Filevault Causing Login Problems on an M1 Mac with Monterey

After using Migration Assistant from a 6-year-old MBP 13" to a new 14” MBP M1 we now have very funky/clunky login behaviour.

With a cold start or a restart, I have to 1st login to the S account. The machine will not accept the correct passwords for the two T accounts. The text “Your password is required to log in” is not present. Also, the keyboard is not lit during this process.

But AFTER I login to the S account, then I can switch user accounts and the machine will now accept the correct passwords for either of the two T accounts. The text “Your password is required to log in” is now present. The keyboard is now lit. If I logout of all 3 accounts, the screen stays the same. But if I restart, we’re back to login screen #1.

The old 13” MBP had Filevault enabled and no weird issues like this at LogIn.

On the new machine Filevault is also enabled. T and T 02 accounts have a recovery key set (hopefully the same one that was used when I turned on Filevault on the 6 year old MBP 13" since it didn't give me a new one!!!), but S doesn't say it has a recovery key set (but Filevault is on).

Here are the Filevault settings for S, T, and T 02:

Another interesting piece to the puzzle is that when the migration happened, Migration Assistant popped up with a message that it was assigning a new password to S (but not T or T02). I had to enter the new PW to S then change it from the randomly generated one back to the one I had used for S on the old machine. I just (perhaps stupidly) assumed that it was because S was a standard account, while T and T 02 were both administrative privilege accounts.

I turned off Filevault on the MBP 14" M1 and it turned off almost instantaneously. I remember in the old days that Filevault seemed to take a long time and showed a progress bar; tonight it just went from on to off with no progress bar almost in real time.

The good news is that when Filevault was turned off on the new machine all of the login problems disappeared. Hurrah!

The bad news is that when I turned Filevault back on the identical logon problems reappeared :( :( :(

Again, the reencryption was almost instantaneous.

If anyone smarter than me (an easy thing) can suggest a way to fix this issue so that I can log straight into the T account on my gorgeous new 14” M1 without having to go through S first, I would be most grateful!

Thank you!!!

PS Black boxes in the screen logon pics are just Photoshopped privacy protectors.

PPS System Info

· macOS Monterey Version 12.0.1

· MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021)

· Chip Apple M1 Max

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Dec 17, 2021 10:42 PM

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Level 9

68,660 points

Posted on Jan 22, 2022 12:03 PM

While logged into the user account that is having trouble try going into the Security & Privacy System Preferences. On the General tab click the "Change Password" button. You can use your current password if you want.

With some of our organization's Filevaulted Macs with multiple user accounts I have discovered that the user account login password become disassociated from the Filevault password if the password of that account is changed (I'm assuming it was a bug from changing a user account password using the User & Groups System Preferences). I can log into that user account by first entering the old password which was used with Filevault, then once it boots to the actual user login screen I can use the correct new password for that user account. By changing the password as I have described here, macOS recombines the Filevault password and the user account password so only one password is needed for the user account. I've never had it affect the ability of any of the other user account from logging in, but you should definitely verify each user can log in after a system restart.

I highly recommend you have a good backup of this computer and each user account before doing anything just to be safe.

You should always have frequent & regular backups.

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Filevault Causing Login Problems on an M1 Mac with Monterey

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