AppleID login "unknown error" in system preferences

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AppleID login "unknown error" in system preferences

Hello

I am asked for appleid and password in systems preferences in order to connect - this happens on my MacMini 2012 running Catalina (up to date) let's say every three or four days (message: some applications require to login).

First of all - this does not happen on my MBP2015 with Catalina and I have nearly same content installed and I am a little bit sad of it as I do not know how to fix.

Second - at the moment of writing this I got "unknown error" on my MacMini only; iPhone, iPad, MBP ... everything else is fine.

I have restarted the Mini but without success solving the error message :-(

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Dietmar

Posted on Dec 19, 2019 2:55 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Eric Root

Level 10

684,111 points

Dec 19, 2019 10:24 AM in response to MacSto

You are welcome. Are you running any anti - virus programs? Using a VPN?

Try setting up another admin user account in System Preferences/Users & Groups to see if the same problem continues. Please post back on whether or not this worked. Also try the Safe Mode. Please post back on whether or not this worked.

Isolating an issue by using another user account

Safe Mode - About

If it works in the Safe Mode, try running this program when booted normally and then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by Etresoft, a frequent contributor. Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read. Click “Share Report” button in the toolbar, select “Copy to Clipboard” and then paste into a reply. This will show what is running on your computer. No personal information is shown. If the log won’t post, try posting it in Pastebin and provide a link in a reply. After pasting the report in a PasteBin page, go to the top of the page, and copy the address in the URL bar. Paste that in a new reply. Pastebin

Etrecheck – System Information

Web site version if required. https://etrecheck.com

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,111 points

Dec 19, 2019 9:00 AM in response to MacSto

Might be a corrupt .plist.

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Quit System Preferences.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Restart the computer, open the application, and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

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Answer 3

MacSto Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 19, 2019 10:22 AM in response to Eric Root

Hi

Thanks for your reply, but I did not help :-(

I have the same "unknown error" message within iTunes and every application I try to connect with my AppleID - but it is working in browser using ID and PW :-(

Any idea?

I could start in recovery mode and sync the content from my MBP to the MacMini, but this should be the last solution ... I think I need to re-enter mail passwords then.

Regards, Dietmar

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Answer 4

MacSto Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 19, 2019 12:59 PM in response to Eric Root

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

Finally I was not able to manage it and I decided to take another approach :-\

I created the rescue admin account and noticed that I had no problems while login in with my AppleID and password, so I decided to move the folder of my former / normal account to OLD.<account> (mv /Users/<admin> /Users/OLD.<admin>

I created $HOME of the normal admin account again, but left it blank (just a mkdir /Users/<admin>) and changed ownership with chown to numeric id of normal admin account.

I logged out and logged in with the normal admin account.

I decided to copy same data from /Users/OLD.<admin>/Library but that gave other errors so I started over and decided to re-create email / internet accounts and so on (a lot of work ...).

The benefit of the work (so far): I got the impression Catalina is running much faster now, applications are responding much faster and everything is feeling more "versatile" (if that makes sense).

In comparison to my MBP the MacMini seems to be much faster now.

I have to say, that I upgraded to Catalina from Mountain Lion on (with Mavericks, Sierra and High Sierra in the meantime) - I think that's a second choice ... with a little bit of sadness I remember that I upgraded from ML to Mavericks without any problems, but while upgrading to Sierra then problems started and the Mini slowed down.

Hope this helps other people.

(of course I have to say that I am a UNiX administrator, so working with rsync, mv, tar, etc. is pretty familiar).

Regards, Dietmar

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Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

684,111 points

Dec 19, 2019 1:14 PM in response to MacSto

You are welcome. Nice work.

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AppleID login "unknown error" in system preferences

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