MH Holden
Level 1 (10 points)

Q: Login Failure: Spinning Ball at account login

First the specifics:

Macbook Pro Retina 15" SSD  Mountain Lion OSX10.8x (most current update)

Time machine backup available on Mac Pro hard drive a"networked" via Ethernet & airport.

Two accounts on this machine, main user (admin permissions, & a guest account that's locked down for any real use of system access)

Running a ClamXav update just prior to problems.

 

Issue/actions, During the above update, the system went into a Spinning ball state. I did a hard reboot. I can get to the login screen, enter a password but the account fails to open; spinning gear in the password entry box eventually gives way to the spinning beach ball. I've booted in safe mode and have the same negative results with this account. I can login to the guest account, but this account has virtually no functionality, no system changes are allowed, read only permissions etc.

I've booted into the recovery state (command R) and run disk and permission repairs options.

Also from this screen I started to access the "boot from time machine backup" The repair utility didn't seem to find the "sparesbundle" file located on the MacPro drive. so I'm coping it over to a USB drive that can be plugged directlly into the MBP.

 

Observation; Just prior to me doing a hard boot I noticed the "MBP" hard drive icon had a small red badge in the lower right hand corner (typical restricted permissions symbol)

 

Before I continue to "hose" and self inflict any more damage are there any ideas as to what went south, and what actions can I take prior to trying a full backup recovery or going to the Genius bar?

 

I'll be grateful for any help, Thanks

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Oct 13, 2013 10:55 AM

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MH Holden

Q: Login Failure: Spinning Ball at account login

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Oct 13, 2013 11:41 AM in response to MH Holden
    Level 9 (74,160 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 13, 2013 11:41 AM in response to MH Holden

    You may need to rebuild permissions on your user account. To do this,boot to your Recovery partition (holding down the Command and R keys while booting) and open Terminal from the Utilities menu. In Terminal, type:  ‘resetpassword’ (without the ’s), hit return, and select the admin user. You are not going to reset your password. Click on the icon for your Macs hard drive at the top. From the drop down below it select the user account which is having issues. At the bottom of the window, you'll see an area labeled Restore Home Directory Permissions and ACLs. Click the reset button there. The process takes a few minutes. When complete, restart.   

     

    Repair User Permissions

  • by MH Holden,

    MH Holden MH Holden Oct 13, 2013 1:05 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 13, 2013 1:05 PM in response to Eric Root

    Eric thanks for the reply. I tried your suggestion. In this case the reset process didn't take very long, 5 - 10 seconds at most. Unfortunatly I'm still not getting logged in, Once I reboot, return to the login screen and enter the account password it just sits there and "spins the gear and beach ball. 

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Oct 13, 2013 1:38 PM in response to MH Holden
    Level 9 (74,160 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 13, 2013 1:38 PM in response to MH Holden

    Troubleshooting Information. One often mentioned item is resetting the NVRAM/.PRAM.

     

    Reset NVRAM/PRAM

     

    Startup - Gray, Blue or White screen at boot, w/spinner/progress bar

     

    Startup - Gray Screen

     

    Startup Issues - Resolve


    Startup Issues - Resolve (2)

  • by xosss,

    xosss xosss Jul 4, 2014 11:14 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 4, 2014 11:14 AM in response to Eric Root

    you rock- thanks!!!

     

    i just spent hours (i mean hours and hours) trying to erase files from the library from another admin user, reset passwords through the terminal window, login in safe mode and copy my entire desktop to an external drive, backing up again with time machine etc. etc. etc.

     

    and this was the most simple solution that fixed my inability to login on my main user account which luckily worked in my case.  i can't believe i forgot this jedi force restart

     

    thanks again!