I have an Error when I go into "Users & groups" when I try to unlock the folder I get "There was an error in Users & Groups preferences."
Does anyone have a correction?
MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)
Might be a corrupt .plist.
Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.
Quit System Preferences.
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.
I cannot open Users & groups as an administrator, if I do I get the error. This occurs for all accounts.
More importantly, demonstrating that El Capitain is an unsecure operating system is I did perform a System operating reinstall and it did not correct the problem. To correct it I loaded High sierra and the problem was corrected.
El Capitain cannot be trusted as a Mac OS as it shoud of brought the operating system back to baseline operation but did not.
If this ever happens to me, and it has a couple of times a restart usually resolves it.
You made no mention that this issue was being experienced by three user accounts on your Mac earlier, it helps to include all pertinent information in the original post. Open your System/Library/PreferencePanes folder, here you will see a list of the items that are displayed in System Preferences when you open it. Double clicking Accounts.prefPane should open System Preferences and also launch the Users & Groups panel. Does it do this?
Reinstalling the OS should have resolved the situation, so perhaps you may want to include the findings of an etrecheck report in your next reply. http://etrecheck.com/
Solvable? What is the solution?
What you have not noticed in my previous statement is that reinstalling El captain did not resolve the problem but installing High sierra did. Clearly demonstrating a problem in El captain.
Mac OS X El Capitan is a very stable and trustworthy OS, High Sierra on the other hand, ???
You by having one small very solvable problem is not demonstrating El Capitan is an unstable system, your problem is not being reflected as a major issue in other posts. The times that I have experienced some System Preferences not loading were in High Sierra, these little glitches happen to some and not to all.
Eric root does this apply to El captain? the folder you describe has no information. com.apple.systempreferences.plist are found in /System/Library/Privateframework/.. see enclosed
I have already tried a restart as well as a shut down.
So if we go back to Erics post he is asking you to look inside your Users <Home> Library folder, it does exist it is just hidden by default.
So click on an empty area of your Desktop to get Finder as the foremost application, click on Go in the menubar, click on Go to Folder and enter this text ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist press Go.
A new Finder window will open with the file highlighted, move it onto your Desktop.
Now restart your Mac, a new systempreferences.plist will be created. Once the Mac has completed starting up open System Preferences and then your Users & Groups panel. If it now works you can then delete the errant preference file that you placed on your Desktop.
I understand and know where the directory is located. I think this is a Mac OS hack and here is why.
-I have reinstalled the operating system and the problem still exists.
- The com.apple.systempreferences.plist file if removed should be recreated after restarting but this would only correct the problem for that particular user. I have 3 User accounts and all 3 have the same problem. I tried removing the com.apple.systempreferences.plist file from one user account after reinstalling the Mac OS it still did not work.
I have noticed this particular problem existed for older versions of Mac OS and none of the suggestions worked.
There was an error in Users & Groups preferences.
