Login screen shows "update needed" but no updates are available

Are you using FileFault?

Same problem is described here

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3452415?answerId=16672558022#16672558022

Both reports involve FileFault. So far there is no solution, I think.

Edit:

I just did a softare update (there was a Java Update) and did a reboot. This time profile icon and username where displayed correctly.

Don't know if these two things are related. Maybe the problem disappeaers after a few reboots without a softare update?

If this really has to do with software updates, this is a weird way of notifying users. Frankly, not seeing my icon and username on the login screen kinda freaks me out, especially with full disk encryption.

Message was edited by: mleich

Hello

- Verify your curent OS version , most recent is 10.7.2

- to begin DO A BACK UP of your data please - then try this

- desable file vault

- check for update again

- apply update if is possible

- run into recovery mode by CMD-R at startup

- use disque util for permission setting

- enable file vault again

HTH

Pierre

I encontered this problem for the first time after installing Mountain Lion. I didn't relish the prospect of disabling and re-enabling FileVault, so I just repaired disk permissions with Disk Utility, re-downloaded and re-installed Java manually from Apple's web site <http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1515> and re-selected my user login photo and re-typed my user name (for good measure). After rebooting, everything is back to normal.

rgrodevant wrote:

I intentionally caused this scenario by booting ML via USB through InstallESD.dmg, using Disk Utility to erase and format as journaled/encrypted prior to install.

Perhaps that's what some of you did as well?

The reason I chose to do this, is because I don't want my disk encryption password to be the same as the admin password I'm constantly typing in, and that one single annoyance ended up being the only reason I clung on to Symantec PGP for as long as I did.

So I have a disk encryption password independent of the user accounts as a result.

Once I figured out this workaround, I kicked Symantec to the curb and hope this never gets "fixed" so I don't "have to" go crawling back to that horrible product.

This will never be "fixed", as what you're taking advantage of is an Apple-supported feature called, "Disk Password—based DEK". A description of this, and Filevault 2 in general, can be found here (PDF) (page 29).

Don't worry, you shouldn't need to re-visit Symantec's PGP product again 🙂

Thank you.

I back up all my files, pictures, music, movies, programs etc on an external HDD every week.

I am a noob to MACs and wanted to make sure there wasn't a specific program or something I needed to use.

Greg.

I had the same problem, and was able to fix it by just running a file permissions repair in Disk Utility while logged in. If someone else comes across this thread, please try just running permissions repair and see if that alone is all that's needed, and reply with your results. Thanks.

I had the same problem after Mountain Lion (but i had to do a clean install then restore from Time Machine). I was able to get my user back on the unlock screen by fixing File Vault's permissions and adding my user account. However, now i show two user accounts for the unlock screen. Mine and the "Update Needed" account.

I'm going to shutoff file vault and turn it back on after a reboot and see if that helps.

I intentionally caused this scenario by booting ML via USB through InstallESD.dmg, using Disk Utility to erase and format as journaled/encrypted prior to install.

Perhaps that's what some of you did as well?

The reason I chose to do this, is because I don't want my disk encryption password to be the same as the admin password I'm constantly typing in, and that one single annoyance ended up being the only reason I clung on to Symantec PGP for as long as I did.

So I have a disk encryption password independent of the user accounts as a result.

Once I figured out this workaround, I kicked Symantec to the curb and hope this never gets "fixed" so I don't "have to" go crawling back to that horrible product.

A grey user icon and a message that says "update needed" is a small price to pay for NOT being wary of applying any kind of system update for fear I'd get locked out of my computer on the road without a PGP recovery disk handy.. again.. again.. again.

Mentioning this because I know someone's going to hit it in a web search eventually - and also because its a replicable way to cause this behavior.

This might be a less obvious root cause if you chose to encrypt your disk prior to install and then created a user account during install using the same password.

