"Ghost" Guest User Account

Hey!

I recently purchased a used MBP and did a fresh (format hard drive + boot disk) install of OS X High Sierra. I am currently showing version 10.13. The format was with APFS (Encrypted.)

Since installing High Sierra I have noticed a strange Guest User icon on the boot screen. It is not the same as a normal Guest User, and clicking on it opens a dialog for a password (my account password and my disk password do not work here.)

Here is the icon that I am talking about. If you zoom in on this image you will see that there is actually some slight noise to the icon like you would see on an older TV. There is no movement to the icon, but the noise in the icon image changes every time I reboot the computer.

I do not have a guest user account enabled. See below.

Above is a screen capture of my users and groups. I have tried turning the guest user on and off and restarting my computer many times to see if it's just stuck somehow. No luck.

Above is what it looks like when I have the guest user turned on. As you can see, the icon is correct and clicking it properly restarts the computer in "Safari Only" mode.

Thanks in advance for any help, this is quite frustrating.

Grady

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13)

Posted on Oct 2, 2017 7:37 PM

35 replies

Oct 8, 2017 10:02 AM in response to Xiangrui

Thanks for the response, I ended up using the terminal command solution offered by user renzzofromlakeforest and user NOTashwin, but I appreciate your help!

tygb

Level 9

64,998 points

Oct 8, 2017 10:11 AM in response to tygb

🙂 it was just a manual method , any ways .

Oct 8, 2017 11:59 PM in response to renzzofromlake forest

Thanks a lot, solved my issue! :-)

Oct 10, 2017 6:33 AM in response to Grady Stebbins

Great help! I had exactly the same issue and this removed the Ghost Guest user.

Gofrian

Level 1

18 points

Oct 12, 2017 1:24 AM in response to renzzofromlake forest

Thanks so much Renzzo ✅

Oct 13, 2017 6:18 AM in response to tomcib

I would verify the user account of the password you are try to use has the (Allow user to Administer) option checked.

tomcib

Level 1

19 points

Oct 13, 2017 6:52 AM in response to SatComDude

Hello:

Thank you for the quick reply.

To answer your post: I already had the Allow user to administer this computer checked before I tried using Terminal.

Cheers!

Pipope

Level 1

4 points

Oct 13, 2017 7:55 AM in response to tomcib

Have you checked back to the login menu after restarting. Mine had the Error issue as well. I didn’t record the error message, but once restarted, the Ghost Guast User were gone.

Pipope

Level 1

4 points

Oct 13, 2017 7:57 AM in response to vivekwisdom

This solution removed the Ghost Guest User that wasn’t supposed to be there at all. You can still go into the User Menu on your Perferences to set up another Guest User.

Oct 13, 2017 10:42 AM in response to Pipope

I tried, when i enable the Guest user and restart I do not see any option to login with Guest user.

U tried doing that? Seems solution has disabled the Guest user at root level. No idea though !!

Oct 17, 2017 11:56 AM in response to renzzofromlake forest

Thanks Renzzo! 😀

Oct 20, 2017 10:21 AM in response to renzzofromlake forest

Thank you Renzzo. This worked great.

Oct 22, 2017 4:03 AM in response to Grady Stebbins

Thank you! Its really helpful.

Oct 22, 2017 4:05 AM in response to renzzofromlake forest

Thank you very much!

Nov 12, 2017 11:38 PM in response to renzzofromlake forest

It didn't work for me. I got this response "uuid 'FFFFEEEE-DDDD-CCCC-BBBB-AAAA000000C9' (-69594)." What does this mean?

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"Ghost" Guest User Account