New Users Not Appearing On Login List - Help!

Question

Hello Mac geniuses,
I run a 10.3.9 network in an elementary school, and I since returning from summer vacation I have had problems with many of my client eMacs not displaying the names of users I have added in WGM. These eMacs are also still displaying the names of accounts I have deleted.
If anyone is kind enough to help a stranger, I have copied below the transcripts of my email exchanges with an Apple tech, in my struggle to get my school functioning again. (I have placed them in the correct order so the 1st email is on top and the last on bottom. The tech's name is John and I am using "Jon" to make it slightly less confusing!).
My very grateful thanks in advance to anyone who can help me.
Jon
On Sep 5, 2006, at 3:28 PM, Jon T wrote:
Hi John,
After deleting and adding users in WGM, some login screens still show deleted users and do not display the new users.
I tried deleting the MCX cache via NetInfoManager on the clients, and even restarted the server, but it has not affected several machines.
Any advice?
Server: Dual 1Ghz G4 (Mirror Door) running Panther Server 10.3.9
Clients: eMacs running 10.3.9
Thanks in advance.
On Sep 5, 2006, at 3:47 PM, John G wrote:
Jon,
Go into the client as the admin account.
Delete /Library/Preferences/Directory Service
Restart and setup Directory Access in Utilities
Let me know if that works.
John
On Sep 6, 2006, at 9:08 AM, Jon T wrote:
Hi John,
Thanks for replying. unfortunately, that didn't work either . . . 
Jon
On Sep 6, 2006, at 2:03 PM, John G wrote:
Jon,
Are you sure the machine is on the network and talking to your
server?
Go into Dir Access and uncheck LDAP and readd the server.
On Sep 6, 2006, at 4:07 PM, Jon T wrote:
Hi John,
Yeah, they're on the network, students can log in using the "Other" option, I can connect to the server and mount shared folders, etc.
I did as you said, rebooted, still no updated list.
Jon
On Sep 6, 2006, at 8:57 PM, John G wrote:
Jon,
Netinfo is probably corrupt.
Follow these directions to blow out Netinfo to create a new one.
Bind back to server.
<OS X frozen while booting.pdf>:
AFP548.com: Articles: NetInfo Recovery Techniques
NetInfo Recovery Techniques
Joel Rennich, [email protected]
4 June 2002
When working with NetInfo, which we are and hope to have some more articles on in the near future, it is important to know
how to back up to a previous version of your database.
1. First, the most brutal way of recovering from a nonfunctional database.
Boot into single user mode by holding down the "s" key while starting up. Follow the handy instructions Apple gives you at the end of the startup sequence and run fsck. Then mount the system root disk as read/write with:
mount -uw /
Now you can get on with recreating your database in a very brutal way. Remove your current database with:
rm -rf /var/db/netinfo/local.nidb
Now remove the file that prevents the Setup Assistant from running:
m /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
And now reboot to get things rolling.
reboot
This will cause the Setup Assistant to launch, complete with music and bouncing blue blobs. If you remember which account you set up first when you last saw this screen, set up that account now. Otherwise, go with whatever you want for your first
Administrator account. If you match it up with the original Administrator account, all of your permissions should be groovy.
Otherwise, get familiar with chown and chmod and you will be able to set things right.
The above method is rather draconian and isn't for times when you need to replace a complicated NetInfo setup, but should work perfectly well for an essentially single user machine. However that probably rules out most Servers.
On Sep 7, 2006, at 8:15 AM, Jon T wrote:
Hi John,
I performed that protocol, but even that didn't fix the problem!
I know I've heard someone once suggest (in a moment of resignation) that I just use the blank name and password fields at login, but this is not really an option in elementary school. I only have 478 users in WGM, so I can't believe that would be too taxing for OS X Server!
Thanks again for your thoughts on this.
Regards,
Jon
On Sep 7, 2006, at 9:53 PM, John G wrote:
Jon,
The last resort is to reimage.
Are you managing computers by Guest computers or
computer groups?
John, we're talking about 23 computers here - re-imaging is not an option for me alone unless I have some technical assistance (I don't know how to 'ghost' images across a network).
I was managing the users by Groups though I did have a list of the computers called "lab computers". I just noticed that when I try accessing the Computers tab in WGM (whether on my teacher's station or on the server itself) I get the same error message:
Got Unexpected Errror
Error of type -14136 on line 432 of
ComputerListPluginView.mm
Please advise!
Thank you again,
Jon

Answer 1

The list of users is a plist file and should be at at /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist on the clients. See this thread for more information:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2368769&#2368769
If you've got a good plist from a client that sees the right users, you should be able to copy it over. If not, try backing up the file from one client and then deleting it and restarting.