Problems with console login

undomiel

I've had this problem happen randomly over the past few months where every week or so I suddenly am no longer able to login at the console for Server 2003. When I attempt to login the prompt goes away and I'm left staring at a mouse and a desktop. Mouse moves but that's the only action occurring. Eventually the computer will lock itself which you can unlock only to be left with the same lack of response. I hadn't been able to troubleshoot the problem since it will go away if you reboot the server, and further more you can remote in just fine so it is nothing more than an annoyance at the moment. But I have the time to work on that annoyance right now so I'm seeing what ideas you people might have. No errors recorded in the event logs, memory usage and processor usage and disk usage is normal, no cookie crumbs for me to work with anywhere that I can see. Ending explorer.exe for the user logging in just stops being able to unlock the computer at the console anymore. Also shutting down all third party services doesn't affect anything. Any ideas on how to trap the cause of this hang-up?

sthomas

Try replacing the mouse.

undomiel

Sorry, I should've mentioned it but the mouse works just fine, can move all over the place. No it is getting stuck in the logon process currently for reasons beyond my current knowledge.

blargoe

Are you able to ctrl-alt-del into a task manager window?. The explorer shell might be hanging up, this happens sometimes. If you can get to task manager, you can do a New Task and start explorer and the user interface should appear.

As to why it is happening... I dunno...

liven

Perhaps check the event view after a reboot to see what was happening.


I had a some what similar problem.

I would reboot and it would take about 20 minutes before I could actually login (usually only takes about 1 or 2 minutes).

I finally got in and checked the event logs, to see that a service was failing to start. Can't remember what the service was but once I addressed it the issue went away...

Could at least be a place to start..

undomiel

Thanks for the responses. Nope, no keyboard input is used until it automatically locks the session for the screensaver. Then you can unlock it and be right back where you were with absolutely nothing happening. Nothing logged in the event log, no even remotely applicable errors or some sort of string to follow to see where it is getting hung up. I had used a remote session to end explorer.exe in hopes that it would automatically start back up but no, and since I couldn't get to the task manager I couldn't start it back up to see if it was just a matter of explorer getting stuck.

sprkymrk

Have you tried with different accounts? You might want to log in (remote if necessary) and delete the profile if it's just one account causing the issue. You may need to reboot first to unload the user's profile completely, and you also need to log in with a different account than the one you want to delete.

undomiel

So far it happens with only one account but it is really hard to test since after a reboot it may not happen again for several weeks. Plus you can login remotely with the exact same account while the console is hung-up like that. Only two accounts login to that machine my account and the administrator account. I was wondering if it could be a corrupt profile but then wouldn't it be more consistent in hanging up the login process?

cisco_trooper

NETLOGON service may be terminating every once in a while. Check your event logs for this.

undomiel

All automatic start-up services were running at the time, no applicable errors or warnings showed up in the event logs to give any clues. Authentication throughout the domain was working as well (only one DC) and could login remotely to the server, it was only a problem local to the console of the DC.