OS X Tiger :: Lost My User Account / Changed Account Name In Finder
Jun 3, 2010
I have just lost my user account that I normally use. It happened after I changed my name for my user account in the Finder. I clicked Get Info and changed the name from Helen Andersson to only Helen. and after that nothing is the same and i cant go back either that I know of. When I start the computer now everything that I had on my desktop and in my Itunes, Icalendar, addressbook, and Aperture are not there. I have found them (well at least what i had on my desktop and my itunes but not the other information), so they are still on the computer but I dont know how to get back to my normal user account.
When I check my System preferences Account I only have one account so its not like I made a new one and have two. But I can also see that the one I am using now that has nothing on it is made today.
So please if anyone can help me get my iMac to go back to the old user and all its settings the same way I would very much appreciate it. Because this user has nothing and I have to start everything from scratch even my internet settings I had to download again to be able to go on the internet. This user has nothing.
So I took an account photo when i recently installed leopard at the start up...when it's creating the account and all of that stuff...
I was messing around with Photo Booth, and clicked the account photo button, and it replaced the old one that i like with a new one...
How can i get my old one back? where was it located? I have made time machine backups, so maybe if i knew where the old photo is stored at, i could retrive it?
We had a HDD fail on one of our office Mac laptops (a power pc G4). Apple repaired it and I restored all files etc from a backup. I was the administrator during the restore. Before I could get back, the user changed that account to a standard account and changed the name. Now there is no way to change the account back, because there is no admin to authenticate the change. Anything I can do? I am not an advanced computer/Mac person.
I bought this new MacBook Pro a month ago. When I try logging into my guest account, it froze. I had no other alternative but to get out of it by pressing the power button. Then I tried open a new user account to see if it also has the same problem. Unfortunately it did have the same problem - froze after I logged in. I had done a harddisk check, there seemed to be no problem.
Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.2)
Up till now, all the family have been using just one user account on our iMac. (OK, I now know that's not a good idea!) I'm now going to be working from home so have set up a new user as Work. I've been using an IMAP mail service in Mail on the family user account and I've now set it up on the work account. If I delete the IMAP account from Mail in the family user account, will this delete my mail off the IMAP server so I cannot access it on the wrok user account?
I changed the short name of my home directory oblivious to the consequences. I have searched the internet high and low and have found a few threads already posted (including an Apple support article) that relate directly to this issue. However, although the root of the problem is the same in that I changed the short name, the outcome is slightly different and I can't restore all my preferences in the manner detailed in these articles. I have a Mac OS X 10.4.11. Here is exactly what I did and what is going on:
1. I went into Get Info. in the home directory icon in Finder. Say the original name was john, I changed it to Fred.
2. Since then, when I open any applications such as Skype, iTunes, iCalendar etc. all of the settings have been reverted to default making it appear as if I've only bought the Mac. However all my documents and music files are still there and can be accessed normally in the newly named directory. My desktop and widgets are also fine.
3. Now when I go to Macintosh HD and click into users there are 3 things: - The newly named home directory Fred with the house icon. - A folder with the old home directory's name, that being john. Inside there are Documents, Library, Music and Pictures folders but only the Library folder seems to contain anything important, which I hope are all my preferences. The other three are effectively empty. Like I said I can access my music files etc. normally. - Lastly the shared folder.
I haven't turned off or restarted my laptop because reading on threads it appears as if I can cause damage or end up not being able to access my mac. The two solutions I've found online are these: [URL]. The problem with this one for me is that I can't rename the new directory with the old name - it just won't let me. [URL]. The problem with this solution and another I found is that I think they are assuming the old directory - john - is in fact still a directory but in my case it is a folder.
I recently took my iMac into a Mac store to get a new hard drive because the old one bit the dust. When I got back home, I realized that the apple "genius" spelt my name wrong as the admin. I know its' not a big deal but this bugs me to death. So, I made a new admin with my correctly spelled name and deleted the mispelled name. Is this ok or is this going to jack up my computer?
I installed Mac OS X Server from Mac App Store. Then I deleted it, but Mac OS X Server changed my administrator account to standard account and I cannot administrate my Mac mini :-(. I cannot use my password and there is not any other administrator account. Do you know to change back my standard account to administator account?
