Try implementing the following commands in the command line on your problem 10.4 clients to see if it resolves the login issues:

Make sure you are logged in with an administrator account.

Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities).

Create a backup of the current NFS Startup script with this command on a single line:

sudo cp /System/Library/StartupItems/NFS/NFS /System/Library/StartupItems/NFS/NFS.bak

Open the NFS Startup Item script for editing with nano by using this command:

sudo nano /System/Library/StartupItems/NFS/NFS

To locate the section of the script that starts automount, press Control-W, type “automounter”, and press Return.

Under the section “Start the automounter,” change the line that reads:

automount -m /Network -nsl -mnt ${AUTOMOUNTDIR}

to read:

automount -1 -m /Network -nsl -mnt ${AUTOMOUNTDIR}

Change the line that reads:

automount -m /automount/Servers -fstab -mnt /private/Network/Servers \

to read:

automount -1 -m /automount/Servers -fstab -mnt /private/Network/Servers \

Save the file (Control-O, Return), and exit nano (Control-X).

Reboot.

Let me know if that works. If it does, you can use ARD to roll out this file to all of your clients.

This is actually a fix specified by Apple to help Active Directory plug-in login issues. It should really be specified for anyone having your issue.

What I think it happening is that the automount process is trying to do too many mounts at once from a server with multiple automounts. The -1 option simply tells it to do one at a time.

If you ask me… this fix should be rolled out into a general release. It is affecting a lot of people. I haven’t checked to see if 10.4.9 does it. Probably not though.