File Sharing & Remote login turn off after restarting iMac

Developers use the terminal command csrutil disable

But we as normal users who are browsing , sending mails in everyday routine work , should " NEVER "disable SIP .

System Integrity Protection is a security technology in OS X El Capitan and later that's designed to help prevent potentially malicious software from modifying protected files and folders on your Mac. System Integrity protection restricts the root user account and limits the actions that the root user can perform on protected parts of the Mac operating system.

Before System Integrity Protection, the root user had no permission restrictions, so it could access any system folder or app on your Mac. Software obtained root-level access when you entered your administrator name and password to install the software. That allowed the software to modify or overwrite any system file or app.

An article : About System Integrity Protection on your Mac - Apple Support

I have the same problem. Those checkboxes get unchecked after every stinking restart. And link everyone else here, I've not found a solution. I am running MacOS Sierra, 10.12.3.

Surely there must be a solution?!

If you check the boxes of file sharing , remote login , remote management , blue tooth sharing the options will be get automatically get unchecked when computer is restarted or shut down for security reason .

If these settings remain checked after restart or even you shut down the machine , remote sharing will be still continued without your permission .

After restarting or shutting down the machine the settings goes to default , as software is manufactured / designed in this manner only .

Thank you for that information. But as you may expect, I couldn't care less about the "security reason." If there is a Terminal hack to disable that "security" feature, could you please tell us what it is?

By the way, I do not have remote login enabled. I don't have Bluetooth enabled either. I don't have remote management enabled. I merely have File Sharing and Screen Sharing enabled, and then after a restart those two end up disabled.

If there is a Terminal hack to disable SIP, and there is, surely there must be a Terminal hack to get rid if whatever "security" is disabling my File Sharing!

No doubt you are right. But I'll be honest. I've used Macs since my 128k in 1984, and until SIP appeared on the scene, I never used it and never got hacked. Call me lucky, but suffice it to say, such things really don't concern me.

What does concern me is the fact that every single time I restart my iMac, File Sharing and Screen Sharing get unticked in the System Preferences. I don't think that is a "security" feature as you suggest because I have a 5K iMac at work with those two settings enabled PLUS Remote Login enabled too, and they never get disabled after a restart.

Therefore, I would appreciate hearing from someone who has personal experience with this problem and knows how to resolve it. No doubt the other poor people who chimed in earlier in this thread feel the same.

Thanks

Might be a corrupt .plist.

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Quit the application.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Restart the computer, open the application, and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

Eric, I followed your advice precisely, but upon restart, I opened System Preferences only to find Screen Sharing and File Sharing unchecked/disabled again. That was true despite the fact I could see a new "com.apple.systempreferences.plist" appear in my user > library > preferences folder.

I then checked/enabled File Sharing and Screen Sharing and restarted, but upon restart they were both unchecked/disabled again.

I then did a Get Info on the com.apple.systempreferences.plist file and found that "Me" was set to Read/Write but "Everyone" was Read only, so I set "Everyone" to Read/Write and then I went back to the System Preferences and checked/enabled Screen Sharing and File Sharing again. I then restarted. Sadly, both were unchecked/disabled AND when I did Get Info again on the com.apple.systempreferences.plist, "Everyone" was set back to Read only again.

So I did like you said and replaced the new com.apple.systempreferences.plist file with the older one sitting on my Desktop.

I then restarted with CMD-R held down and launched Disk Utility and ran First Aid on my iMac's internal drive, but there were no problems at all.

What now?

I don't believe that the default behaviour is to reset them on every reboot as that option wouldn't work in a corporate environment, as every morning you would have to go around a reselect the options to enable you to remote into machines via vnc, Casper or ARD whichever is the remote tool of your choice and I've never had that issue in the work environment.

I have a similar issue but mine is that it removes the user account I add but leaves the option boxes checked. I've tried removing the plist file for the system preference and that didn't do anything, so as I need to get this working I'm just going to re-install the OS and see whether that helps.

