Sudden appearance of a log in box on iMac

This morning I booted up my iMac(after just shutting it down last night) and a log-in box appeared. In 15 months of owning this machine, I've never seen a log in box(computer isn't even passworded, no need and I don't want it). Anyway I couldn't get around it and didn't have a password to log on. Called Apple and the girl got me into my iMac, but she wound up adding a password. Now every time I turn it off and turn it on, I have to provide the password.

I hate it and would like to turn everything back off. Any ideas or should I just call Apple? In System Preferences, under account, it's got automatic login for my name. This fix also caused Mobile Me to forget it's password and a few other passwords to be forgotten. I think I've fixed all that, but I don't know if it caused the problem below

This has been my worst day owning an Mac because tonight, all 3 of my calendars got deleted when Mobile Me malfunctioned and I'm lost on what to do. Sorry for the sob story, but it's just been a horrible computer day

class77 said:

This morning I booted up my iMac(after just shutting it down last night) and a log-in box appeared. In 15 months of owning this machine, I've never seen a log in box(computer isn't even passworded, no need and I don't want it). Anyway I couldn't get around it and didn't have a password to log on. Called Apple and the girl got me into my iMac, but she wound up adding a password. Now every time I turn it off and turn it on, I have to provide the password.

I hate it and would like to turn everything back off. Any ideas or should I just call Apple? In System Preferences, under account, it's got automatic login for my name. This fix ...

Click to expand...

So, is it fixed or not???

If not, go back into the preferences and turn off the auto login, close preferences, open them back up and put the check back in - try a reboot. See if that works.

Bless you Bobtomay. It wasn't working,but you fixed it! Thank you.

I've got one more question. When I used to install new software, I also didn't have a password. I just hit return and left the password field blank. Will this new password have to be inserted now when I install software or is this entirely different?

Am sure that it will... it may seem a hassle, but you are much safer this way - as long as you don't forget your password.

You could try going into Accounts and change your password back to a blank one - have never done this on any computer and don't recommend the practice though.

Thanks for everything Bob. You made my day!