10.9.4 and login window missing users?

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nvp1971 Author

Level 1

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10.9.4 and login window missing users?

Hi everyone,

I recently cloned my Mac Mini from another Mac Mini of the same era (I used Disk Utility->Restore from Recovery mode) and after my clone I only see two entries in the login window: My wife's account and the Other... button. I can login by clicking the Other... button then entering a username/password so that is fine.

I also noticed that I *do* see my full name when I choose Login Window from the fast switching user menu.

Weird!

Note that my user and my wife's users are both admins and local accounts.

At first I wondered if something was cached somewhere in a plist or what have you but i haven't found anything conclusive to make me suggest that is the case.

In addition I am not using FileVault for any users.

I did try and boot into Recovery Mode and reinstall but this has not changed the behavior.

Does anyone have suggestions?

Posted on Jul 11, 2014 7:17 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 11, 2014 7:43 PM in response to nvp1971

Open System Preferences > Users & Groups.

Click on the Login Options to verify your settings.

Automatic Login should be set to Off.

Display Login window as "List of Users"

If all is correct, try deleting the com.apple.systempreferences.plist in your User's Library/Preferences.

Log out under the Apple in the Menu bar.

Log in and verify settings then restart to see if it is working correctly.

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Answer 2

nvp1971 Author

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Jul 12, 2014 3:53 AM in response to dianeoforegon

Thanks for your response!

Unfortunately this did not correct the problem.

2 other details:

1. When I create a new user account it shows up in the login window always.

2. On the Mac Mini from which I'd cloned, Automatic Login was setup for my user. After the clone, on my new system, I disabled Automatic Login for my account and added my wife's account. I have never once seen my account on the new system. On the old system when I enable Automatic Login for my account it showed up in the login window.

Arggh!

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Answer 3

Enelass

Level 1

20 points

Jul 12, 2014 5:17 AM in response to nvp1971

Hello,

Login window only shows user(s) with an higher UID than 500 if I remember well.

If you launch /System/Library/CoreServices/Directory Utility.app, and look for your user name in "Directory Editor", what's your UID ?

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Answer 4

nvp1971 Author

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Jul 12, 2014 5:20 AM in response to Enelass

From Terminal, as my account:

mac-mini2:~ nvp1971$ id

uid=1000(nvp1971) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),12(everyone),61(localaccounts),79(_appserverusr),80(admin),81( _appserveradm),98(_lpadmin),399(com.apple.access_ssh),403(com.apple.sharepoint.g roup.1),502(access_bpf),33(_appstore),100(_lpoperator),204(_developer),398(com.a pple.access_screensharing)

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Answer 5

Enelass

Level 1

20 points

Jul 12, 2014 5:35 AM in response to nvp1971

That's it, UID 1000 neither show up in Login Window 😟

If you decide to change this UID be aware this might ****** up your POSIX (Home folder permissions).

To fix it :

Repair Home Folder :

sudo xattr -r -c ~/

sudo chmod -R -N ~/

sudo chmod -vR 755 ~/

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Answer 6

nvp1971 Author

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Jul 12, 2014 5:39 AM in response to Enelass

Thanks for your response! Arggh, when did this change?!

Is this documented anywhere? I want to dig into this a bit more and see if there is a workaround that I can put into a plist before I make such an aggressive change!

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Answer 7

Enelass

Level 1

20 points

Jul 12, 2014 5:53 AM in response to nvp1971

Well to avoid messing up with your permissions, the only thing I see is to save (export) your user settings

Then backup the user home folder (Create a dmg with DiskUtil, or use dd to back up the disk if you are an advanced user).

Then change your UID, and run

$ sudo chmod -vR 755 ~/

This way you would have your user appearing in Login Window, and correct POSIX permissions set to your home folder.

As a workaround to avoid changing the UID. (A user can not have two UID... It stands for 'Unique ID' ^^)

"Maybe" Login Window can be told to display user 1000, I do not know how and I thing it is hard coded somewhere.

As far as I know this is beyond what a plist settings/properties can set.

If you are not confident with all of this my best advise is to leave it as it is now.

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Answer 8

nvp1971 Author

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Jul 12, 2014 5:50 AM in response to Enelass

Also, what really bugs me about this is that I have been carrying this account and its UID around for *years*, probably since my iBook in 2000 or 2001. Since I have NFS and Linux on my home network, it was nice to keep the 1000 UID around so that all my accounts had some level of consistency. Apparently this behavior changed at some point so now I am stuck. Grrr.

I could probably do an aggressive chown of my home dir after changing my UID (from my wife's account of course), but I might revise your method a bit. Not really sure I'm using ACLs here, but still fear the -N option to chmod.

Stay tuned.

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Answer 9

nvp1971 Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 12, 2014 9:32 AM in response to Enelass

I bit the bullet and am much happier now.

Here's what I did:

Login as my wife.
In Terminal, become root.
dscl . -change /Users/nvp1971 UniqueID old new
cd /Users/nvp1971
find . -uid old-uid-number-here -print -exec chown new-uid-number-here {} \;
Run find again and make sure that nothing comes up as unchanged.
Optional: Login to other servers (i.e. Linux) and do some facsimile of the same.
Gratuitous reboot.
Solved! My user was back in the login window.

But yikes! Wish that this solution didn't require so much heavy lifting!

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Answer 10

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Jul 12, 2014 11:44 AM in response to nvp1971

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Feedback

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Answer 11

Enelass

Level 1

20 points

Jul 13, 2014 5:25 AM in response to nvp1971

Good plan,

I pointed out the issue but did not resolve it, find with chown was the right way to go.

Nicely done !

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