Corrupt/changed user password

Yesterday I had a strange problem with my Mac pro. The fonts in Safari were corrupt. I checked them with firefox and they were alright so I did a quick search on the internet and found that if Safari is used after MS Office 08 is installed it corrupts the fonts until you restart! No problem I though so I restarted, selected my user account and typed my password.....

Woops - The system no longer recognised my password! Nothing I did would work so I restarted using the leopard DVD and tried to use the change password option. For some reason it would not change the password just failing each time! (I can't remember what it said on screen)...

I rebooted again and luckily I had created a backup admin user so I selected that one and got access to MacOS. I went to the system preferences>-Accounts section and tried to reset the password there but again it would not do it so I gave up and deleted my main user account (I am Mr Backup so I didn't loose anything that I couldn't get back). I then recreated the account and rebooted, I could then log in. I restored the user files using time machine and then had a working system....

Ok I thought, some strange glitch probably caused by the evil MS whilst installing MS Office (don't ask!)....

All is well in the Cowasaki household ......

DOH!! This morning I tried to install the Xcode programming stuff from the leopard DVD on my iBook and HORROR it would not authenticate my password! Just like the Mac pro but this time I can't blame MS! This time there isn't anything that I have done the same across these two machines! My only guess is that something has gone wrong with the .Mac syncing system and it has sync'd a fault password! The difference with the iBook is that I have just finished re-installing a few days ago since fitting a spangley new hard drive in it so I hadn't got round to creating a backup user account. The only saving grace is that it boots up and automatically logs me in. I can therefore still use the machine at the moment! The only other machine that syncs the same data is my Xserve which is still authenticating the correct password so I know that is ok.

Luckily once I had re-installed the iBook I connected it via target mode to the Xserve and I have a working image from a couple of days ago so I CAN re-install it but clearly I could do with knowing what the problem is and hopefully an easier fix.

Anybody have any ideas as to what is going wrong ?

Any way to fix the password fault ?

Its got me stumped at the moment...

It could be a possible corrupt Keychain problem...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/9081.html

Well further to my original post I re-imaged my iBook using target mode (I booted up using the leopard disc but couldn't change the disc in the drive in order to restore it using disc utility!). Then I restarted the computer and it would not accept my password again. I rebooted using the leopard DVD and this time it did reset the password giving me access and all appeared well. I wiped the keychain, typed my passwords back into mail and uploaded the new keychain to .mac using the 'reset sync data' option. Then downloaded the keychain back to the other two computers using the same option.

A short while later I noticed that for some reason the computers had all reverted to a full keychain and then tried to delete my keychain again! Guess what - yes it had forgotten my password AGAIN! I am now in the process of restoring the iBook again via target mode.

It's starting to sound like a corrupt preference file. Have you tried deleting it yet? If you're restoring from a backup, that maybe the culprit in there.
You could also try a new user account to do some testing.

Its not even one computer! My Mac pro has just lost its password AGAIN. I am sure it is down to .mac

I'd agree. Does it list what is synced in the Logs anywhere? Or is it all manual what is Synced?

I changed it to manual and selected keychain only. It seems to only affect the two computers running 10.5.2 the xserve seems to have been immune so far. I have just managed to remove my keychain and start again. I then junked the .mac account I was using and set up a new trial one to test it!

I am hoping it is a faulty .mac account. If it all works now I will ask Apple to wipe my account out completely and re-create it as there is clearly something rather amiss!

Good luck and keep us posted!

Looks like it was down to .mac I have stopped any machines syncing keychains and had no problems since....