I managed to lose access to my Administrator account...

[buc99]

Ok this is embarrassing. Don't fall out laughing too hard.

I was downloading a large file on my Tibook, running 10.1.4 with 512M of ram in case this is pertinent, and walked away. When I came back, the screensaver was up like it should be. However, when I tried to unlock it, it would not recognize my password. No matter how hard I tried nothing worked.

So I rebooted into single user mode, fixed a couple of errors with fsck -y. When I rebooted, I was not immediately able to log back in. Now this has happened before, because my password is rather long and complex and my memory gets bad. So I check out the password I have stored on my Palm for this account and got back. Just to make sure I was not crazy, I decided to repeat my step and see if I could create the same scenario. So I started downloading the big file again, (by the way I had alot more free space than was needed for the download, in case I did not mention this) and allowed the screensaver to come back up. When I tried to unlock it, I again was thwarted. I ensured that I was using the correct password, still no joy. So I rebooted into single user mode and ran fsck -y until there were no errors and rebooted. This time I was completely denied access to the account no matter what I tried to do.

Long story short, I use a different password for root and logged into it. I then changed the password of the screwed account with:

passwd accountname

I logged out and regained access.

Has anyone heard of this before? Do you think I was hacked? Can I check this in the system log or something? Or did I just screw the pooch and accidently wipe my password somehow? Any ideas on the problem and how to avoid in the future are most welcome?

Thanks.
SA

 

[buc99]

I'm now noticing weird keyboard behavior.

Sometimes when I use the shift key, it produces a square followed by the key I was try to use shift on in it lowercase form instead of uppercase. Maybe this has something to do with the problem? Anyone know how I can check to make sure the correct keyboard setting is being used? Please don't say check the keyboard under the System Preferences, I've tried. It does not say anything about what type of keyboard is being used and how to change it.

The same square is produced if I hit the the fn key followed by shift which is directly above the fn. But I promise you I am not hitting them both at the same time. Sometimes my delete key does not wish to go back for a couple o f clicks.

me feels my keyboard is croaking help.

sa

 

[iconara]

This has happened to me aswell. I have a G4/2x450, which as locked me out from my account twice after serious system crashes. the first time I had the root account enabled and everything was fine after a couple of foul words, the second time the root was not enabled and some more foul words were used, whilst reinstalling....

my suggestions are: always enable the root account, and always partition your drive and have your user accounts are on one partition and the system on another. that way you can wipe the system, whithout wiping you own files.


theo

 

[buc99]

I have my Applications and Users directory on different volumes and use fstab to mount them. Lukily, if it does crash bad enough for a re-install I willl hopefully be able to save my files.

I think this is a good idea for everyone and I wish Apple would wake up and adopt this structure in future releases of OSX. It is just another simple way to save data from a system crash. I'm not 100% sure since I have not worked on too many different versions of Unix, but this seems to be a common practice. I know it was on Linux and FreeBSD. Keeping everything on one volume seems no better than Windoze. (Now watch the flaming begin) Point is, Apple should be better than this.

Thanks,
SA

 

[buc99]

However, are you certain that your keyboard is not dirty (or going bad)?

Pretty sure. After a re-install, no more keyboard problem. I re-installed because the keyboard problem would not go away. However the re-install seems to have fixed the issue. I'll keep everyone updated if it goes down again.

Thanks.
SA