Slow to load & unknown user called Red since upgrade to Tahoe 26.2

Admittedly, this is unexpected and odd. But, before jumping to conclusions, do a little research on your machine. Is this a personal machine or is this a managed device (device enrolled in an MDM)? To explore, follow these steps.

Note: The following guidance includes commands run from Terminal. Make sure you feel comfortable running these and consider looking up what they do before blindly trusting an unknown person posting on a public message board.

Open the Terminal applications and run the following command to show a list of ALL user accounts on your machine.

dscl . list /Users

Look through the list to see if there is a user named "red." Assuming that the account name is red, you can get more details on the account by running the following command:

dscl . read /Users/red

If you don't see an account with the RecordName titled red, you can also search DS Local by attribute(s). For example, "red" should be the value of the RealName attribute (since RealName is what login window displays). If the RecordName and the RealName differ, you can run this to search for an account with the RealName of "red."

dscl . search /Users RealName "red"

If there is a record with the RealName of red, the results should look something like this (record_name would be the actual account name while RealName is red):

record_name		RealName = (

    "red"

)

For the account to appear at the login window, there must be an account attribute in DS Local.

You can also look at the DS Local flat files by looking in:

/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users

(Note: this is a root protected location so a sudo -s is needed before the cd to elevate rights to navigate here)

Assuming you are able to find the account and get the attributes, you can find some information from the record. A few that are of interest may be:

UniqueID (presumed to be > 501 as the account is visible at login window

NFSHomeDirectory (path to the accounts home folder)

Let's start there. Locating the account may help in determining what created it. I will speculate that you use Maxon's Red Giant and you will find a service account called _redgiantservice.

Mark it helpful if it is.

This might well be a Tahoe bug

do you see from the Terminal copy and paste:

ls -la /Users

I have seen similar post:

A new user account appears at startup called RED

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255297923?sortBy=oldest_first

unknown user on log in

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253792754?sortBy=oldest_first

a system glitch, a default placeholder, or a leftover artifact from a previous, perhaps broken, user account migration(?)

For your slow load—

—A SafeBoot Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support will sort many anomalies

Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled temporarily.

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.

*** (if you are using a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries— connect the charging cable, this will make the wired keyboard successful Safe Boot your Mac.)

This test will tell you if third party interference; most extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.

—Test issue in another user (or guest user) account Change Users & Groups settings on Mac - Apple Support

This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. 

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

no insight—

You can Call Customer Support (800) MY–APPLE (800–692–7753)

or on line https://getsupport.apple.com/

Outside the USA—Contact Apple for support and service by phone

See a list of Apple phone numbers around the world.

Contact Apple Support - Apple Support