Some Tabs Not Working in System Preferences

Question

Mac Pro E2008 14Gb/2Tb.  Installed Mavericks over OS X 10.8.4 with no problems.  Was having some problems with selected fonts not showing up in Pages 5.0.  Ran some font diagnostic software, which isolated some problem fonts.  Subsequent to this I noticed that some Tabs do not work in some preference panes.  In particualr, tha advanced tab in Security and Privacy does not work and the advanced tab does not work in Network Preference pane.  Neither does the + tab in that pane but the - does.  Also cannot edit the three locations that I have in my system.
Found that all is restored when logged into the root account and also into a Maintainence admin account.  I also ascertained that in my faulty account, after taking out the login items plist and starting with no login items, the fault was still there.  Similarly booting into safe mode did not restore the faulty tabs.  I ran font book and deleted all questionable fonts and moved all the user fonts to the /library/fonts folder.  After each action I restarted rather than logging out.  I have tried deleting the systemuiserver.plist and removing the relevant network plists from the user/library/preferences folder.  I have also removed the com.appl.network.eapoiclient.plist and com.apple.systempreferences.plist.  I have also made invisible files visible and gone through the whole system folder/library folder and ~/library folder and deleted old preferences and obsolete files back to 2004 with the result that my system now loads very much quicker, which is an obvious bonus.  However, the problem still remains and is obviously something to do with the main user account.  If I go into root or my maintainence account, I can change or edit some settings which "stick" when I log back into my main account.  I have carried out the mail and iBook update in the mean time which has not changed anything.
I have also ran diskwarrior and corrected the disk directory, repaired permissions, reset ACL's and emptied various caches using tinker tool system and mavericks cache cleaner.  I have I think very thoroughly inspected the library and ~/Library folders.
So, synopsis  (1) Definitely the main account.  (2) No logins or safeboot are not the culprits. 
Whilst not earth shattering and hopefully 10.9.1 may solve the problem, I would be very grateful if anyone could add any further possible problem areas to look at or suggest possible further solutions. 
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Answer 1

Hey there, sounds like you've done a lot of the groundwork already although it's not entirely clear what about the preference panes aren't working. There is further isolation that could be performed however if the issue is isolated to your user account as you mentioned then renaming the home folder library preferences, logging out and back in (preventing login items if any) and testing may give you the results you are looking for. If that works I would copy the files from the renamed Preferences folder *not replacing* existing files when prompted (of course if it doesn't work replace the existing Preferences folder with the original renamed Preferences entirely). The same type of troubleshooting also applies to the user library itself however please be careful about launching apps after renaming the ~/library or the contained prefs folder and before copying unaffected plists and/or supporting files back as unexpected results may follow (i.e. lost or missing data). Also if you are eligible for support (which you almost certainly are as you have very recently installed a new OS) I'm sure Applecare may help find a solution.