Unable to consistently use my Admin Password

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Level 1

32 points

Unable to consistently use my Admin Password

Booting iMac (21.5" Late 2009), OS X 10.13.2 system will not accept my Admin Password. Booting and opening in the Safe mode, system accepts Admin Password. If immediately restart, after booting, system accepts Admin Password. However, for any additional activity, such as making a 'bootable installer' using Terminal and entering recommended command, unable to enter password. Any other activity, such as opening 'help tool' in Tech Tool 9.6, system will not accept Admin Password. I am trying to boot in other than iMac HD in order to scan the HD for possible bad segments. Checking my backup via Carbon Copy Cloner shows all backups satisfactory.

Have check date and time zone, reset SMC and NVRAM?PRAM (not sure which I have), no change.

Tried to use the Apple Hardware Test, will not open.

Ran System Diagnostics with multiple pages of info which I can not read.

Console of course contains reams of data, with only this latest re a crash report: (only the opening info)

Process: Preview [577]

Path: /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/MacOS/Preview

Identifier: com.apple.Preview

Version: 10.0 (944.4)

Build Info: Preview-944004000000000~1

Code Type: X86-64 (Native)

Parent Process: ??? [1]

Responsible: Preview [577]

User ID: 502

Date/Time: 2018-01-08 00:35:23.974 +0700

OS Version: Mac OS X 10.13.2 (17C88)

Report Version: 12

Anonymous UUID: AC6BF201-F81C-F564-8A7E-250E89DF587F

Time Awake Since Boot: 2600 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread: 7 Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-qos

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000100000020

Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal: Segmentation fault: 11

Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb

Terminating Process: exc handler [0]

Any help much appreciated.

iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2), 21.5" late 2009

Posted on Jan 15, 2018 4:17 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

123,020 points

Jan 15, 2018 6:19 AM in response to quince88

Create a new user and make them Admin capable. Then see if that one works consistently.

It may not be worth the effort to fix the old account, but you might give this a try (it is not meant to solve your specific problem, but it might): Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder - Apple Support

Do you normally use that account for day-to-day stuff? If so and the new user solves the problem, you'll have to move your data from old to new. We can provide some advice on how to do that.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

123,020 points

Jan 19, 2018 2:35 AM in response to quince88

There are two methods I have used successfully, but sometimes you still get a few odd things.

1) From the old account, move (or copy) all of your user documents into /Users/Shared. You can create subfolders to organize it all.

Log into new account and copy the items from /Users/Shared into your home folder wherever you'd like them to reside.

2) Add you new user to the Sharing and Permissions on the old home folder. Give it Read & Write permissions.

From the new account, copy the files out of the old home folder into your new home folder.

The second method will do less copying of files.

Even after doing either method, you may need to run the permissions repair on your new account.

For the most part, High Sierra can do some "live" repairs while booted into the same drive. The Recovery partition should be sufficient in almost all cases. If you need to boot into another drive to make repairs to your startup drive, that may be the source of your problems--the drive is failing.

I have never had a problem creating a bootable installer using these instructions:

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

I just rename my USB stick "My Volume", make sure the OS Installer is in the Applications folder, and copy/paste the command for the desired OS version. Use the line for the OS you are creating, not the one you are currently booted into. Use the top list of commands, not the ones in the "Learn More" section.

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Answer 3

quince88 Author

Level 1

32 points

Jan 19, 2018 2:20 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks for the input. I think it may have solved my problem as I was able to create a new user. I do notice at times when I enter my Admin Password, inputs are not shown by 'place markers black dots indicating accepting input.

I do use this account for all day-to-day stuff and using Carbon Copy Cloner for daily back-up. When I opened the new account it is as if a new computer. Your mentioned that you had some advice on moving data from old to new. Would appreciate your input in that regard.

Also other programs I would like to use to check hard drive and scan HD all require a separate bootable drive like a flash drive to boot from another drive rather than installed HD. Have read several articles and they use terminal, have tried and never seems to work. Several programs like Tech Tool and Drive Genius have a method to make said bootable drive, but seem to take ages to download on to the flash drive. Any thoughts along these lines would also be appreciated.

Thanks again.

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