Greetings...

System = Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS release 4 (Nahant Update 2)

Problem:

* Everything was working fine
* End user reported system wouldn't boot
* Rebooted system, ran disk check, and was able to get system back online
* When I try to login with root, or a user account via GUI, the screen turns blue, shows a mouse cursor, and just sits there.

Notes:

* I can ctrl+alt+F1 and login with root or the user account from the shell without error
* I can reboot in init 3, login via the shell, and do a starx without error
* I can login with an NIS account without error via the GUI that hangs on local accounts
* If I login with an NIS account, then log out, I am then able to login with the local accounts without the screen freezing on me.

This is a very strange problem, and I can't find any errors in the system logs that say why the screen is hanging like it is.

Any ideas?

This sounds like a problem with the users session

Try logging in as a different user, see if that works. If it does, then some info in the users home directory isn't correct any more. Is he using KDE or Gnome?

Groetjes,

Kees-Jan

The system had one local user account other than the root account.
I cannot log in with either account.
The home directories are in /export/home.
I also tried creating a brand new second user account, and it has the same problem.
The system has both KDE and GNOME.
It doesn't matter which one is selected. The problem happens for both environments.

When the screen turns blue, press Alt+Ctrl+F2. I hope your system still works. Try to see if there is a file named .X0_lock or something similar. Delete this file, if it's there and you should be able to login then.

I can't promise this would work, though.