Discussion, talk and tips
https://forum.puppylinux.com/
My work horse F96-CE_4 suddenly refuses to start correctly at all and I am finding it difficult to repair, with no success trying too as of yet,
It reports a PAM authority problem during system start
I assume it is a frugal install.
So to make sure the actual F96-CE is still working OK.
Try booting not using the save.
We know you have a backup save you could use 
Puppy doesn't support PAM, it uses busybox login (which doesn't support PAM). If auto-login fails and you see PAM-related errors, this is most likely to be because you installed login and replaced your /bin/login with "real" login rather than a symlink to busybox. Boot some other OS and delete bin/login from your save file/folder.
dimkr wrote:Puppy doesn't support PAM
Yes I know..... and that's why when it was installed in some other process it causes conflict. I have experienced it before on other experimental Puppy systems where the /bin/login or /sbin/poweroff and /sbin/reboot get replaced with the actual systemd versions
this is most likely to be because you installed login and replaced your /bin/login with "real" login rather than a symlink to busybox
I agree that this is most likely and what I'll check later today
@dimkr It was the /bin/login was over-written and in the save folder. Deleted it and the system boots again.
I totally overlooked the /bin/login as being the problem. Thanks 
Should make it immutable