Open at Login Not Reliable

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Level 1

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Open at Login Not Reliable

Freshly installed (not upgraded) Mountain Lion, OSX 10.8, all updates installed. I'm the admin of the computer.

I have several items that I want to Open at Login. I right click their icon on the dock, go to Options, and then Open at Login. I only have a few of them, such as Outlook, Messages, and Firefox.

After a complete restart, those items only Open at Login about 50% of the time. The rest of the time, they just sit there, unopened, no matter how long I wait.

Note that I am NOT talking about the "Reopen windows when logging back in" checkbox when I restart the computer using the Apple menu. I have that option unchecked (and have always had it unchecked) and it performs like it's supposed to. It doesn't re-open apps or their windows, which is what I want, and this checkbox shouldn't control the "Open at Login" dock / app setting anyway.

The morning routine is the same. I power off my computer the day before, come in during the next morning, turn it back on, wait for the login screen and I click on my name and put in my password.

I like to log into my computer and get some coffee while it loads my apps and starts my Outlook mailbox sync, load up my Firefox tabs, etc. It's aggravating to come back to my computer 5 minutes later and see that none of the apps I told to Open at Login actually opened.

I absolutely never had this problem with Lion or Snow Leopard. It worked 100% of the time with those operating systems.

How do I fix this on Mountain Lion?

Posted on Oct 17, 2013 3:01 PM

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Answer 1

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macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Oct 17, 2013 3:08 PM in response to plochner

Add them to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items

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Answer 2

plochner Author

Level 1

79 points

Oct 17, 2013 3:13 PM in response to macjack

These items are already listed in the Login items in Users and Groups. My guess is that right-clicking the Dock icon on the Dock simply adds them to this list instead of spawning some other "auto open" process with the Dock and finder.

Any other ideas?

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Answer 3

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Oct 17, 2013 3:51 PM in response to plochner

Not offhand, if they are in Login Items they should open at login. Do you have other Login items that might interfere with them?

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Answer 4

plochner Author

Level 1

79 points

Oct 17, 2013 3:56 PM in response to macjack

There are no other items listed in this area. Trying a permission repair and I'll restart the system several times to get an idea of exactly how often it's failing after doing so.

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,650 points

Oct 17, 2013 4:14 PM in response to plochner

Anything in Console?

When you log in, note the time that stuff starts appearing on the desktop. Then, look in Console, All Messages, and see if there are any errors related to opening those files. They should be around that time you noted. I believe each item in the login items must load before the next is called, but I'm not sure.

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Answer 6

plochner Author

Level 1

79 points

Oct 17, 2013 4:17 PM in response to Barney-15E

I didn't see anything unusual in the console last time it happened, but I'll check again next time it occurs.

Also can't seem to re-arrange the login items either. They're stuck in position in the Login items area - it looks like you should be able to drag them into a new order, but you actually can't.

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Answer 7

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,650 points

Oct 17, 2013 4:21 PM in response to plochner

They are not orderable. I think it just maintains the order in which they are added.

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Answer 8

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Oct 17, 2013 4:20 PM in response to plochner

Why do you need to re-arrange them? Let's not complicate the issue. Work on getting them to load properly first.

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Answer 9

plochner Author

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79 points

Oct 17, 2013 4:24 PM in response to macjack

I don't need to re-arrange them, but I could see it being a useful troubleshooting step if only one app was Opening at Login but the rest were not.

Sadly this is not the case anyway, as it's an all-or-nothing kind of problem. Either all the apps are loading on a login, or none of them are. I'll have to restart the computer a few more times now that I did a permission repair and see if that resolved anything.

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Answer 10

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Oct 17, 2013 4:34 PM in response to plochner

It's not a permissions issue.

In addtion to checking in Console, run this diagnostic utility and post the results...

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

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Answer 11

plochner Author

Level 1

79 points

Oct 28, 2013 10:34 AM in response to macjack

Well, 10 days later I'm unable to reliably duplicate the issue. Seems like I haven't seen it once in 10 days, so I'm going to mark this question as finished because whatever the issue was, seemed to have fixed itself. Maybe it was the permissions repair, not sure. I did remove all the items from Login and re-add them, so maybe that helped as well.

Thanks for your help.

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