Startup hangs with “Login Window Application Started”
If you have a problem where OSX boots up but stops at the blue screen, it probably means something is broken and you’re facing some heartache.
Step 1 is always to see what the error is. Boot into verbose mode and see where it hangs. I recently ran into this behavior and the issue was the LoginWindow application, which shows you the user list so that you can log in. When booting regularly, I’d get to the blue screen and see the spinner, then the spinner would vanish and after a moment return. Wash, rinse, repeat, over and over again. This is the error you see when booting to verbose mode (type in -v when the boot options come up):
/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow: Login Window Application Started
Before you go reinstalling everything, there’s an easy solution, found here:
Note that case is important and be careful. Some of these commands are dangerous, since you are going to be root.
Start up in Single-User mode by restarting the computer. After the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-S keys until you see white text on a black background. When this has finished you will see a prompt ending in ‘#’, although there may be other messages. Enter the following commands after the prompt:
/sbin/fsck -fyPress RETURN. Wait a few seconds for 8-10 lines of output. If the last line says repairs were carried out, repeat this command until you get a message ‘The volume <yourdiskname> appears to be OK’. Then continue with:/sbin/mount -uw / cd /Library/Preferences rm com.apple.loginwindow.plist rm com.apple.windowserver.plist cd /Library/Caches rm -r * cd /System/Library rm Extensions.kextcache cd /System/Library/Caches rm -r * rebootPress RETURN after each command.This should now take you to a proper login screen after the normal boot sequence. You should then Repair Permissions by using Disk Utility (in your /Applications/Utilities folder).