Kenneth Lu

Q: Mavericks Fast User Switching: Slow 30 second delay when logging in and logging out of second account

Since Mavericks:

 

Steps to reproduce:

 

1) Log in to account 1.

 

2) Use Fast User Switching to switch to account 2 (which is not logged in yet)

Expected behavior: Starts logging in right away

Actual behavior: I get a spinny circle for 30 seconds right after typing in the password, and then it starts logging in.

 

3) Switch back and forth between the two accounts. This works fine now. Switches are instant.

 

4) Log out of account 2.

Expected behavior: Logs out and brings me to system log in prompt.

Actual behavior: Gray screen with just my arrow cursor for 30 seconds before I get the system log in prompt.

 

It seems to me based on the almost exact 30 second delay that some sort of timeout is likely being triggered. Maybe it's looking for something each time, and then giving up after 30 seconds?

 

I upgraded my system in-place from Mountain Lion.

 

Things that don't work for me:

 

I've seen this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23553439 which talks about disabling Parental Controls, but none of my accounts have parental controls enabled.

 

I've seen this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23639466 about a spinning cursor on log out, but I only get an arrow cursor on log out. It's on log in switch that I get a spinning cursor. Plus I don't have any Western Digital drivers installed.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Jan 27, 2014 12:01 PM

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Q: Mavericks Fast User Switching: Slow 30 second delay when logging in and logging out of second account

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Kenneth Lu,Solvedanswer

    Kenneth Lu Kenneth Lu Jan 27, 2014 12:35 PM in response to Kenneth Lu
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Notebooks
    Jan 27, 2014 12:35 PM in response to Kenneth Lu

    Oh hey I solved my issue! Turns out I had to delete /System/Library/Extensions/ElmediaPlayer.kext which I didn't even know I had.

     

     

    How I came about my conclusion:

     

    After downloading EtreCheck (recommended elsewhere in these forums for checking what's installed on your system), I found that I had some old kernel extensions installed:

     

      com.orderedbytes.driver.CMUSBDevices (4.6.0 - SDK 10.6)

      com.orderedbytes.driver.ControllerMateFamily (4.6.0 - SDK 10.6)

      com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.6.6 - SDK 10.6)

      org.pqrs.driver.KeyRemap4MacBook (9.2.0)

      com.eltima.ElmediaPlayer.kext (1.0)

     

    KeyRemap4MacBook is something I'm using, so I kept it, but I uninstalled ControllerMate, Soundflower, and ElmediaPlayer. The first two I uninstalled using their respective uninstallers.

     

    The last, ElmediaPlayer, was something I don't even remember trying. It's a media player I must've tried out and deleted years ago, but that left a kernel extension behind. ***. Why does a media player silently install a kernel extension?! There are other reports of it causing kernel panics and such online, while the developers tend to get really defensive about it...

     

    After rebooting, the problem was gone! Fast User Switching was fast again!

     

    But which of the 3 kexts was the actual problem? Suspecting that ElmediaPlayer is the misbehaver, I re-installed Soundflower and ControllerMate.... and still no problem!

     

    Now technically I should re-install ElmediaPlayer again as well to make sure it's not just something that went wrong with my particular installation, but I think I'm going to pass on that...

  • by Kenneth Lu,Helpful

    Kenneth Lu Kenneth Lu Jan 27, 2014 1:34 PM in response to Kenneth Lu
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Notebooks
    Jan 27, 2014 1:34 PM in response to Kenneth Lu

    Er.. Oops I go back on my previous comment.

     

    After more testing, I discovered that ElmediaPlayer was NOT the culprit. Rather, it was this sequence of steps:

     

    1. Install Soundflower

    2. Move /Applications/Soundflower into a different folder (e.g. subfolder)

     

    THAT is the true cause of my problem. I didn't notice it before because right after re-installing Soundflower, I hadn't moved the folder yet. So appologies to ElmediaPlayer for my false accusation.

  • by finetuned,

    finetuned finetuned Dec 31, 2015 4:29 AM in response to Kenneth Lu
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 31, 2015 4:29 AM in response to Kenneth Lu

    In case somebody runs into this problem and reads this, here's a solution I found to the same problem: Here's how to fix slow user switching on Mac OS X