Hello,

I don't know what happened to my SuSE 9.3, I've been using it since 2005 October without any problem. It just don't accept my username and password anymore. It keeps coming back to the login page. I tried to login as root, create another user. When I restarted my laptop, at first I was able to login, but when I restarted again, same thing happened, login failed again. Brief error copied from my system log and startup log:

SYSTEM LOG:
Sep 15 14:08:55 linux SuSEfirewall2: Firewall rules successfully set
Sep 15 14:09:01 linux kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Sep 15 14:09:10 linux rcd[8328]: Done loading system packages
Sep 15 14:09:12 linux rcd[8328]: Can't find synthetic package file '/var/lib/rcd/synthetic-packages.xml'
Sep 15 14:09:33 linux modprobe: FATAL: Error inserting sonypi (/lib/modules/2.6.11.4-21.14-default/kernel/drivers/char/sonypi.ko): No such device
Sep 15 14:09:33 linux kernel: thinkpad: module not supported by Novell, setting U taint flag.
Sep 15 14:09:33 linux kernel: thinkpad: I have registered to handle major: 10 minor: 170.
Sep 15 14:09:38 linux rcd[8328]: id=1 COMPLETE 'Downloading https://update.novell.com/data/serviceinfo.xml' time=26s (failed)
Sep 15 14:09:38 linux rcd[8328]: Unable to download service info: IO error - Soup error: Cannot resolve hostname (2)
Sep 15 14:09:38 linux rcd[8328]: Unable to load service 'https://update.novell.com/data': Unable to download service info: IO error - Soup error: Cannot resolve hostname (2)
Sep 15 14:09:38 linux rcd[8328]: Can't find rcd 1.x subscription file '/var/lib/redcarpet/subscriptions.xml'
Sep 15 14:09:38 linux rcd[8328]: Starting heartbeat
Sep 15 14:15:23 linux gconfd (root-9488): starting (version 2.10.0), pid 9488 user 'root'
Sep 15 14:15:23 linux gconfd (root-9488): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/opt/gnome/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only configuration source at position 0
Sep 15 14:15:23 linux gconfd (root-9488): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/root/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at position 1
Sep 15 14:15:23 linux gconfd (root-9488): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/opt/gnome/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only configuration source at position 2

STARTUP LOG
Mount SMB/ CIFS File Systems unused
<notice>startproc: execve (/usr/sbin/smpppd) [ /usr/sbin/smpppd ], [ CONSOLE=/dev/console ROOTFS_FSTYPE=reiserfs TERM=linux SHELL=/bin/sh PROFILE=SIGELANCable ROOTFS_FSCK=0 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.85 INIT=/sbin/init REDIRECT=/dev/tty1 COLUMNS=99 PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/lib/klibc/bin vga=0x314 RUNLEVEL=5 PWD=/ SPLASHCFG=/etc/bootsplash/themes/SuSE/config/bootsplash-800x600.cfg ROOTFS_REALDEV=/lib/klibc//dev/sda8 PREVLEVEL=N LINES=34 HOME=/ SHLVL=2 splash=silent SPLASH=yes ROOTFS_BLKDEV=/dev/sda8 _=/sbin/startproc DAEMON=/usr/sbin/smpppd ]
Starting SMPPPDdone
<notice>startproc: execve (/usr/sbin/sshd) [ /usr/sbin/sshd -o PidFile=/var/run/sshd.init.pid ], [ CONSOLE=/dev/console ROOTFS_FSTYPE=reiserfs TERM=linux SHELL=/bin/sh PROFILE=SIGELANCable ROOTFS_FSCK=0 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.85 INIT=/sbin/init REDIRECT=/dev/tty1 COLUMNS=99 PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/lib/klibc/bin vga=0x314 RUNLEVEL=5 PWD=/ SPLASHCFG=/etc/bootsplash/themes/SuSE/config/bootsplash-800x600.cfg ROOTFS_REALDEV=/lib/klibc//dev/sda8 PREVLEVEL=N LINES=34 HOME=/ SHLVL=2 splash=silent SPLASH=yes ROOTFS_BLKDEV=/dev/sda8 _=/sbin/startproc DAEMON=/usr/sbin/sshd ]
Starting SSH daemondone
Starting service kdmdone
done
<notice>startproc: execve (/usr/sbin/cron) [ /usr/sbin/cron ], [ CONSOLE=/dev/console ROOTFS_FSTYPE=reiserfs TERM=linux SHELL=/bin/sh PROFILE=SIGELANCable ROOTFS_FSCK=0 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.85 INIT=/sbin/init REDIRECT=/dev/tty1 COLUMNS=99 PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/lib/klibc/bin vga=0x314 RUNLEVEL=5 PWD=/ SPLASHCFG=/etc/bootsplash/themes/SuSE/config/bootsplash-800x600.cfg ROOTFS_REALDEV=/lib/klibc//dev/sda8 PREVLEVEL=N LINES=34 HOME=/ SHLVL=2 splash=silent SPLASH=yes ROOTFS_BLKDEV=/dev/sda8 _=/sbin/startproc DAEMON=/usr/sbin/cron ]
Starting CRON daemondone
<notice>startproc: execve (/usr/sbin/hald) [ /usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes ], [ CONSOLE=/dev/console ROOTFS_FSTYPE=reiserfs TERM=linux SHELL=/bin/sh PROFILE=SIGELANCable ROOTFS_FSCK=0 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.85 INIT=/sbin/init REDIRECT=/dev/tty1 COLUMNS=99 PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/lib/klibc/bin vga=0x314 RUNLEVEL=5 PWD=/ SPLASHCFG=/etc/bootsplash/themes/SuSE/config/bootsplash-800x600.cfg ROOTFS_REALDEV=/lib/klibc//dev/sda8 PREVLEVEL=N LINES=34 HOME=/ SHLVL=2 splash=silent SPLASH=yes ROOTFS_BLKDEV=/dev/sda8 _=/sbin/startproc DAEMON=/usr/sbin/hald ]
Starting HAL daemondone
Starting Firewall Initialization (phase 2 of 2) SuSEfirewall2: Warning: ip6tables does not support state matching. Extended IPv6 support disabled.
done
Master Resource Control: runlevel 5 has been reached
Failed services in runlevel 5: network
Skipped services in runlevel 5: nfs powersaved smbfs
<notice>killproc: kill(4487,3)

Hope somebody could help.

There is a problem with 10 and 10.1 when running apps as su when logged in as user. The .ICEauthority files have their permissions changed to root. I don't know about 9.3 though. You could try:
ls -al /home/[username]/
See if any '.' files have been changed to root ownership.

Nope, all permissions for files and folders are assigned to USERS.

You could try and reinstall desktop manager, gdm.
Sorry, no more ideas.

Ok, thanks anyway, my only solution was to create a new user account logged in as root. Copy all files to new user and delete the unusable username.

I hope someone can tell me what had happened.

SOLVED:

Solution: unhide files in home directory, then delete .initrc.

Cause : ymessenger installed is basically for redhat linux.