Admin account treating me like a Guest

I just upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard. I am the only user on the machine and therefore am the administrator. However, my system is treating me like a guest by not allowing me to create folders on the desktop, change my wallpaper, look in my pictures folder, etc.
Anyone know what the issue might be?

No idea ....
Did you run Disk Utility > Repair Permissions after the upgrade?
What disks did you use for the Upgrade?
Did you apply the Mac OS X v10.6.3 v1.1 Update (Combo)? http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1017

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Safari slow in admin. account but runs normally in guest account

Hello,
I am new here but I really need help with this problem.
Recently Safari has been acting weird while signed in to the admin. account. I will constantly get the spinning beach ball and it will slow the entire computer. Works fine in guest account.
I tried emptying all the caches and even tried removing the plst files in preferences. Also reinstalled Safari. Even when I try and force quit Safari will take up to 15-20 seconds to shut down.
The activity monitor shows Safari using more % of CPU in admin. account than in guest account. While in admin. account activity monitor, Safari will suddenly drop near the bottom of the list when the spinning beach ball appears.
Also, recently I downloaded an app for removing audio from DVD files and it was after this that I started experiencing Safari problems. Could I have a virus? I have since removed all traces of these programs from my computer but Safari still jamming.
Thanks for any advice in advance.
Cheers,
Mike

Thanks for the quick responses.
I checked for any login items and there are none. Also, there isn't a "Startup items" folder in the "Library".
I also looked in the "Input Managers" and "Internet Plugins" but there were no files present.
I forgot to mention in my first post that when I dragged the Safari plist files to my desktop Safari would not load a webpage after that. The "Apple welcome" page was trying to open but no luck.
I noticed today that the spinning beach ball would appear mostly when the web pages were loading small ads like the ones you get next to your hotmail inbox.
When Safari is open I can't do anything with other programs on my Mac. Even the "finder" is causing the spinning beachball. When Safari is not open all is fine.
Would a Console Message or Quicklook crash reporter message be of any help if I posted those?
Cheers,
Mike

Adobe CC Apps wont launch on my Admin account but will on a guest account on my Macbook Pro

Hi,
My company owns an Adobe CC lisence. I've downloaded Prem Pro, AE, Photoshop and Bridge on to my brand new retine Macbook Pro running Mavericks, and none of the apps will launch properly on my main administrator account.
Prem Pro just crashes at the splash screen, Photoshop loads to a new project screen then crashes, AE says its can't load because of an error, each them a different reason.
However, I can get them to work when switching user accounts to a guest account. Both the Macbook and Adobe CC subscriptions are new, so I can't understand why it's working on one account and not another?
It's useless to me that it doesn't work on my admin account, as the laptop is both my work and personal computer, so everything is on the main admin account, a guest account is literally just for a guest to login.
Any help?
Cheers,
Phil

Phil please see Troubleshoot unexpected behavior | User account-specific | Adobe software | Mac OS - http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/troubleshoot-unexpected-behavior-user-account.ht ml for information on how to resolve the errors you are receiving under your current User account.

Display color profile bug when using the fast account switch from a guest account to an admin account (and vice versa)

Hey,
I'm sometimes using a guest account on my MBP (unibody late 2008 2,4 GHz Core2Duo, 4GB DDR3 running OSX 10.9.4 on an OCZ 128GB SSD) for a more distraction-free working space and I noticed right away a disturbing bug:
Using the fast account switch (upper right hand corner of the screen) in Mavericks from an admin account to log into a guest account (or vice versa) produces, after the fancy rotating cube animation, some strange distortion of the desktop background happens (lasting approx. 2 sec.). After that the color profile of the display is changed into an usable but ugly one, which is disturbing while working with pictures. When checking the color profile in the pref pane, the standard "display" profile is said to be active (it's the one I use) but still the colors aren't the same. Selecting another profile and re-selcting the desired one doesn't fix the problem. Switching back to the other account with the fast switching leaves the colors altered. Logging out and deleting the guest account seems to the problem for the remaining admin account. Rebooting and logging in to either of the accounts (admin or guest) from the standard account selecting page at booting shows the normal color profile.
Is it a general bug or is their anything a can do to prevent this problem (other than never using the fast switching)?
Thanks for your advice.
Mael

