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Help me fix my user acct on my Mac

 

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I recently bought a used late 2012 Mac mini. Somewhere in the process of setting it up my long time User account got corrupted. I don’t know where or when, and don’t care, other than I want to use the same User Name. Somewhere between the minimum OS and 10.15, Catalina, it got corrupted.. It might even when I Migrated from my MBP with 10.7.5. Who cares?

In 20 years of using Apple devices, this is the first time a User Account I am dealing with has corrupted on me. I can’t imagine how much detritus it has.

How can I fix it, or lose the least amount of good stuff?

Above is what I want to address. Below is what has already been tried and how it presented..

Apple “Support” has fought me every step of the way, because it is Apple’s policy not to support Obsolete hardware, or Obsolete software. As far as the software, it is less than 5 years old., And the problem turns out not to be either the hardware or a unique or discontinued feature of the software. But we did after many reinstall, Recoveries from the Partition, Cmd R, or Recoveries over the Internet, Opt Cmd R.
We did finally narrow it down to the fact that my User account is corrupted. A new test administrator User worked properly.

I found an Apple article, I don’t remember the search term used, but here is how it presented:

App Store won’t open, I get a blank page.
I get told my password for my AppleID and my ?account is wrong, unless I use a work around.
Apple TV starts, News spins,Music loads, iTunes Store loads,
Can’t find Game Center, visible in Sys prefs Internet Accts,
Can’t find Arcade or Fitness,
Books shows books in iCloud only
I don’t have Apple Card, so I expected nothing here.
Under SysPrefs/ Internet Accounts, only my iCloud and Game Center accounts show but none of my non-Apple email accounts. (Clue, long ago, on my MBP running 10.7.5, my yahoo accounts won’t appear.)

As a work around, I again created a new Admin User for myself, and all of the above seems to work properly.

Conclusion, my original User account is corrupted.

Brent

From my late 2012 Mac mini.
 

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Brent wrote:
I recently bought a used late 2012 Mac mini. Somewhere in the process of setting it up my long time User account got corrupted. I don’t know where or when, and don’t care, other than I want to use the same User Name. Somewhere between the minimum OS and 10.15, Catalina, it got corrupted.. It might even when I Migrated from my MBP with 10.7.5. Who cares?

In 20 years of using Apple devices, this is the first time a User Account I am dealing with has corrupted on me. I can’t imagine how much detritus it has.

How can I fix it, or lose the least amount of good stuff?

OK
2012 Mini (with Intel CPU)
Catalina (macOS 10.15) installed
Boots successfully, but cannot log into primary account
DOES log into new, secondary account

Questions:
Hard disk drive or SSD (even the 2012 Mini had an SSD option)?
HFS+ or APSF format?
Is there a clone or Time Machine backup of a working version?

I am guessing that no appropriate backup exists, because you would already have tried that.

If it is a hard disk with HFS+ then I will say that Disk Warrior has pulled my ass out of the fire on more than one occasion in the past. (I have not had any incident where I *needed* it since going to SSD / APSF).

Alsoft says:
<>
DiskWarrior 5.3 is compatible with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion through macOS 14 Sonoma?when rebuilding Mac OS Extended external drives.
DiskWarrior 5.3 now runs within macOS 10.14 Mojave through macOS 14 Sonoma Recovery on Intel Macs.

--?
Jim Saklad
jimdoc@...
Jim logo small.jpg

 

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On Feb 8, 2024, at 3:13 PM, Jim Saklad via <jimdoc@...> wrote:

OK
2012 Mini (with Intel CPU)
Catalina (macOS 10.15) installed
Boots successfully,

Correct to this point. I can log into the primary User account and many functions work, except some critical ones.
but cannot log into primary account
DOES log into new, secondary account

Second user account seems to work fine.

Questions:
Hard disk drive or SSD (even the 2012 Mini had an SSD option)?

I chose the HDD option, problems started before I switched to APFS. Issues may have started on my 2008 MBP as Mail.app refused to connect to the yahoo mail servers. I thought was like the fact that many web sites would not allow access because of the old browsers. Also, my MBP is no longer recognized by ?and won’t sync various built-in apps.Both issues similar to what is now happening.


HFS+ or APSF format?
Is there a clone or Time Machine backup of a working version?

I am guessing that no appropriate backup exists, because you would already have tried that.

No need for a back up, while I am slowly migrating thru the various Ones to the highest OS this mini can use. Everything is either on my iCloud account or my Drobo, a RAID, which I disconnect when doing upgrades to completely issolate my docs and data.

If it is a hard disk with HFS+ then I will say that Disk Warrior has pulled my ass out of the fire on more than one occasion in the past. (I have not had any incident where I *needed* it since going to SSD / APSF).

Alsoft says:
<>
DiskWarrior 5.3 is compatible with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion through macOS 14 Sonoma?when rebuilding Mac OS Extended external drives.
DiskWarrior 5.3 now runs within macOS 10.14 Mojave through macOS 14 Sonoma Recovery on Intel Macs.

