Why does my new user account not show up in 'Accounts'?
Have I done something wrong during creating? Moreover, the account works fine!
G. Bakker
MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion, iMac, iPad2
Try fixing Disk Permissions (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility). Then reboot.
Users are listed in the Users & Groups preference pane, not in the Accounts pane.
Thank you both for your quick response. My mistake. Users & Groups is what I really meant. The new account still doesn't show up after fixing the disk permissuons. Any othe ideas?
G.Bakker
So you created the account in that preference pane, but after creating it, it's not listed? That's odd.
Yes, I did and gave it the name 'Test Account'.
Years ago I created an account for my wife but it has never been used. She uses her own computer (MacBook Pro). But now I realize that this account does not show up on start up, however, it is listed in Users & Groups!
Opening 'Users' in the finder I see my own account and 'testaccount', but my wife's account is not visible. At first I thought it was a problem of Mountain Lion, but my wife's account is from the Tiger period.
I must have been doing something fundamentally wrong or there is a bug working against me.
G.Bakker.
According to what you're saying now, which is different from what you said your first message, the home folder of your wife's account is missing. Just delete that account in the preference pane and recreate it if you wish. The home folder will be created automatically.
It was easy enough to remove the (not used) account of my wife from Users & Groups, because it was visible. I have recreated the account, which was also easy but now I have two accounts that don't show up in Users & Groups: my wife's account and Test Account, which I cannot remove. They appear on the inlog screen and I can use them without problem.
But I want to het rid of them!
Any more suggestions?
G.Bakker
Please post a list of the users that you now believe to exist on the system. For each one, indicate whether it shows up in Users & Groups, in the login screen, and in the Users folder.
It is in Dutch. But I am sure it is no problem to you.
You see the standard Guest Account and my personal account. The Guest Account can alse be used without problem.
Ther are two working account missing in this list:
my wife's account and
my test account.
In the Finder I found these accounts under Users. I don't know if I can remove them here without doing any harm to the system. What do you think?
Regards,
G.Bakker
Log in as one of the other users and open the preference pane. Do you see the same list of users?
When I log in in 'Test Account' I see in the preferences
Test Account
my own account and
my guest account.
Logging in to my wife's account I see
my wife's account
my own account and
my guest account.
So my own and the guest account is always visible, the other accounts are only visible if active.
G.Bakker
Launch the application
/System/Library/CoreServices/Directory Utility.app
which you can do by selecting the above line in your browser, right-clicking (or control-clicking), and selecting Services ▹ Open from the contextual menu.
Select the Directory Editor tool in the toolbar. Select Users from the Viewing menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Locate each of the users you created in the list and look up the "UniqueID" in the pane to the right of the user list. Each UniqueID should be a number greater than 500. No two should be equal. Is that what you find?
If these instructions aren't clear, you may need to change your system language to English temporarily so the terms will correspond to what I've described.
The UniqueID numbers are as follows:
my own (normal) account: 501
my wifes account: 502
Test Account: 503
guest account: 201
As you see all accounts have a different value, however, the guest accont is below 500.
Regards,
G.Bakker
You have some kind of corruption in the user database, or else system corruption. The only practical way to fix it is to do a clean reinstallation.
Back up all data to at least two different storage devices, if you haven't already done so. The backups can be made with Time Machine or with a cloning tool such as Disk Utility. Preferably both. You must be certain that you can restore everything to the state it's in now.
Boot into Recovery, launch Disk Utility, and erase the startup volume. This operation will destroy all data on the volume, so you had be better be sure of your backups. Install OS X. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.
When you reboot, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process. That’s when you import the data from one of your backups. For details on how this works, see here:
Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC Using Setup Assistant on Lion
Don't import the Guest account, if it was enabled on the old system.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with networks that require any kind of authentication other than a WPA or WPA2 Personal password.
I thank you for your extensive help finding a solution for my problem. As soon as my obligations are finished I will carry out a complete reinstallation of Mountain Lion as suggested by you.
Best regards,
Goos Bakker
New user account