I cannot agree more with your comments! What a way to frustrate your customers!
I have been having an issue with iCloud on Mac where it kept asking me for my password and sometimes would, sometimes would not continue to access my iCloud mail. Today it just refused to connect to iCloud mail.
I looked in the Mail, Contacts and Calendars in my MacBook Pro settings and discovered that 2 iCloud accounts were present. One with my original Apple ID (a gmail address) and a second with my new iCloud email ( an @me.com address). Having deleted the second account, using the new @me.com address everything is working fine.
So from my viewpoint when I moved over to iCloud I was asked to sign in with my Apple ID (the gmail address) then to create an @me.com address. However, as far as I can see all sign ins to the new @me.com account on Macbook, iPhone and iPad need to be done through the old Apple ID (the gmail address). Is that confusing and just plain crazy???
Further, after creating the new @me.com address I soon found out that this is apparently now forever bound to my old Apple ID and cannot be changed. I mean why can't I delete the iCloud account and start anew with a different @me.com address??? Also, as everybody using iCloud must create an @me.com address why on earth can I not get rid of my old gmail address and have my entire Apple ID accessed through the new @me.com address? Creating a whole new Apple ID will not solve this as we are unable to transfer purchases between accounts.
Apple products are great IMHO, but they do seem to not think things through in a very big way sometimes......

Photoshop launches in Admin account but not in User account??

My 2007 Mac Pro is working fine. Just installed 10.6.7 on freshly wiped HD in Bay #2. Used the migration feature to bring over everything from drive in Bay #1 (which runs 10.5.8). After that: Photoshop CS5 will not launch (on either drive) under the regular user account. Throws 2 messages as follows: "Cannot find scratch disk because disk is unavailable." Then: "Cannot initialize because disk is unavailable."
But - just logged in on my Admin account on the Snow Leopard drive. I then tried (for the first time ever, I think) to launch PS CS5 just to see what would happen. The app launched normally!
This after:
1. using Adobe uninstaller to remove "original" install of PS CS5 from the Snow Leopard drive. Then reinstalling. (first reinstall of THREE). This did not work to make the app launch, still got above messages.
2. Ran permission repairs (I know - you don't have ta tell me.)
3. Ran DiskWarrior - applied new directory to both Leopard and Snow Leopard drives.
4. I then called Adobe support. Let the agent connect to my desktop from where he did another un-install & re-install using downloaded Adobe utility app. (A guy in India ran my Mac Pro in Michigan for 30 minutes while I sat there, entering Admin password when needed for the operations. Amazing.) He also performed Adobe diagnostics. All without success (on the User account).
After that, he gave up and arranged for a higher level agent to call me tomorrow (Wed. 4/13).
5. Adding: during the above Adobe effort, it came to me that I have too many versions of Photoshop. (I had CS, CS3, CS 4 and CS 5.) So - I systematically removed all versions except the original CS from both the Leopard and Snow Leopard drives. I used AppDelete for this removal, hoping to get all pref files, etc. I even deleted an old version of Acrobat - just because I no longer need it. Then I ran DiskWarrior again and used PreferentialTreatment to check for bad prefs: then again installed CS 5 again - on both drives. (Still working in my normal User account.)
6. Adding: all along, I had no trouble launching and using Photoshop Elements 8 on either drive. I had originally set the PSE scratch disk to my RAID storage drives (Bay #3 & #4). So I was sure by then that I had forgotten to apply the same designation for scratch disk of Photoshop CS5. This was the only variable or possibility I knew of at the time. Guessing: I had set CS 5 to use the drive I wiped clean for Snow Leopard and that's why it came up with: "drive not available."
Repeating: it was not until I logged into my Admin account on the Snow Leopard drive and found I could launch Photoshop from that account that I decided to check in here with my question:
Q. What is the remedy for having one account which won't allow launch for some (in this case, just ONE) apps?
Sorry to be long-winded: this was a major, day-long effort and I want to provide a complete picture of what was done to trouble shoot. Thanks in advance for any help.

