Versions working erratically, with xpchelper errors

Hi,

It is not your disk dying and I do not think it is a problem with versions. I received the same error message of failed for UID: 501 etc after using fast user switching. IE. Switched from one account to another. I was able to log in but lost my background, my terminal prompt said something like could not find name and received the 501 errror message in my logs. I rebooted and all was OK.

I beleive that this is a bug in lion.

Happened to me too, suddenly on 10.7.1. Was getting error messages while trying to use ssh such as 'You don't exist, go away!'

18/08/2011 18:39:01.219 com.apple.launchd: (com.apple.xpchelper.F5010000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[58483]) Exited with code: 1

18/08/2011 18:39:01.435 xpchelper: getpwuid_r() failed for UID: 501, ret: 0, errno: 0

Very weird.

I had the same exact error today. I could not launch any new applications, and most of my processes simply froze up.

I clicked on Reboot, but something held that up too. I tried to open Terminal, but the OS wouldn't let me run it, saying that I didn't have the priviledge to do so.

So I had to do a Force Reboot.

I ran fsck (in single user mode) and reboot the computer again. Now it is up and running again.

Lion hasn't been very stable for me:

- I cannot quit Mail (it will just lock up and I have to do a Force Quit)

- I cannot connect to any computers on inhouse network (let that be a Mac or a PC) - which worked under Snow Leopard

I have just had that error here with 10.7.1.

31/08/2011 06:52:29.746 xpchelper: getpwuid_r() failed for UID: 501, ret: 0, errno: 0

31/08/2011 06:52:29.747 com.apple.launchd: (com.apple.xpchelper.F5010000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[28041]) Exited with code: 1

The last action was to open System Preferences, the beachball started and an endless stream of that error could be seen running through the console. Force quitting system preferences did not help and neither did quitting all running applications, the machine had to be restarted.

Unfortunately so large was the number of instances of the error that they filled system.log, anything interesting as the error started has been lost.

This is the first major failure I have had with Lion.

I just had many hundreds of these errors two. My CPU was consequently at 98%, and has now quieted down.

In the last several days, Lion has really been letting me down. There is this sudden error, another spate of Console errors regarding "duplicate UID" and iCal and, most disturbing, Mail randomly not getting new messages from Exchange until I quit and reopen it.

-- tomo

I've had this twice today as well. I'd been running Lion just fine for about a month without issue.

I'm having this same issue from time to time (had it 3 times now in the past 2 weeks). A reboot (temporarily) fixes the issue. Log message excerpt:

Sep 14 07:01:24 MacBook xpchelper[27786]: getpwuid_r() failed for UID: 501, ret: 0, errno: 0

Sep 14 07:01:24 MacBook com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpchelper.F5010000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[27786]): Exited with code: 1

Sep 14 07:01:24 MacBook xpchelper[27787]: getpwuid_r() failed for UID: 501, ret: 0, errno: 0

Sep 14 07:01:24 MacBook com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpchelper.F5010000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[27787]): Exited with code: 1

This is also very strange output (notice how the username is replaced by "I have no name!":

[I have no name!@~]$ id -p

login username

uid 501

id(35352) malloc: *** error for object 0x105600d28: incorrect checksum for freed object - object was probably modified after being freed.

*** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug

[I have no name!@~]$ ssh

You don't exist, go away!

Same to me. It seems as if after a suspend-wakeup (and I re-entered my password) I can no longer be identified. The Apple-Menu doesn't show my username any longer (as it normally does as a label to the logoff-entry)

Could anyone please check if this has anything to do with re-authentication? Be it that you have a fast user switch or be it that you re-enter your password to terminate the screensaver.

Does Apple know?

Just happened again today with Lion 10.7.2. It was apparent shortly after wake-up.

The first sign of impending doom was that Safari would not start reporting an issue with RapportDaishi.dyLib, where Rapport is security software favoured by some UK banks. I could not even access Rapport's Preferences to turn it off, that reported a similar issue. It became apparent that the machine was very sluggish, with the console was listing huge numbers of these :-

28/10/2011 10:56:39.167 com.apple.launchd (com.apple.xpchelper.F5010000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[24610]) Exited with code: 1

After a forced closedown and restart Rapport is working as it should, and not stalling Safari.

A bit of a chicken and egg situation, I don't know what broke first!

(I am beginning to have doubts about Lion!)

The same just happened to me on Lion 10.7.2 while I was browsing the web with Safari and tried opening Terminal which displayed something like: "I don't have a name" instead of my usual username. I killed Terminal and tried relaunching it but couldn't do it because I didn't have the rights. I tried opening Activity Monitor, but it just stalled. Meanwhile Console.app was actively being filled with hundreds of errors. No problems after a reboot so far. And I've never ran into any issues with my Mac since I installed Lion back in July. That's really strange.

maxdremin => The same thing has happened to me two times...

Same here: Lion 10.7.2

Waking up the MBP, Safari was unable to load back saved tabs, I was unable to open the Terminal, launchd eating up CPU with the following two line messages endlessly repeating in the console:

28/11/2011 21:34:24.806 xpchelper: getpwuid_r() failed for UID: 501, ret: 0, errno: 0

28/11/2011 21:34:24.809 com.apple.launchd: (com.apple.xpchelper.F5010000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[64059]) Exited with code: 1

Disk Util shown no error, no permission issues.

After a reboot, everything is fine, but there's definitely something wrong here.

I had the same problem, and was able to work around it by switching users to another account. When I switched back to my account, everything started working properly again. I still hope that Apple will fix this soon!

acrollet wrote:

I had the same problem, and was able to work around it by switching users to another account. When I switched back to my account, everything started working properly again. I still hope that Apple will fix this soon!

Just encountered "I have no name" problem, after waking from sleep on 10.7.2. I was about to panic, expecting my macbook to turn into lifeless brick after reboot. However, fast user switching hack really does fix it.

Just another "me too", but including a log here in the hopes that someone from the mothership might see this thread and figure out what's going on.

This has happened twice to me. Last month my account somehow lost administrator rights, terminal went nuts, couldn't see (see description above), and 'id' command printed nonsense.

This time, I noticed the fans running so fire up Terminal.app to look at top output, upon which Terminal.app tells me "your shell has been set to an invalid value, this probably means your administrator doesn't want you to run Terminal.app", or something to that effect.

On firing up console, the same syslog mess was happening (see above).

I've attached the full log here: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=TGkH9fUy

This time it happened, though, things just 'reset' by themselves. Maybe the end of the log will indicate why. Watching a movie just now, just leaving all this here as more evidence of the issue.