Just upgraded to 10.13 and my Login Items window in Systems Preferences is filled with 'Unknowns.'
iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13)
Okay, they found the problem a couple of days ago. They know how to fix it, but as far as I know, they're not sure what caused it to happen in the first place (migration assistant is my guess).
Anyway, search out and destroy a file called backgrounditems.btm then reboot. The login panel should be cleared out. The senior advisor and I rebooted three times with a test app inserted through the normal login panel procedures and all was well. I added back my normal items and they'e still working just fine.
I'm on a new/used iMac late 2015 2.8ghz, I-5, running 10.13
Good luck.
After doing much research... the problem persists on my computer. I do not think it is affecting any performance measures. But it is clear to me that this is a deeper issue. I really hope some Apple software engineer fixes this issue in an upcoming update.
Many thanks to all above who replied.
Thank you so much - this has cost me days of unrewarded effort until today - and within 5 minutes my MBA is now working as it should (and just like my iMac). 🙂
The bug was preventing a lot of my utility programs to fail and for some there were no work arounds.
Thanks again!
They are, supposedly, in the process of letting the masses know about this. Most frustrating, that's for sure; I, like many others here, spent many long nights pulling my hair out (and at my advanced age, I can't afford to do that too often) and cursing Apple (forgive me Father, I was rash). Getting to just the right senior engineer helped a lot. I was frustrated until I remembered my last visit to my son's business (PC only networking and systems repair for 18 years) and saw the chaos that reigns there almost daily--a good living, but frustration in seismic chunks.
It's back!
After updating my MacBook to
10.13.1 (17B48)
I have two unknown items in my Login Items, and two "known" items. I presume that the two "unknown" items are the two items that were there before the update to 10.13.1.
here's the catch / issue, though. There is no backgrounditems.btm on my machine.
Here's the error that I get in console.app:
### Error:18446744073709551581 File:/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/AccountsPref/AccountsPref- 285/LoginItem.m Line:68
Thank you for this tip. I found that deleting that file worked for me as well. Sorry if this was covered and I misunderstood, but after re-boot # 2 the problem returned. Seemed to be ok after re-boot # 1, but after I re-booted a second time, all of my log in items were gone again. Is this fix meant to be permanent?
Thanks.
Did you attempt to remove them with the [—] (minus) button? Refer to If you think you have incompatible login items.
Sir, the issue is not publicly viewable? for me, the url https://bugreport.apple.com/web/?problemID=34857430 just can't be open.
Tried highlighting all the items, and clicking the minus button. No change.
Yes, thank you for your reply. Your description above is exactly the same thing that is happening on my computer.
I have done everything you have done above... and no change. This is clearly a bug affecting some .plist files somewhere. I really hope this bug gets cleaned up somehow in an update. So frustrating.
I agree, it's a red herring. Spotify works fine on my Macs also.
Guess I just have to be patient.
Surely someone else will eventually report the same problem.
Same issue here, tried removing the plist file and used various apps to cleanup the login items, none of them were successful...
For the record.. new 10.13 supplemental update has not changed anything. Problem remains.
Does Apple generally see stuff like this on the forums or do we need to make a Radar entry or something for this?
Can't remove 'unknown login items'?
