Missing lock icon in system preferences

Thanks for helping. I did the plist dump...same problem. I did permissions repair with the start up disk and with the installation disk...same problem.

I have a second user that does not have the padlock. I also used Terminal to create another user account and that user did not have padlocks either.

I cannot create new accounts at all using the system prefs. I also cannot edit any of my network connection information. I can, however, create a new network location by using the "assist me" button and using the assist program to create new network locations. No way to unlock to edit any of them once they are created.

Prior to this problem, I was having permission problems when I was trying to run streaming video from a local news station. Appeared to be linked to a system software upgrade I did in the summer using system update. (Found out the update was a problem through reviewing discussion boards) A later update fixed the problem with the video. During that ordeal, the Keychain app was popping up and not accepting my admin password.

I'm wondering whether the keychaing program was corrupted and somehow has locked the admin and all other accounts out of the padlock. Found a curious note in one of the help articles telling the user to contact the system administrator if the padlock is missing. No further info on what to do.

Any ideas? I'm about ready to backup my data and reload.

Thanks again.

Hi,
The "You can" shows Read only rather than Read & Write. It is dimmed and cannot be modified from the info window.
Owner is system and is R & W.
Group is Wheel with R & W.
Other is Read only.

I've tried resetting the password with Disk 1 and it did not work. It looks like I have to find a way to change the 'You Can" preference to R & W. Can I do that through NetInfo or Terminal?

Thanks.

Hi,

Yes there is a padlock next to the owner drop-down. I can unlock it and change the owner. If I change the owner to the administrator user, the Ownership & Permissions "you can" changes to Read & Write. Did that and the padlock is still missing. If I run fix permissions in Disk Utility, it changes the Owner back to System.

I noticed that the owner drop down does not include a name of administrator, only system and no user is named root. I check my other Pismo that is working and it shows System as the owner with the "you can" as read only. That Powerbook has the padlocks.

This is a great puzzle. I compared the setting using Netinfo for all users and groups with the working Powerbook and all things match. I'm guessing that something in the System Pref's has become corrupted. Or an obscure setting has been changed. I'm going to look through the server administrator manual and see if there is anything there that may give a clue.

Hi Ali B,

When I unlock the padlock, the "you can" drop down is dimmed and says "Read only."
The Access under Owner is "Read & Write" and is dimmed.
The Group is "wheel" and the access under Group is "Read & Write" and is dimmed.
Others is dimmed and is "Read Only".

FYI to anyone interested.

Further playing around with my system to discover the reason for the problem disclosed that sometime in the past I had downloaded and started Tinkertools. I did reset within Tinkertools to return to state before Tinkertools and the computer system did a major crash.

Not sure whether the problem was Tinkertools interaction with a damaged system preferences file or a damaged Tinkertools preference list with the system preferences.

In any case, crash and burn with full reinstall.

Was a great learning experience.

Where I would normally have a padlock, on the bottom left corner of the Network preference panel, the accounts panel...any panel that would normally have a padlock, the padlock is missing.