Info: Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.4), Mac OS X Server
I cannot log into my account after having changed my password on the internet. I tried entering that same password on my computer mail account, but it won't work.
OK, so my email has been changed to a new account. Told to keep old account and settings on computer as to not lose old emails on mac.
Set up new account with same email (some password security errors side) but now cannot change to new account to sent emails as mail only lets me select the email address to send from and not the mail account.
I recently changed my Apple ID. When I try to make changes to my iCloud account on my Mac., I cannot access the account via System Preferences. I've changed the password once already. My iPhone's iCloud account is fine. At this point my iCloud account no longer is working with my Mac.
Info: MacBook (13-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.7.2)
We had a HDD fail on one of our office Mac laptops (a power pc G4). Apple repaired it and I restored all files etc from a backup. I was the administrator during the restore. Before I could get back, the user changed that account to a standard account and changed the name. Now there is no way to change the account back, because there is no admin to authenticate the change. Anything I can do? I am not an advanced computer/Mac person.
For some reason, whenever I start up iChat it automatically disconnects me and when I try to reconnect it says "iChat lost the connection to the AIM account "". The server connection was unexpectedly lost."
There are a number of user accounts on my computer.
All of them work, apart from one.
When I try to log into that User Account it will not open. I am using the correct password .
I can see the contents of that account when I am logged into one of the other accounts.
Is there any simple way of getting the User account working properly again?
I have backups of the Users folder. I could just replace the User that I cannot log into with that User from one of the backups. But the information will be slightly different as the backups were done weeks ago. Also I don't want to use those backups as I have had problems doing similar things before (because the system seems to remember where the files came from and that causes clashes).
So it's finals week, and I restarted my computer, and when it came back on, it went to the login screen. My computer never goes to the login screen. I looked at the accounts that were present, and none were mine. Only the "Other..." button was present, so I clicked on this and attempted to manually type in my account name and password, and I was unable to log in. I was able to access the computer through the System Administrator login (root name and master password). My harddrive still shows my name under the User Accounts, however when I go into the System Preferences to make changes to my accounts, only the root account shows. All of my information is still here, but is there a way to restore the account, so I can go back to using my machine with all of its settings? I'm running Leopard 10.5.5 on a Macbook Pro 17", 2.16ghz (1st generation).
I spent about four hours with customer support between the phone and instant message support a few days ago. I have a dot mac account, and use the Mail app. It has stopped working. It works on my iphone, it works on webmail, but the Mail app does not. Other computers in the house using dot mac and Mail work fine. I can't get the Mail app to connect to any email accounts, such as gmail either. Phone support moved me up 3 levels of folks to talk to, we spent a couple hours on the phone. Finally, fixed. Like four days later, it's gone again. I don't quite remember what all we ended up doing. iPhoto doesn't work. It will for a while. Then I get an error message and it just hangs. This was months ago, I gave up. Support couldn't solve it, I think I asked here too and never got it figured out. I switched to Picasa and have been happy since it never seems to mess up. During the time when the iPHoto thing was bugging me, I totally wiped out the machine and started fresh.
All the problems returned in no time. So I know I can call support back. But I get the feeling this is all just going to keep happening. The computer was purchased in 2007, running 10.6.2 (imac). It's all updated, etc. If I make a new user account, is it possible IT wont have these errors? Or is this a system wide thing? I know having dot mac will move most of my things along for me, mail, address book, ical, bookmarks, dock items, etc. But what about Picasa? I spent months and months organizing that. I suppose there is no way to just shove it over to another user account as is? I have an external, which is a mess of duplicate files and a lack of organization. But I do have one, and I am going to guess that is how I have to move things? I just lose all of my organization and such? I'm starting to understand why people are moving to all web based apps. I am sick of nothing working. I love the Mail app though. But I don't want to have to "fix" it every couple days.
Have just sorted my new iMac running on 10.5.2. I moved files from the main admin account over to a second account with admin privileges using the shared folder. Everything is as it should be BUT...
I can no longer log into the second account. I tried using a plug-in keyboard in case it was the wireless keyboard, restarted etc to no avail. Finally after doing a repair permissions using disk utility, I managed to log in ok.
I don't know if this is due to the MobileMe services being turned off, but I can't get logged into iChat. I haven't tried it for a few days before today though. It keeps my status off line and when I click on the symbol to the left of the status, the error is, "iChat lost the connection to the Mac.com account [URL]. A network error occurred."
