Issues with keychain and now not able to log in

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kaotik1978 Author

Level 1

11 points

Issues with keychain and now not able to log in

Let me preface by saying I moved my parent over to an Apple product due to issues they were having with PC hardware quality and issues with Windows in general. That being said. This question pertains to a 2015 MacBook Pro ( last of the models that the user can actually upgrade ram, hdd ) that my parent has not been able to unlock or use due to keychain issues apparently.

I got the laptop home and was given two different passwords of what they thought they used last time, but neither of them work. I walked them through the reset portion and this is where things get difficult.

When at the user login screen from boot, I choose the user and click forgot apple id password, then I get the boot screen with the grey apple logo but a input field above it that says enter password with a loading bar below.

Booting holding shift, results in a screen that immediately says to reset password with three options of

I forgot my password

my password doesn't work when logging in

my keyboard isnt working when typing my password to log in

The first two prompt for a password again ( frustrating as we don't know the password) and then we are prompted to reset the password by signing in with apple ID, which the parent doesn't know. Choosing forgot apple ID in hopes of a sms to the parents phone results in "reset password failed" there was an error communicating with iCloud (though the laptop is connected to an open wifi network which is good)

Then the only option is to restart.

I pulled the drive in hopes to recover their photos but again the hard drive is asking for a password. I feel that the only other option at this point is to wipe the HDD (if that can be done with the password currently on it) or buy a new HDD and reinstall OSX.

I am baffled at how this happened as sadly I made the mistake of saying that there wouldn't be any issues using a Mac but now it seems that my parent had made a good attempt of botching that up.

Does anyone have any other suggestions as to what to do at this point? I made a comment before to take it to the apple store but they are too far from one so I am the next option for them so the apple store is out at this point.

Never experienced this before on any of my other Macs, so this is a new one for me.

I was told that a keychain window would repeatedly display upon logging in but that the user had since given up and stopped using the laptop because of it and never bothered to tell me of the issue.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.12

Posted on Dec 28, 2019 8:51 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Eric Root

Level 10

684,219 points

Dec 29, 2019 2:35 PM in response to kaotik1978

See if you can download ElCapitan using this link.

El Capitan

You can make a bootable USB stick to install using these free programs which will do all the work for you. Boot the computer with the option/alt key held down and select the USB drive. Run Disk Utility and select First Aid. Then re-install the OS.

Bootable USB Flash Drive – Diskmaker X Disk Creator or use Apple’s method Create a bootable installer for OS

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Answer 2

kaotik1978 Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 29, 2019 6:11 AM in response to kaotik1978

Thanks to Eric Root's suggestions I've managed to get the account recovered and the last portion to solve is the repeated prompting of "XXXXX wants to use the "login" keychain" that comes up over a dozen or so times.

I have gone to utilities and keychain access, from this link, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201609 and unfortunately the beachball comes up when I go to reset the password and activity monitor shows 100% usage for the keychain access portion.

Any other ideas or suggestions I could try to stop the endless prompting from whatever my parent managed to do?

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Answer 3

kaotik1978 Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 28, 2019 10:32 AM in response to Eric Root

Thanks, using command R and running resetpassword showed no user accounts and any ability to select a user account or reset is greyed out.

The second link's step, rm /var/db/.applesetupdone resulted in a directory not found message.

Still working on trying to get them to reset the password on their icloud account to see if we can determine if their photos are at least backed up before wiping the drive or at the least from the OSX utilities menu to reinstall OSX but I am not sure if that will wipe out the user account that nobody seems to recall the password for.

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Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

684,219 points

Dec 29, 2019 6:22 AM in response to kaotik1978

If the account is working again, try going to System Preferences/Users & Groups, select the account, and then click Change Password. When you change the password there, that should also reset the keychain password.

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Answer 5

kaotik1978 Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 29, 2019 8:34 AM in response to Eric Root

Thank you again, by changing the password, you are prompted to use a separate password or change the iCloud password, choosing either in this particular instance causes the beachball to appear, no further prompt appears and keychain access usage goes to 100% then system preferences goes to 100%.

I really would like to know what my parent did to 'break' their macbook, this is a first for me ;)

Reinstalling a version of osx now will resolve the issue despite it being more like using a sledge hammer to drive a nail but hopefully it solves this issue despite having to get my parent to send me their 2 factor authentication in a timely manner, just to reinstall their OS for them.

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Answer 6

kaotik1978 Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 29, 2019 1:31 PM in response to kaotik1978

And sadly reinstalling the OS via a restart and pressing command + r resulted in a screen that said "OS X could not be installed on your computer. No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again."

This is another first for me, not being able to simply reinstall OSX (elcapitan is the current version)

Panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff8828d968ae process 1 exec of ... and from there it is just a slew of hex code errors but interestingly enough and frustrating is the "mac os version" not set... so now I fear without being able to actually install the OS from scratch as it's not allowed, this computer is a brick.

Going to have to eat some crow for suggesting the Mac to my parent now as they had so much trouble with their windows version..

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Answer 7

kaotik1978 Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 30, 2019 6:48 AM in response to Eric Root

Thanks again, luckily I had downloaded El Capitan on another mac years back and was able to make a bootable USB drive on the problem MacBook of my parent.

I had to wipe the drive on the MacBook first, ran first aid with no errors reported then boot holding option/alt and began the installation.

After what appeared to be a success, the macbook restarted then showed a screen saying that

"OSX could not be installed on your computer. No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again."

Trying again and I am prompted to download and restore OSX, my computer's eligibility will be verified with apple, which then asks for an apple ID and again the 2 step verification so it's as if it's ignoring the USB drive for installation.

I'm a bit stumped now since I have done this prior on my own personal macbook and had no issues. The download came directly from Apple and I used Apple's method. I may try Diskmaker X but I can't see how that would make a difference since the usb stick was bootable and completed the install.

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Answer 8

Eric Root

Level 10

684,219 points

Dec 30, 2019 7:46 AM in response to kaotik1978

You are welcome. You did boot using the USB drive as the boot disk when trying to do the installation? You mentioned booting with the option/alt key, but I am just checking. If the copy of El Capitan you used to make the bootable disk was downloaded earlier, you might want to try downloading a new copy.

I have always had good results when I used Diskmaker.

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Answer 9

kaotik1978 Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 30, 2019 7:50 AM in response to kaotik1978

I have tried resetting the nvram with command option p + r and even changed the date via terminal to a lesser year but nothing seems to be able to get past this issue of a failed osx el capitan install for 10.11. I event tried putting my snow leopard cd in and booting from that but it just spat the cd out at me.

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Answer 10

kaotik1978 Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 30, 2019 8:20 AM in response to kaotik1978

Ok, I wish I could provide more solid steps but after repeating command option p + r and changing the date then restarting after the third time, the installation finally took hold for some reason, unknown if using terminal and entering an arbitrary date with the following command

> date 0511122318

made a difference or not but it seems to coincide with the successful attempt on the third time.

So thanks again Eric Root for your assistance, links and advice with helping me sort out my parents macbook!

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