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Cannot enable root user

When I set up my user account last year when I got this computer, I am pretty sure I remember a shortname being filled in or suggested to me, and it had an uppercase character for its first letter. So, my short name is "Name" -- except, you know, instead of "Name" it's my first name.


Anyway, I haven't had any issues until I installed 1Password. I'm having some trouble keeping it in sync, and ran a troubleshooting app as part of their guidance and I see that they say an issue is that my shortname contains an uppercase letter, when in fact it should be all lowercase.


I find mixed reviews online of whether all lowercase in the short name is still a thing—I've found a few places that say uppercase letters were allowed in 10.6.8, but others say that it should be all lowercase and I need to change my shortname.


I'd really rather not change it, but just to see how I would do it if I ended up having to, I checked out these instructions http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428. I got hung up on enabling the root user, though, because I'm not able to select "Enable root user" from the edit menu. It's always grayed out.


I then found this Apple doc on enabling the root user in Mountain Lion: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11331?viewlocale=en_US but it's nothing different. "Enable root user" is still always grayed out in the edit menu.


So... Is there no way I can enable the root user? I'm running 10.8.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2), 15" Early 2011

Posted on Aug 19, 2012 8:40 AM

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19 replies

Aug 19, 2012 8:59 AM in response to mende1

Hi, pressing the padlock prompts me to authenticate with my admin account, which I do, but "enable root user" is still grayed out.


I realize that enabling root is dangerous; I was only going to use it to change my short name, if it's really still necessary to have one that does not contain any capital letters like 1Password says.

Cannot enable root user

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