Thank you, Linc! Your tip helped me to resolve (or at least work around) this issue, and I'm sharing my experience in case it helps anyone else.

tl;dr: Use the third-party Pref Setter app to change the "Disabled" flag from "true" to "false" for the Screen Sharing and File Sharing .plist files.

The command line you suggested returned the following result for me (OS X 10.12.5 Sierra):

disabled services = { "com.apple.screensharing" => false "com.apple.smbd" => false}

From my regular (non-Admin) login, I then used EasyFind to search for the associated .plist files (com.apple.screensharing.plist and com.apple.smbd.plist), and found .plist files in "\Library\...," "\System\Library\...," and "\Username\Library\... " When I did a "Get Info" on these files, neither the System (root) user nor the Administrators group was allowed Write access. I granted this access, restarted the Mac, and then checked the File and Screen Sharing checkboxes in the Sharing Preferences, but upon restart the boxes were unchecked.

I then deleted the .plist files, believing that they would be recreated on startup, but upon a restart and opening System Preferences->Sharing, the File Sharing and Screen Sharing checkboxes would not allow me to check them. So, I replaced these .plist files from a backup and restarted again.

One by one, I opened each of the replacement .plist files with Pref Setter. When I did, I saw that a "Disabled" flag was set to "True" for all but one of the .plist files. I set the flag to "False" and saved the edited file. I had to save to my Desktop as I lacked the appropriate permission to save directly to the source folder. I renamed each original .plist file to ".plistOLD," then dragged the edited .plist to its appropriate folder. Then, I used the latest beta of BatChmod (1.7 beta 5 at this writing) to change the ownership of each edited .plist to "root," gave "root" and the "Administrators" group Read/Write permission, and the Everyone group Read (only) permission. After a restart, the File Sharing and Screen Sharing checkboxes remained checked.

Admittedly, this was a brute-force approach. I could have edited the "Disabled" flags for each .plist one-by-one and restarted each time to see the results, rather than editing them all at once. I also haven't tried unchecking the File and Screen Sharing checkboxes and restarting. I simply ran out of patience and time, and for now, I'm happy to have File and Screen Sharing settings remain "on" across restarts. In the unlikely (for my needs) event that I need to change these settings in the future, I now know how to edit the .plists. It's an ungainly approach but an improvement.

Again, thank you, Linc, for providing the key to resolving this. I had been unable to find the corresponding .plists before your tip.

This is a normal behaviour , the settings will go to default if you shut down and restart the system and will not be memorised , apple software engineers would better know , we are just users and it is not happening in your system but even I tried in my system .

And , why the settings should be saved any one can misuse it , just a thought .

No - this is not normal behaviour. I have 11 macs in my office, and only my macbook pro resets the file sharing (very annoyingly). It would be incredibly annoying to have to go to every mac every day and reset the file sharing to "on".

I'm having the same issue with my Macbook Pro, and I thought I'd add 2 pieces of information to this thread.

1. I went through a full "service" call with Apple where they got me to try a lot of different things to sort this out (over 2 days). They could not figure it out, and eventually admitted they had no idea what was causing it but "thanks for alerting us to this error. Have a nice day."

2. When I used migration assistant to move my user account across from my buggy Macbook Pro to another Macbook Pro, the file sharing bug started happening to all the users on the destination Macbook Pro.

Just thought it might add a few more clues to help solve this incredibly annoying mystery.

"I renamed each original .plist file to ".plistOLD," then dragged the edited .plist to its appropriate folder. Then, I used the latest beta of BatChmod (1.7 beta 5 at this writing) to change the ownership of each edited .plist to "root," gave "root" and the "Administrators" group Read/Write permission, and the Everyone group Read (only) permission. After a restart, the File Sharing and Screen Sharing checkboxes remained checked."

How did you rename the existing files to .old if you did not have permissions to them?

Remote Management is only for use with Apple Remote Desktop. If you're not using that, try Screen Sharing.