Solved; Cannot run commands in Terminal, it is a mystery

[Dr.Pants]

Alright, so, I just installed 10.6.0 on this new (used) Mac Pro 4,1. I muck about with some commands in Terminal (mkdir, ping, curl, nothing that used sudo aside from shutting down), shut down, restart today, find this -

i.e., the computer:~ user: line never appears. So, I can type all I want, but I can't run commands.

There is probably an easy fix to this, I'm just not savvy.

 

[mrchinchilla]

Tried deleting the Terminal.plist located in ~/Library/Preferences/ ?

 

[Dr.Pants]

Just tried that. Same thing happens.

For what its worth, disc permissions are alright, too.

 

[angelwatt]

Have you edited the .profile or .bash_profile files? Have syntax errors in these can cause this behavior. Some applications may edit these files as well. Those files are in your home directory and they're hidden files.

 

[Dr.Pants]

(screwed with this post a little)

So, thanks for all the quick replies. I didn't edit any config field, but somehow I solved my problem. I decide I might as well reboot. Hangs on shutdown, so I decide to hold the power button to power it off.

Turn on, open up Terminal, profit, ka-bam, it works.

So, is there any theories on how I might have screwed it up to begin with? I know I've been pretty vague, but anything helps.

 

[mrchinchilla]

Have you edited the .profile or .bash_profile files? Have syntax errors in these can cause this behavior. Some applications may edit these files as well. Those files are in your home directory and they're hidden files.

He'll need an application to show hidden files as he can't turn it on from Terminal or open the files from within it.

I believe utilities like Onyx and MacPilot and enable the showing of hidden files and folders.

Edit: Nevermind. It was probably a corrupt preference file either from .profile or maybe due to the recent 10.6.4 update (if you've installed it yet) and the reboot probably updated the files. It probably hung because it was deleting cache files.

 

[angelwatt]

He'll need an application to show hidden files as he can't turn it on from Terminal or open the files from within it.

In those cases I usually recommend TextWrangler, which has an option to open hidden files.

 

[Dr.Pants]

It was probably a corrupt preference file either from .profile or maybe due to the recent 10.6.4 update (if you've installed it yet) and the reboot probably updated the files. It probably hung because it was deleting cache files.

Weird on the corrupt files - I haven't installed any updates (explanation: I can only download 17GB of data per month on-location). EDIT - I did install a blackmagic driver so that might have caused it.

But hey, thank you and angelwatt for your help.