OS X log in cookie? It thinks I am logged in but I am not! I can't log in!

Hi Stewart, and a warm welcome to the forums! 🙂

Do you have a link to this Cookie thing?

I logged into it and repaired the permissions, but it didn't help.

With that kind of trouble you don't want to write to the Disk like repairing Permissions until you fix any possible corruption...

"Try Disk Utility

1. Insert the Mac OS X Tiger Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.

(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)

Anyway, I think this is the best way to handle it...

Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: FileVault - How to verify or repair a home directory image ...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2631?viewlocale=en_US

Thanks for the link, appears somebody was confused by it though & did a no-no...

Hello, I have delete the sparseimage file in /Users/.<username>. and reboot, it still said 'You are unable to log in to the user account "username" at this time'.

Now from my 2nd link, but once you get it open you can copy stuff to this account...

1. Log out of your current (FileVault-protected) account.
2. Log in with an account other than the one whose home directory image you want to verify or repair. You can create a new administrator account in Accounts preferences if there isn't already another one you can use.
3. From the Finder's Go menu, choose Go To Folder.
4. Type "/Users/" and click Go.

5. You'll see folder icons for each user account. Select the one that is FileVault-protected (you won't be able to open the folder yet), then choose Get Info from the Finder's File menu.
6. Expand the "Ownership & Permissions" area at the bottom of the Get Info window by clicking the disclosure triangle. You should see "Owner:" set to the shortname of the protected account.
7. Click the small lock icon that's right of the "Owner" field.
8. Enter your administrator name and password.
9. Change the Owner pop-up menu to your current account's short name. The Access menu (under Owner) should change to "Read & Write"; if not, change that menu manually.
10. Close the Get Info menu.
11. Back in the Users window, you should be able to open the folder named after the FileVault-protected account and see the ".sparseimage" file inside.
12. Select the ".sparseimage" file (you won't be able to open it), then choose Get Info from the Finder's File menu.
13. Expand the "Ownership & Permissions" area at the bottom of the Get Info window by clicking the disclosure triangle. You should see "Owner:" set to the shortname of the protected account.
14. Click the small lock icon that's right of the "Owner" field.
15. Enter your administrator name and password.
16. Change the Owner pop-up menu to your current account's short name. The Access menu (under Owner) should change to "Read & Write"; if not, change that menu manually.
17. Close the Get Info menu.
18. Double-click the ".sparseimage" image file. Enter the account's password when prompted. Note: If you do not know the password and mount the image, you may not be able to verify and repair in Disk Utility.
19. In Disk Utility, the ".sparseimage" disk image file should appear on the left side.
20. Select the disk image in Disk Utility.
21. Click the First Aid tab.
22. Click the Verify or Repair disk button, as desired. Note: If the image has issues than cannot be repaired, you may need to transfer files to a different location as discussed in this article.
23. When finished, quit Disk Utility.
24. Unmount (eject) the mounted disk image volume.
25. Get Info on the .sparseimage disk image file again, and change the owner back to the original account name. Note: If this is not done, your Home may not be available when logging in as the protected account.
26. Get Info in the enclosing folder in /Users again, and change the owner back to the original account name. Verify that this is successful by closing and trying to open the account name folder (you shouldn't be able to).
27. Log out and log back in as the original, FileVault-protected account.

Verify that you have enough space on your harddrive. I think you need to have enough space to contain a second copy your filevault. I think this is the problem.

I suggest you create an admin id that doesn't use filevault.

I do not think that you can change the logon password of a filevault id without turning off filevault on the id.

Instead of using filevault, I suggest you create a virtual disk with encryption enabled.

Robert

There is also settings for group permissions do they play a role?

Sometimes, but Admin should work for Group.

If nothing else works, you might try BatchMod, it's much better/easier than the Finder for Permission changes...

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/6440

One running just drag & Drop that folder on it's window.

I also saw sometimes a big button at the bottom asking whether to apply those settings to all the enclosed files. I didn't want to press it, just in case

Yeah, I wouldn't try that one just yet.

Whew, if Disk Utility or fsck should fail to repair it, your best bet is DiskWarrior from Alsoft, you'll need the CD to boot from if you don't have another boot drive...

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

Your best bet is DiskWarrior, you need the CD though.

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

But others that may work…

Drive Genius 2…

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php

TechTool Pro 4…

http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83

Data Rescue II...

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

Could I in theory just run Diskwarrior as an app in my apps folder to fix the User sparse image? I mean, it isn't repairing the system the mac boots from...just a sparse image...right?

Correct on both Account, it should work on a DMG once it's mounted, but not as a file while unmounted.

my external HD not bootable...

Why not, you're really missing the Boat by not having a complete & bootable Cloned Image on that Disk, I mean USB2 is a lot slower than Firewire/400, but your Intel Mini could Boot & Run from it in pinches.

DiskWarrior managed to rebuild my broken filevault account in about a minute!!!!!

So the question is...how do I make it bootable when my optical drive is broken? The external drive already has 3 partitions. Each of which has journaling ON. It also uses the GUID format — which i read is necessary.

What size are these Partitions & what size is the internal Drive? And How much does it use?

Actually, GUID is only needed to Install OSX, you can clone your internal drive to an APM Disk & have it bootable, but we'll wait on the details of how to do it until we get that info on Partition sizes. 🙂

Not much we can do with only 27 GB free.

A clone of the smaller user account perhaps?

Wouldn't help without an OS Install on that Partition, which we can't do unless it's GUID, and we can't clone because of lack of space.