I tried my mac.me account, too - still no go. I am using 10.7.4 (Lion) on a Mid 2010 Mac Pro. Nothing has changed (software or hardware) since I used iChat last other than the Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.14 back on the 28th. Looking up the error in these forums (and other forums on the Internet), I see a lot for AIM, but they are from months prior and are not applicable. I did try restarting iChat, restarting the computer, and restarting my modem and router (although Internet access was working fine, just not iChat). I checked all the settings in iChat preferences and they look good - Server: api.oscar.aol.com, Port: 443 w/SSL.
Info: Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 6-Core, 27-inch LED Cinema Display
Today when I turned on my iMac, it went to the login screen and then something odd happened. I saw a second account on the login list that i never made. It is called "Other: and has an icon with lines and spheres (like a networking icon). Also when I click on it, it asks for a name and password.I logged into account and went straight to System Preferences ->Accounts and there is no "Other" in the list of accounts there on the left.just my account. Is this a virus or have I been hacked? Or is this is bug?
Info: iMac (27-inch Late 2009), Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier
I just bought my mac and I have been googling and thread searching my heart out as best I know how and I can't seem to find and answer to this anywhere.
When you boot your Mac for the first time, OS X gives you the option of taking a picture for your account photo with your webcam. I am looking for the location of that file. I want to make it my profile picture on Facebook.
I am running 10.6.4 on a 6,2 Macbook Pro.
If anyone know the answer to this: Many internets unto you.
I recently purchases a ScanSnap scanner, and have been trying to get it to work for a week now. I've been on the phone with Level 1 Fujitsu tech support, and we've determined that whatever is preventing ScanSnap from working is in my user account (it works flawlessly in my wife's user account on the same machine). Getting ScanSnap working is so important to me that I'm considering creating a fresh user account for myself. This is a daunting task because I have so many preferences, special configurations, symlinks, etc. that I've created over the years. I don't think I can just migrate my data from the old user account to the new one, because then I might re-create whatever is causing the problem with the ScanSnap - right? Is there any way to make this process easier, or do I just have to stick it out and do it the hard way?
I run day-to-day in a non-Admin account. About 18 months ago, the in the menu bar has gone from 100% black to 50% black to 25% black, alternating horizontally. This happens only in my non-Admin account. A few days ago, I have not been able to properly log off of MobileMe or access the Account info. I get this screen:
Again, it only happens in my day-to-day non Admin account. I can access these fine in my other accounts. My AppleCare warranty runs out next month. So I am going to take my 2007 24", 2.4GHz, 4GB iMac to the Apple Store to see what's what.
Can they restore my account and still keep all my additions/modifications to my account and still be able to fix it?
y cousin is coming over to stay with us for a couple of weeks, and I wanted to create a seperate user account for him, so he does not mess up my settings.
I created my account username om my Mac ( OSX 10.6.2 ) long before I created my website. If we take it that my user account name happens to be 'myname' and my website happens to be [URL]. I hadn't noticed it was a problem until the other day. I changed the site base ref to work from [URL] away from {URL]. The problem is on my Mac, the address [URL] is referring to the local web server, ie pre installed Apache and library/webserver/documents not the actual web address. If Web server is switched off via the sharing control panels - the address returns a google not found page? which seems very odd.
It will also do this from any user account - identical results, so I know the Mac has reserved the name in some way. I don't want to rename my user account. I cant see my own website on my Mac which is very frustrating, as my website root is forcing all traffic to [URL] ( which is what I want of course ) and not [URL]. I have to use Parallels with a version of Windows to see the site properly.
I manage about 10 mac's here at work and would like to set up a user account for students. I am hoping that it is possible to setup a user account in such a way that any changes made whilst the student is logged in will be erased and refreshed for the next student.
I know that I can do this with the guest account but I've discovered that this is not suitable for what I need due to me not being able to create login items (specifically network volumes).
I've not done any scripting or anything like that but I was thinking of copying a script that would take a backup of the user's home directory upon login, then upon logout, the current home directory would be deleted and replaced with the backup that was taken earlier.
However, I'm guessing this will turn to poop if the student simply pulls the plug so I guess everything would have to be done upon login..
