Terminal on Mac won't launch a shell - stuck on login: incorrect I've been having this issue for a while where I come to open the Terminal and I'm met with this:

Login incorrect
login: _


I've already deleted the com.apple.terminal.plist to no avail. The really interesting thing is that sometimes it works, maybe 1 in 50 times. I literally have no idea what might be causing it and after searching the web for the better part of half a day it seems everyone else's issues are fixed when they delete the plist file.

How do I sort this out? I've tried running different shells (bash and zsh), but I still get this log in screen.

Also when I use Activity Monitor, I can see there is no shell running just the login.
What worked for me was:


Completely close all terminal windows.
Open Finder from the Dock.
Press Command+Shift+G and type in ~/Library/Preferences/, then press enter.
Locate the file called com.apple.Terminal.plist and rename it (using highlight and then single click) to com.apple.Terminal.OLD.plist.
Re-open the terminal app.


Note that the file might also show up in Finder as com.apple.Terminal if you do not show extensions by default.