[BBLISA] tty login vs gnome/kde screen lock

[Edward Ned Harvey]

> I have a Centos 4.4 system (unpatched) that lets me log in via
> tty/console, but when the Gnone or kde screen lock kicks in, my
> password
> is unable to unlock.  I am absolutely certain I an typing the correct
> password.  I had to Alt-F1 to log in that way, issue a sudo reboot,
> then
> logged back in, enabled the screen lock, typed my password again, and
> it
> would not unlock.

That's an interesting one cuz it makes no sense at all.  

* What are you using for auth?  (files, nis, ldap, etc?)
* Is the user locking the screen root, or some regular user?
* You've double-checked the caps lock, right?
* Try doing ctrl-alt-f1 to get to cmd prompt, and then alt-f7 to get back to
gui; this reloads the keybd & mouse X drivers, and sometimes fixes
keybd/mouse related gui problems
* Did you do any kind of language change during or after installation?
Maybe the keys you're typing are remapped, for example, to dvorjak keyboard,
or French keyboard, etc.  Try typing your password once into the "user"
field so you can see it's appearing correctly there.
* On the txt line, try tail -f /var/log/messages during the attempted screen
unlock.  It might give you a clue.