Login problem after locking Mac overnight

Question

We have a number of Mac users who are experiencing a similar login problem and we're at a loss to understand why. We are having the same issue on MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, and iMac. Most are using 10.5.6, a few earlier versions. Most have the lastest updates, a couple don't. Each has different energy saving settings as well. So, the issue seems to affect different computer conditions. Also, one user has reset the SMC, but that doesn't work for the Mac Pros, so that's probably not the issue. Below is the original email I got from a user so you can see exactly what is happening.
"I lock my screen when the screensaver is enabled and it works perfectly except when I leave the system locked for a day or more. After being locked for a long period of time it takes a very long time to unlock. For example, I leave at 3PM on Friday afternoon and lock the machine. When I arrive at 8AM on Monday morning it always takes 5-10 minutes unlock the machine. I enter my password and it appears to be attempting to check the password but it just sits there until it eventually fails and says “Please try again.” My password is still entered so I just click “Okay” and it logs me in instantly."
If anyone has any suggestions, I would appreciate it.

Answer 1

joefox2003 wrote:
Thanks for the reply. In answer to your question though about shutting down, the users sometimes need to remote into their computer, so shutting down is not really an option.
How do I view the console logs?
In the utilities directory, run console.app
You can search by date or look at the various logs - error logs, normal logs, etc.
If I do find that one or more applications are causing a problem, is it then just a matter of sutting them down before logging off? It is just kind of unusual in my opinion that this is affecting so many users running so many variations of software, computers, etc.
It may be one app thta is common to all the computers. If an app is not properly written, it may cause a problem if it is forced to shutdown from an external program. When a computer shuts down, there is a signal sent out but unless the app responds to it properly, the app may essentially undergo an unexpected forced shutdown and when restarted need to recover.
Also, if for some reason the Leopard filesystem is flagged as not being properly shutdown, it may run an fsck upon boot, which takes some time, or it may simply copy journaled data which is faster but also make the restart appear slow. These items should show up in the console logs.