Accounts preference pane blank

M

mdawson

Registered
I have just noticed my Accounts preference pane is blank.

I have tried the following.

From working back up have replaced the Accounts pane and /Lib/Prefs/com.apple.preferences.accounts.plist.

Removed com.apple.preferencepanes.cache, com.apple.systempreferences.plist, loginwindow.plist and rebooted.

But no change.

Found this advice somewhere:
---------------------------------------------------------
Open the NetInfo Manager in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder and look for user accounts that have no name property or for which the name property is reported as not being an UTF8 string; if you find any, create or change the name property so that it has the same value as the realname property.

Do not delete anything in the NetInfo Manager.
------------------------------------------------------------

However, I don't understand this.

I have 2 user accounts ' 'michael' and 'test' - the latter for moments like this!
I used 'safe boot' to get me to the log in window but only 'michael' shows. I wanted to try 'test' to see if the problem was still there.
Safe boot did not cure the problem.

Any ideas much appreciated.

Michael
 
hey michael,
welcome to the forums. help me understand what is blank on the accounts pane. when you click it from sys prefs the left side where the users are is blank... or the entire window is blank?

also, did you just upgrade to a new version of the OS? when was the last time that it was working?

if you just upgraded to leopard... have you made sure you've run the keychain update? it's important that you're at 10.5.1 if your having login issues.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306840

also, you can try to bring up the "other" box and type in the username and password if it's not listed. (your "test" user that is)

use the down arrow key to highlight the normal account icon, then press option+return to bring up the entry fields. type in test and the password and press enter. can you get in that way?
 
Dear Xero

Thanks for your reply. Sorry for the delay in replying - I assumed an email alert would be sent. I hope you are still there!

The entire window is blank thus cant access "test". I am using OS 10.4.11 and have not upgraded to a new OS lately. I am not sure when/how this occurred. Just found it blank one day.

In desperation I tried 'erase and install' I have two back ups on ext hard drives. One has 4 partitions for each of my 4 Macs. But Mac's Migration Assistant could not see the MacBook Pro back up, only the other three back ups. I switched to my dedicated MacBook Pro back up drive and it could not see that either.

I then tried the archive and install. After installation and first restart the log in window appeared but would not accept my user name and password. I then used the start up CD to re-enter the password but no change.

Michael
 
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