Very Odd Error High Sierra - Need Help - Anyone up for the challenge?

Just checked situation with Safe Mode and Keyboard issue still there for user. This looks very much like a login / user profile specific issue. Are there any specific user profile files for login which can be looked at?

Cheers

David

Thanks for response

I don't have a system preference call Universal Access. I assume you are referring to Accessibility. and the related Keyboard settings. I have tried changing these but no luck. Tried toggling keyboard languages as well.

Just wondering are these System Preferences / Accessibility settings at user level or system (all user level). My problem only exists for 1 user profile.

Cheers

David

Further update on diagnostics trying to trace this fault.

Have now booted into recovery mode and reinstalled High Sierra.

However problem persists so clearly user specific. Have replaced all obvious user library files referencing the keyboard from one of the working user profiles with no luck.

looks like an obscure corruption somewhere which I’m not going to find without a bit of luck.

This is leaves me with a step I didn’t want which is to delete the user profile and rebuild.

Given this user has multiple devices linked to the cloud and this IMac is the source of photos and other data held in the cloud, can anyone clarify what happens to that data after I terminate the link whilst rebuilding and trying to log back on?

Yes I did the OS reinstall basically as a test to prove the error wasn’t at the system lever but at the user level.

Thanks for suggestion re plists, when you ask have I tried these plists, did you mean have I tried deleting them?

I’m not that familiar with exactly how plists work yet and whether you can identify if they can be auto rebuilt by the OS so have basically been opening many with text editor to try to get an idea of what they might be doing by looking at the code, quite a long, but relatively safe task. I’ve just finished a belt and braces Backup on the machine so can get a bit more into delete try and see testing territory. If you are suggesting deleting the two plists you reference might be able to safely try that now, please confirm that was your suggestion. It would be great to find a surgical solution before the final “delete user” hammer falls lol.

Cheers

David

Bingo... go to top of the class.

This was the culprit ... /Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.universalaccess.plist

Interested in your thought processes which allowed you to pin point this file. I was trying to find all the files which might have a relevance to keyboard settings so might have got there eventually. Perhaps the earlier reference in discussion to the system preferences accessibility option possibly being called universal access in earlier versions of the OSX should have sent up some thought flares for me, given this problem only occurred after the upgrade from EL Capitan to High Sierra.

Tested - Deleted the file problem cleared ... recovered from trash, problem reoccurred , plus interestingly a very slow reboot after recovery. On the slow reboot I have to assume that must be something else as this user file shouldn’t come into play until user login.

Kept the good and bad files to compare later to see if I can spot why.

I observed after deleting the plist file it only recreated after I selected the system preferences / accessibility option.

Also interestingly the on screen gui settings of the accessibility menu showed nothing different between the bad file and the newly created default file, although the badfile is twice the size of the default good file. So possibly indicating a corrupt file.

At least it’s nice to have a clean surgical fix rather than delete complete user profile and rebuild. And learnt a lot more.

So thanks agin .. one problem down.

That’s interesting have to get my brain in gear re thinking about and sorting on the file date and time stamps, can see how that could assist particularly in login scenarios. I’m into my senior years now so my mind is not so quick on new learning but my logic is holding up ok. Lol. I’m quite enjoying the learning exercise of the innards of the Mac. Been looking at the preferences on Terminal which I never knew were there. I used to write batch files under dos on PC in my younger years so concepts familiar.

Im still trying to get a visual in my head of the Mac system file structures. So don’t understand for instance what the Preference Panes folder holds or what the lockfile suffix is on some plist names. This is however keeping me well distracted in these troubled time.

Thanks again.

Cheers

David