A Disk Utility repair of permissions does nothing to the separate file system, on an Apple_Boot slice, that is used when EfiLoginUI prompts for a passphrase.

In Ask Different, please see today's [Update Needed] answer to What does “[Update Needed]” mean when attempting to boot from an encrypted backup?

Okay, I have a possibly new wrinkle in solving this.

I was curious about the link to FileVault because I have FileVault turned on. So I looked at the screen. It was locked, so I clicked the lock to unlock the settings.

Once I did that, I was going to turn off FV as indicated, but I changed my mind and decided I needed to do a full backup just to be safe, so I relocked the FV panel, then shut down.

When I restarted again, the login screen looked normal again with the icons for the users.

Voila, problem solved. I have no idea why that worked, but what the heck, try it, it's a lot less painful and less risky than actually turning FV off and turning it back on again. Ha!

> no idea why that worked

Please see the answer linked from my previous post, in particular the second and third screenshots.

Whatever you did caused the operating system to write (update) what's required to the Apple_Boot slice of the disk.

Your experience reaffirms that it's not necessary to disable FileVault.

I wish I would have done this months ago when this problem first appeared, I had simply ignored the Updated needed text because everything worked.

A week ago I started getting a password prompt from apps requesting access to my keychain, but none of my passwords worked. First time I rebooted after that and I could no longer login or decrypt my FileVault. So my only option now is reinstall.

Rgrodevant,

I did the same thing you did, for the same reason. I wanted a single encryption password for the entire volume that's much longer and more complex than the passwords used to authenticate and login the users. I wanted this password not to be linked to any user account. I was getting the same "Update Needed" message underneath the placeholder image used for an unknown user (or perhaps just used for a user image that is not defined).

Thru some Google-fu I can't clearly remember now, I happened across this page:

http://techjournal.318.com/general-technology/filevault-2-part-deux-enter-the-dr agon/

It didn't provide me with the exact solution, but it got me on the right track. It provided what I think is another way to accomplish what you and I accomplished, with the benefit of providing a disk icon and "Disk Password" text to replace the mystery photo icon and "Update Needed" text. However, I didn't want to decrypt and reencrypt the whole hard drive, and I still haven't tried his method, though I think it will work.

Where his article helped me was to turn me on to the wonderful world of "diskutil cs". Typing that command in a terminal window displayed a full list of usage commands, and among them was "changeVolumePassphrase". So here's what I did to ultimately solve my problem. In a terminal windows, logged on as an administrative user, I typed:

diskutil cs list

The resulting output displayed a heirarchy, from top to bottom, of the Logical Volume Group, the Physical Volume, the Logical Volume Family, and finally, the Logical Volume, which is what interests us: specifically, we want the UUID for the Logical Volume. For simplicity I selected the UUID in the terminal window and copied it to the clipboard. I then typed:

diskutil cs changeVolumePassphrase 9F203449-4173-49F9-B62E-C6276A29AC69

...pasting the UUID in from the clipboard. (Don't worry - that UUID above is fake, just in case it matters).

It prompted me for the old passphrase and the new passphrase. In my case I used the same one both times, after which it asked me to repeat the new passphrase as confirmation. After a few short moments of work and a few new lines of output, it confirmed by saying "Finished CoreStorage operation".

I immediately rebooted, and was greeted by a beautiful sight - the disk icon and "Disk Password" text above the password field. Mission accomplished!

I hope this helps you or anyone else hoping to implement whole disk encryption on a Mac using a single password (without a recovery key!) in a nice, polished-looking way vs. the unsightly (and possibly unsettling to users) Update Needed message on the EFI boot screen. In this way the disk encryption password can also be changed without having to decrypt and reencrypt the entire volume, and user passwords are not involved in the FileVault Encryption at all.

We encountered this problem on an AD Bound 10.8.5 iMac and were able to get rid of the "Update Needed" by changing the user's password.

When the user rebooted the "Update Needed" was gone and the user's name was back where it used to be.