Q: Keychain, permissions and general system wide issues

Hey Eric,

Sorry for not being able to reply sooner, I am just back from a holiday.

I will try and get this updated with the info you requested from Etrecheck tomorrow

FYI, the last clean install of 10.8 that i did has not had a single app install on it but the problem persists...

I'll be back tomorrow hopefully

Regards, Justin

Hey Eric,

I just made time to go get the results for you.

In addition to the problems I detailed above, when I first tried to download Etrecheck, the system refused stating that there was not enough space on the hard drive. However, after using the inspector on Macintosh HD it was clearly not the case. Aftyer rebooting into safe mode and restarting I was able to download it. Currently having no issues due to safe mode restart but they will return eventually over the next few hours of usage.

Here's the Etrecheck results, thanks in advance

Hardware Information:

          MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)

          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5

          1 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores

          8 GB RAM

Video Information:

          NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB

System Software:

          OS X 10.8.5 (12F45) - Uptime: 0 days 0:0:37

Disk Information:

          Crucial_CT240M500SSD1 disk0 : (240.06 GB)

                    disk0s1 (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 239.2 GB (222.32 GB free)

                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

          HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS23N 

USB Information:

          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

          Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Thunderbolt Information:

Gatekeeper:

          Anywhere

Launch Daemons:

          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support

User Login Items:

          Bertha

          UNKNOWN

Internet Plug-ins:

          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.206 - SDK 10.6 Support

          Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.206 - SDK 10.6 Support

          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.1

          JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.3.0 - SDK 10.8 Check version

Audio Plug-ins:

          AirPlay: Version: 1.7 - SDK 10.8

          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.1 - SDK 10.8

iTunes Plug-ins:

          Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.8

3rd Party Preference Panes:

          Flash Player  Support

Time Machine:

          Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU:

              53%          Safari

              17%          com.apple.hiservices-xpcservice

              14%          WindowServer

              11%          WebProcess

              11%          syncdefaultsd

Top Processes by Memory:

          74 MB          Safari

          49 MB          com.apple.dock.extra

          49 MB          mds

          49 MB          loginwindow

          49 MB          SystemUIServer

Virtual Memory Information:

          6.06 GB          Free RAM

          1.04 GB          Active RAM

          137 MB          Inactive RAM

          527 MB          Wired RAM

          152 MB          Page-ins

          0 B          Page-outs

Hey Eric,

I hadn't tried a keychain reset actually, mainly becasue the problems didn't seem locked down to a single user - I get the issues whether I'm logged in as the local admin account or a standar user

However, for the interests of troubleshooting I have done a reset on both!

Should I go down the route of deleting the keychain just yet?

RE the login items, yeah I shouldn't have added the server and logged in as a mobile user... i have since removed the server and mobile user and created another local standard user account. FYI - I was getting issue with only a local admin account on the MBP so I don't think the mobile user had affected things.

From Recovery I only see the SSD / Macintosh HD and the base system image (disk1?)

Here's the disk info again from the local admin account - let me know if you require any other info to help! Thanks again Eric ;-)

Disk Information:

          Crucial_CT240M500SSD1 disk0 : (240.06 GB)

                    disk0s1 (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 239.2 GB (222.4 GB free)

                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

          HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS23N

Hey Eric,

As soon as I boot into safe mode, the issue is resolved temporarily so since I did this last night the issues have not yet returned.

I should have probably waited until I was experiencing the issues before doing the keychain reset... my bad!

In my troubleshooting it didn't seem to make a difference re the account type, the problems were system wide for all users / account types.

Maybe the best thing to do now is just wait and see if the issues return again?

Thanks again for the swift response,

Justin

Hey,

After using the MBP for approx 30 mins, this issues have indeed returned.

One additional nugget of info I forgot to post originally was that if I open keychain access at this point (one of the few apps that will open), the login keychain appears empty of any entries.

Additionally, if I try to click the "reset my default keychain" button it doesn't work and I receive this error message "A Module Directory Service error has occurred"

Does this help at all?

I'm just trying to find a way to save out the keychain repair output but currently I am struggling whilst the issues persist due to absolutely nothing working! I can't even create a file from Terminal or even ssh into another machine to create the file there!

I'll keep trying but might end up having to take a photo!

Further update, just tried to open Notes just in case and I get this notification "Mac OS X needs to repair your library to run applications. Type your password to allow". After authenticating the app just fails to open.

However, using pastie.org i finally got the keychain output:

Verification started

Checking keychain configuration for admin (user ID=501)

Home directory is /Users/admin

Checked login keychain

Unable to open ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain (-25312)

Checked password for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Unable to verify password for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain (-67674)

Unable to read settings for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain (-67674)

Checked default keychain

Checked contents of ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Unable to open ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain (-25312)

Problems were found; you should choose the Repair option to fix them

Verification failed

Hey Eric,

I did have the same issues with the previous factory HDD but then I installed a new SSD and still have the same issues.

So this maybe means that another piece of hardware is faulty.

I could try replacing the RAM but these issues don't seem to be the normal RAM type issues that you normally see i.e. kernal panics.

I will try the tests you have linked to though but if else fails I do have an Apple Store near by in London (UK) so I will go and get the bad news from those guys!

Thanks again for your help

Justin