I had to look, but the last copy of diskWarrior is v3.0.2, so early 2000s. I don’t think I have needed it since OS X was introduced.What function were you going to suggest using. Remember, all the corrections seem to be needed on the System Partition of the drive, not the Mac HD, with my Docs, or the external drives. The detritus I speak of are libraries, caches, prefs, and bits of old software, like the now useless MS Office 2011.



--?
Jim Saklad
 

If the aim is to use the original account name, and you can establish a working admin account, you can set that second account up and rename it. ?I had some uninterpretable problems with my account on a 2011 iMac. ?I created a second account called Admin, copied over everything to it, renamed it, and then deleted the old account. ?

You’d have to look up the process for renaming an account. ?There is more than one step and you have to do the steps in the wrong order, flying monkeys will destroy your Mini. ?I don’t recall where I saw the steps but I assume it can be found with your favourite search engine. ??
 

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Bayswater,?

I was thinking exactly that, I created a new Admin User to get things done, and was wondering about just changing its name.?

I have skimmed through the article on renaming and I have flying monkey repellent.?

What are the things I have to copy over? What did I miss in the list below?

My Docs and Data, no problem, since it is a new install and those ae either in my iCloud or on my external RAID.
Caches were erased when I worked with Apple Support testing my User account.
Libraries and Prefs regenerate, or should when I install a current version of an app.?
Settings are no big deal, and I do not rely on KeyChain to store passwords, so I may have to re-enter some passwords when I visit some web sites.

My last version of MS Office, 2011, won’t work in Catalina. I have a clone of the Mojave install, but with a corrupted User, and I can’t find any where to buy a stand alone version of Office or Excel, the only part I want. I can’t afford ransomeware, uh, I mean subscription model apps. I can get by with Numbers, just not as elegantly.?

Is there anything that I have not listed? I have one other question, does it make any difference if in machine language, this New Admin User is referred to as 502, and not 501? I would guess not.

Brent

On my iPhone Xr

On Feb 9, 2024, at 07:52, Bayswater <Bayswater@...> wrote:

?If the aim is to use the original account name, and you can establish a working admin account, you can set that second account up and rename it. ?I had some uninterpretable problems with my account on a 2011 iMac. ?I created a second account called Admin, copied over everything to it, renamed it, and then deleted the old account. ?

You’d have to look up the process for renaming an account. ?There is more than one step and you have to do the steps in the wrong order, flying monkeys will destroy your Mini. ?I don’t recall where I saw the steps but I assume it can be found with your favourite search engine. ??

 

On Feb 9, 2024, at 5:35?PM, Brent via groups.io <whodo678@...> wrote:

I can’t find any where to buy a stand alone version of Office.
I started a new thread, "Microsoft Office 2021 Home and Business lifetime license."

David
 

Brent, I can’t say anything about Office; I don’t use anything from MS. ?But if it was authorized on the system presumable other user accounts can use it, unless of course Office is the source of the original problem that the new user ID is meant to solve. ?I did copy over or import things from the original user Library, like the Apple Mail files and a few preferences that had taken a long time to set up, particularly those with a keyboard shortcuts. ?I left the original user ID in place for a while, with just about everything cleaned out of it, just in case. ?It uses very little space and does nothing if you’re not logged into it. ?There might have been a couple of things I had to re-install, but just about all of that stuff sits in the main system folders and libraries. ?
 

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I use Excel, the rest of office I could do without. I don’t think MS Office is the cause of the problem. I think iCloud did not like working with macOS 10.7.5, but there is no way to prove it. Also Office suddenly stopped acknowledging y product key,?causing other issues.

Mail, rebuilds its files, since I use IMAP.?I have some old files archived on my old Mac,?along with some email that is stored on the old Mac, no longer in the Mail server. I’m not worried about prefs, as I don’t mind going thru them to reset. I use it as a time to review and reset. I found that many of my needs have?changed since I retired. Since I crossed the 64-bit only line, I have to install or upgrade?several apps. Some are no longer being developed, so need replacement.

I’ll rename both Users, and then hold onto the old one for a bit.

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate it.

Brent

On Feb 10, 2024, at 7:51 AM, Bayswater <Bayswater@...> wrote:

Brent, I can’t say anything about Office; I don’t use anything from MS. ?But if it was authorized on the system presumable other user accounts can use it, unless of course Office is the source of the original problem that the new user ID is meant to solve. ?I did copy over or import things from the original user Library, like the Apple Mail files and a few preferences that had taken a long time to set up, particularly those with a keyboard shortcuts. ?I left the original user ID in place for a while, with just about everything cleaned out of it, just in case. ?It uses very little space and does nothing if you’re not logged into it. ?There might have been a couple of things I had to re-install, but just about all of that stuff sits in the main system folders and libraries. ?

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