User account login loop after Spotify installer crash

A few days ago, I launched Spotify and found that though the app itself would launch, it didn't load any content; it was just a blank Spotify window (no friends list, playlists or welcome page). I assumed that I may need to update the app, so I downloaded the installer from the Spotify website, launched it and then switched back over to Safari to look something up really quickly.

After a minute or so, Lion beachballed. There was a small Spotify error window behind Safari, but it would only allow me to drag the Safari window over so far, so I could only catch a glimpse of what it said before Safari snapped back on top of it. It said something about not being able to locate "login.gif" though.

Since I couldn't do anything other than move windows around at this point, I just shut the computer down. The first few times that I tried restarting it, it would just alternate between light and dark grey screens; it never went to the login screen. Eventually, I could get to the login screen; however, when I put in my password, it just beachballs, goes to a grey screen and then dumps me back out onto the login screen. There were a couple times at first when it would display my desktop wallpaper instead of the grey screen before dumping me back onto the login screen, but it doesn't seem to be getting that far anymore.

I'm currently using the Safari-only guest account to try to solve the problem, as there are no other accounts on the computer. The guest account seems to work with no problems, so I don't think there is any hardware issue with the computer. The only thing that I've noticed is that it will sometimes repeatedly go back to sleep a few times when I wake it up before I can get it to stay awake, or randomly go to sleep while I'm using it.

The only advice that I've been able to find is to reinstall Lion on top of itself without deleting my info using the restore partition (something I'm not really certain how to do). I purchased this computer with Lion already installed using the seller's App Store account though, so I don't own a copy of Lion under my account at the moment. I'm hoping that there is a simpler way to fix this; preferably, a way to doesn't require me to purchase Lion "again".

Any ideas? My best guess is that it's trying to restore the apps that were open when I shut the computer down including the one that caused the computer to hang in the first place.

Thanks for any help.

MacBook

Posted on May 26, 2012 4:00 PM

17 replies

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Jun 2, 2012 5:25 AM in response to discni

The former Spotify installer damaged your Mac OS installation. Your copy of Lion is unlicensed, since the seller had no legal right to transfer it to you. The next step depends on whether your Mac originally shipped with 10.6 or an earlier version.

If it shipped with 10.6, you have two choices:

Order replacements for the original discs from Apple customer service. Repartition the internal drive and install 10.6. Update to 10.6.8. Buy Lion from the App Store and install it. Restore your data.
Buy a Lion flash drive from the Apple Store and use that to reinstall Lion. More convenient, and more expensive than the first option.

If your Mac shipped with an OS version older than 10.6, buy a retail Snow Leopard DVD and proceed as in either option above.

discni Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 2, 2012 5:50 AM in response to Linc Davis

This issue is solved now. For some reason, the Spotify website serves up either an installer (which doesn't seem to work for me) or a disk image with a self-contained app seemingly randomly. I never would've thought to check for a different option unless you'd mentioned it though, so that's ultimately what helped to solve the problem. Thanks a billion.

I'm guessing it's unlikely that anyone will have this exact same issue in the future; I've read quite a few unsolved threads about account lock-outs with identical symptoms though, so just in case this offers a clue to somone in a similar situation:

It seems that when the Spotify installer crashed, it left behind a partially installed or corrupted app or something, and the account that I couldn't access was trying to launch that basically non-existant app at login. I would guess that an app corrupted in some other way might also be able to cause this issue.

So to solve the problem, I created a new admin account in single-user mode, enabled the root account, and used the root account to check the crash logs for the account that I couldn't access. If you can find an offending app in the most recent crash logs, installing over it using the root account seems to solve the problem. It took a few tries to copy over the corrupted app; it said the action couldn't be completed because "icon.icns" was in use, but it eventually worked. Hope that helps someone.

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User account login loop after Spotify installer crash