When I try to login at the console as root in run level 3 it does not login. The screen clears too fast to see the error. Any idea what I've done wrong?

I was able to login with run level 5, but I changed to run level 3 and rebooted and now can't login. I can still ssh into the machine, but I'd like to know what I've done wrong.

Thanks,
Michael Cunningham

It has a lot with what gets started at the various run levels.

You don't mention distro.

On many you can see what gets started by looking at /etc/rc?.d where ? is the run level. So to see the differences compare what is in /etc/rc3.d with what is in /etc/rc5.d. Start scripts should be in the form: S##name where:
S = Start
## = A number indicating start order
name = Is the base name of the script and is usually the name you'd see it linked to in /etc/init.d.

Note that K##name programs are stop (kill) scripts that are executed when you run shutdown.