Solution: OS X hangs on start, only spotlight icon is visible

For a while ago I had problem with my OS X. It simply halted when only the spotlight icon is visible. Some searching reveled that this was related to a corrupt font cache.

Gerrit DeWitt describes the problem on Apple Support Discussions:

"The problem is due to a font cache file becoming damaged or being saved incorrectly. I think the situation may be the latter because if you force restart after the hang and restart in single user mode, perform a filesystem check (fsck -fy), then mount the startup disk's filesystem (/sbin/mount -uw /), you'll almost always see a message about orphaned files being cleaned up (deleted). These orphans usually reside in /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS - the ATSUI typography cache folder. The number of orphans removed should exactly match the number of files listed with an invalid name during the filesystem check. Thus, it may be simply that ATS or Suitcase is writing cache files with invalid filesystem names."

So the quick solution is (for me atleast):

1. Boot up in single user mode (see this article)
2. Run a filesystem check (fsck -fy)
3. Mount the startup disk's filesystem: /sbin/mount -uw /)
4. Delete the folder /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS
   by typing: sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS
5. Restart your computer by typing:
   sudo shutdown -r now

Everything should be solved.