Can’t log in or change password. Error -14120

[huwmac]

My clients 10.4 Xserve “crashed” in some way yesterday, I’m not sure exactly what happened but someone decided to power the Xserve down and back on again. All was well after the reboot – for them but not for me. I cannot log in using either my admin account or as root which was enabled. If I log in using another users ID , I can see my account in WGM, but if I attempt to reset/change my password then I get the following “The password coulc not be set. An unexpected error of type -14120 occured All other settings were saved”.

Netinfo manager suggests that root is still enabled but again I’m unable to login as root. Intersetingly I can use my username and password to authenticate keychain access and other apps, but not log in. Anyone have any (hopefully not too tehnical ) suggestiond?

TIA

Huw

[dfederici]

I just had the exact problem yesterday. If setting the password in single user mode does not work you will have to replace your Netinfo Database with the backup copy. Go here for instructions.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107210

It worked for me.

[huwmac]

I’d just like to say that it worked for me too. Although some / most people may realise this already, I’d like to point out that in my case deleting the NetInfo DB not only cured the password problem by defaulting things but it also removed my shares and removed all users, groups and passwords.

[Author]

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