I'm trying to access "Users & Groups" in my Preferences Pane but am getting an error: "Could not load Users & Groups preference pane."
When I search for a solution to this problem, one common fix is to access the system folder, but I can't for the life of me find it!
I'm using a MacBook Air and Mountain Lion 10.8.
Please help!
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the page that opens.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Try the action that you're having trouble with again. Post any messages that appear in the Console window – the text, please, not a screenshot.
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
DO NOT INDISCRIMINATELY DUMP THOUSANDS OF LINES FROM THE LOG INTO A MESSAGE. If you do that, I will not respond.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out by search-and-replace in a text editor before posting.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the page that opens.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Try the action that you're having trouble with again. Post any messages that appear in the Console window – the text, please, not a screenshot.
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
DO NOT INDISCRIMINATELY DUMP THOUSANDS OF LINES FROM THE LOG INTO A MESSAGE. If you do that, I will not respond.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out by search-and-replace in a text editor before posting.
I followed the directions above and attempted to open "Users and Groups" in the system preferences.
Here are the console messages in their entirety:
9/5/12 9:25:07.785 PM System Preferences[1281]: ImageIO: JPEG Corrupt JPEG data: 410 extraneous bytes before marker 0xcc
9/5/12 9:25:07.786 PM System Preferences[1281]: ImageIO: JPEG Corrupt JPEG data: 410 extraneous bytes before marker 0xcc
9/5/12 9:25:07.787 PM System Preferences[1281]: ImageIO: JPEG Corrupt JPEG data: 410 extraneous bytes before marker 0xcc
9/5/12 9:25:07.787 PM System Preferences[1281]: ImageIO: JPEG Corrupt JPEG data: 410 extraneous bytes before marker 0xcc
9/5/12 9:25:07.787 PM System Preferences[1281]: ImageIO: JPEG Corrupt JPEG data: 410 extraneous bytes before marker 0xcc
9/5/12 9:25:07.788 PM System Preferences[1281]: ImageIO: JPEG Corrupt JPEG data: 410 extraneous bytes before marker 0xcc
9/5/12 9:25:07.788 PM System Preferences[1281]: com.apple.preferences.users failed to load.
*** setObjectForKey: object cannot be nil (key: picture)
9/5/12 9:25:32.554 PM lsboxd[194]: @AE relay 4755524c:4755524c
You have a corrupt user picture.
Back up all data if you haven’t already done so. Before proceeding, you must be sure you can restore your system to the state it’s in now.
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.
In the application window, click the lock icon and authenticate. Select the Directory Editor tool in the toolbar. Select Users from the Viewing menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Select your user account in the list. On the right is a list of properties and values. Select the property "JPEGPhoto" and delete it by clicking the minus-sign icon below. Then click the Save button in the lower right corner of the window. Quit Directory Utility.
Try again to open Users & Groups. If it still doesn't work, repeat the above steps with any other users you created. Don't change any built-in user accounts. You'll need to reset the user picture(s). Don't use the same ones.
Whew! That worked. Thanks VERY much for taking the time to respond, Linc! I never would have been able to figure that out lol!
Worked for me, thanks! I developed this issue when using Migration Assistant with Time Machine and an external hard drive to migrate from an old MBP running 10.6.8 to a new machine running 10.8.2. This migration included a user account. The users and groups preference pane in 10.8.2 appeared to have been very unhappy with the user icon that got automatically migrated, which, for the record, was a system default icon from 10.6.8.
One thing that tripped me up. If you've left the preferences menu open while you deleted the "JPEGPhoto" property(ies), make sure that you close and reopen the preferences menu before you again try to launch the Users and Groups Pane. It wasn't until I closed and reopened the preferences menu window that the problem resolved itself.
Also, don't bother calling customer support if you're experiencing this problem. They're clueless and told me the only solution was to reinstall Lion, which took hours and also didn't work. If you're experiencing this problem after migrating from an earlier version of OS X, try following Linc's steps above.
Hello
I did all of this and it's still giving me the error?
eta: i did the thing you said before and deleted the the guest accounts from the list, there were two. It seems to be working now
Message was edited by: sasslock
11/7/13 4:45:57.440 PM System Preferences: com.apple.preferences.users failed to load.
11/7/13 4:45:57.679 PM System Preferences: NSConcreteMutableAttributedString initWithString:: nil value
11/7/13 4:45:57.682 PM System Preferences: (
)
This worked for me too. Thanks very much indeed!
Hello,
I am having similar issues but my error code is different. Can you help?
11/26/15 6:12:43.549 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent) The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.
11/26/15 6:12:43.618 PM com.apple.preferences.users.remoteservice[1107]: Failed to connect (_controller) outlet from (NSView) to (ODCServersViewController): missing setter or instance variable
11/26/15 6:12:43.624 PM com.apple.preferences.users.remoteservice[1107]: Failed to connect (__serversSheetServersView) outlet from (ODCSummaryViewController) to (ODCServersView): missing setter or instance variable
11/26/15 6:12:52.969 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.ReportCrash[1113]) Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.ReportCrash
11/26/15 6:12:56.671 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.preferences.users.remoteservice[1107]) Service exited due to signal: Segmentation fault: 11
11/26/15 6:12:56.690 PM System Preferences[1102]: <NSRemoteView: 0x7f8fdbd6de50> invalid on entry (
0 ViewBridge 0x00007fff9be1a9b6 -[NSWindowCentricRemoteView snapshot] + 379
1 System Preferences 0x00000001060cdc14 System Preferences + 35860
2 System Preferences 0x00000001060d921c System Preferences + 82460
3 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff90b8a45c __CFNOTIFICATIONCENTER_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER__ + 12
4 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff90a7a634 _CFXNotificationPost + 3140
5 Foundation 0x00007fff94b43aa1 -[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:] + 66
6 PreferencePanes 0x00007fff90e77068 __35-[NSProxyPreferencePane connection]_block_invoke_2 + 169
7 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff9cec9700 _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 12
8 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff9cec5e73 _dispatch_client_callout + 8
9 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff9ced6767 _dispatch_main_queue_callback_4CF + 861
10 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff90b213f9 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_SERVICING_THE_MAIN_DISPATCH_QUEUE__ + 9
11 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff90adc68f __CFRunLoopRun + 2159
12 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff90adbbd8 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 296
13 HIToolbox 0x00007fff9a60056f RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 235
14 HIToolbox 0x00007fff9a6002ea ReceiveNextEventCommon + 431
15 HIToolbox 0x00007fff9a60012b _BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInModeWithFilter + 71
16 AppKit 0x00007fff8d59b8ab _DPSNextEvent + 978
17 AppKit 0x00007fff8d59ae58 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 346
18 AppKit 0x00007fff8d590af3 -[NSApplication run] + 594
19 AppKit 0x00007fff8d50d244 NSApplicationMain + 1832
20 libdyld.dylib 0x00007fff9cc8c5c9 start + 1
21 ??? 0x0000000000000001 0x0 + 1
)
11/26/15 6:12:56.764 PM ReportCrash[1113]: Saved crash report for com.apple.preferences.users.remoteservice[1107] version 14.0 (14.0) to /Users/nicktebbe/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/com.apple.preferences.users.rem oteservice_2015-11-26-181256_Nicholas-Tebbes-MacBook-Pro.crash
🙂
Could not load Users & Groups preference pane.
