?

Wow!!! I spent my entire day trying every possible fix for this issue. I finally found this option and it worked like a charm! What a major relief it was. Thank you for your suggestions-I'm so happy it was such a simple fix!

For those that the quick fix couldn't help.

Shut down the computer, wait ten seconds. Boot up holding down Command and S.

Release the keys once you see a black screen with white text. When the text stops, the bottom line should be

root#

Type in the following lines, after each line hit the return key.

mount -uw /

cd /Library/Preferences

mv com.apple.loginwindow.plist oldlogin

reboot

Once computer is rebooted, wait a few seconds if you are still getting the black screen, click around with your cursor.

Same thing happened to me.

Hope this helps.

I can see spinning beach ball after pressing the first letter of my user name.

But nothing happen after pressing the password.....

Thank you 213JB !

Fixed finally!

Great relieved

It is worked

Thanx :)

HHi I have the same issue and the solution isn't working for me either, did you get a fix if so do you mind me asking what solved it for you??