Missing user account in System Preferences (visible in /Users)

I am having issues with a recent issue.

Problem

I was in the middle of a Chrome session and my MacBook froze (beachball). I powered down and powered back on and was prompted with my user to log in (assuming it was the standard user). I was then taken to a second login screen where I had multiple other users but not my user. It was not showing up.

When I logged into one of the other admin users, I was taken to the desktop. I looked in my /Users folder and I was able to see my /Users/myuserfoldername with the correct files inside.

I then went to system preferences and was NOT able to see my user in the system preferences.

I ran a dscl . list /Users | grep -v '^_' command and was not able to see the real user listed.

I have already attempted to create a new user and merge it with the folder, but it did nothing. I have also tried to turn off Filevault which was also not working.

What is going on here and what can I do to fix it?

Macbook (2015 or later)

Posted on Jan 13, 2019 3:10 AM

Top-ranking reply

cjroe Author

Level 1

8 points

Posted on Jan 14, 2019 3:37 AM

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Attempted Solutions

Restarted into Recovery Mode using CMD+R. From Terminal, ran the command

rm /Volumes/Macintosh HD/var/db/.AppleSetupDone

Restarted the computer. Created a new admin with a different name.

Ran from command in terminal

rm /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/shortusername.plist

Go into system preferences under Users & Groups and create a New User with the same name for the account. It will ask if you want to Use Existing Home Folder - select Use Existing Folder and all should be well.

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Missing user account in System Preferences (visible in /Users)

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