Hello people, hope your had a great Sunday?

Am having issues logging into my system with a user have been using for a long time now.

Anytime my system boots up and i try to log in with a user have always used to log in, its give me this error
The funny and amusing thing is,have used the same user to log in to my system uncountable times.

I can log in as Root, and to this user that i cant log in with as Root.

I checked my and everything looks good.

Am puzzled and would need from someone prof erring and solution and the cause.

The OS is Oracle Linux 5

Well, the only reasons would be your user is wrong or password is wrong. So either you have caps-lock on, a broken key on your keyboard, or someone changed your password. Since you have root access, not sure what you need help with...log in as root, and change your password back. Look around at the system logs, see who logged in last, and what command(s) were run. Also, how did you 'check' your passwd and shadow files?

You don't say what version/distro of Linux you're using, what environment (home? work?), how many user(s), etc., so it's hard to even speculate on what could have happened.

Hi TBOne.

Thanks for the reply. to give answers to the questions asked.

1)You made mention about the password or user name being wrong, i can tell you perfectly that neither is the case, the password and the username is perfectly right. to squash all doubts, i infact use the same password for the "root" user, yeah you might think that is totally wrong, yeah i agree, its just a personal test computer with Oracle Linux 5 installed on a VMware.
So the puzzling thing is this, i fail to log in with the same password i use to log in as root, so that obvious that no key is broken

2)You asked for my Distr, i use an Oracle Enterprise Linux 5

3)You also asked for how many users, as i said its a test system and personal computer used to get familiar with the LInux OS.

4) You asked how i checked "passwd and shadow file" c'mon , i "cat /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow" just to be sure if the user existed and the password hash in the "/etc/shadow file" for the said user.

Still puzlled and still looking for an answer if one exist?

regards

If the user is locked, login is forbidden. What happens when you unlock the user (as root):

If you want a solution more than an answer how it happened, you can reset the password (again as root):

This will prompt for the passwort twice and rewrite the appropriate line in /etc/shadow.

Sorry, but SOMETHING is obviously wrong with your user ID or password. If they're both correct, you would be able to log in.
That would rule out the broken key...just a stab in the dark there.
Ok.
You didn't say this in your first post, which is why I asked. And if you want to get familiar with Linux, you should REALLY not use OEL or RHEL. Those are commercial, pay-for, server type distros. You can run Fedora, Debian, openSUSE, or Mint, and still have the same capabilities, all with access to online repositories/updates/patches. Also, OEL and RHEL are NOT designed for consumer-grade hardware...so things like sound, bluetooth, etc., may have issues. But, that's up to you...if you want the headaches and old software, enjoy.
So not really 'checking' those files, just looking for the user ID, which is good. As cepheus11 pointed out, if your user ID is locked, you won't be able to log in.

...which brings us back full circle. SOMETHING changed, and SOMEONE had to do it; again, look at the system log files and the user histories for the user(s) on your system. Check the "last" command out, and see who logged in when, and from where. If you accidentally locked your account, unlock it. Reset your password.

Hi TBOne, cephues11 and the whole forum.

sorry have not been back for a while now, been so tied up. Anyway, to let you guys know, the user account isn't locked, cause i checked the status and its not "locked."

have done a reset of the user account

and yeah, the password was reset but still cant log in with the same username

TBOne, you made mention of me checking "logs", don't know if there is any particular log i should check your suggestion please.

Am still puzzled why i cant log into the system with the user account, but can as root into the user account.

so i still need a solution and answer to my question

Have you looked at /var/log/secure? That should tell you the reason it's failing.