1. Standard procedure is to do all but a few operations from Standard User accounts: which I have always done. All software installations have been from my original Standard User account.
Actually, most people use their admin accounts for things like installs, and some apps may not be installable from a standard account or may not function properly there, unless they can authenticate to admin privileges to install things in places standard users don't have access.
several complete uninstalls followed by an equal number of reinstalls FROM the original CS 5 install disk made no difference: when in the Standard User account. CS 5 DOES work under the Admin account on the new Snow Leopard installation (on Bootable Drive #2).
That matches with my experiences with Photoshop Elements... it only works if you've got admin privileges, unless you figure out what items are inaccessible from a standard user account and change their permissions.
I'm sure most experienced users would say that sticking with a Regular User account for daily operations is best.
In reality, that's not as prevalent as it probably should be. In part, that may be because of other software that similarly doesn't run on a standard account. In addition, running on an admin account really isn't as much of a risk as it might seem. I finally gave up years ago on using a standard account, and have never had a problem as a result of using an admin account for day-to-day operations. The stuff you can least afford to lose - ie, your documents - you have full access rights to in a standard account anyway, making your data no safer. It's easier to bork the system in an admin account, but the system is easily replaced.
I have seen (here and elsewhere) that creating a new Reg User account is the remedy when something suddenly won't work
That is true, but it's not a magic wand. In this case, though, I don't think that's likely to help. You're welcome to try it, but I highly recommend doing so in a non-destructive way, so that you can easily switch back to your regular account if it doesn't work.

Migration problem (created second admin account)

So I just got a new Macbook Pro and wanted to transfer my music and documents from my time machine from my old Macbook.
I did it, but now I have a second Admin account with the music and documents. I don't want a second admin account and would like to delete it.
I only want one admin account, so how would I migrate the music and documents from the time machine to my current admin account?
So my questions are how do I delete the second admin account that was created and just mirgate it to the current admin account?
Another question that is off topic is: the feature on safari that when you quit safari that it opens up the same window. Can that be changed to just being the homepage at all times when I reopen safari after it was quit?

Drag them over to the original accounts Public folder, or move them to the hard drive level Users/Shared folder. You may experience some permissions problems you will have to fix.

My MacBook Pro (mid 2010) won't startup correctly in my admin account, but works fine if I use the guest account...

My MacBook Pro (mid-2010) suddenly stopped working when I was overseas, but I managed to fix it when I returned back to the States after I reformatted and erased the disk, then installed Yosemite. I lost most of my files but didn't really care, though I noticed that some pictures from iPhoto had survived and were in the Trash folder.
I thought I could copy/paste them back into iPhoto, but it wouldn't let me since they were still in the trash. I started getting an error message for EACH PICTURE saying it couldn't be copied because it was in the trash, and when I realized that I'd have to click "ok" 644 times (once for each picture), I tried to restart, then shut down, and eventually forced a shut down by holding down the power button. This is where the problem started...
After trying to startup again, I was able to login to my admin account, and the desktop image would load, but I'd get the spinning rainbow wheel and the computer would remain frozen like that from then on. I tried to repair the disk (there was nothing wrong), and even re-installed the operating system again, but still the problem persists. BUT, if I login with my guest account, everything works fine.
I'm guessing it has something to do with it somehow being frozen on those error messages for those 600+ pictures, but I have no idea how to fix/unfreeze it. Any tips or suggestions?

mozak wrote:
Can the use of SATA3 instead of SATA2 hdd lead to some issues with my macbook?
I can try to find and buy new SATA2 sdd hdd but they are expensive and I'm not sure it will fix the restarting issue.
SATA3 is backwards compatible with SATA2. That is not likely to be your problem.
Based on what you have done, I suggest a reinstall of the OSX.
Ciao.

Adobe Reader 8.1.2 Quits on Admin Account OK on Guest Account Leopard

I have a new Aluminum Imac that when opening Adobe reader 8.1.2 on the admin account it quits unexpectedly. When I log into the guest account it opens no problem. I have tried removing some adobe.plist files and at least got to an opening screen before it quit. Where do I go from here to troubleshoot this?

I got it. What I did is click on the Reader icon and did get info on both admin user accounts. At the bottom is permission the read write for different users. I put them all at read figuring with Adobe Reader I can't change anything anyway. I then went to Macintosh HD library/preferences and trashed anything adobe the same for both admin user libraries and anything else I could find. I then rebooted and it now works. Not sure if everything I did is necessary but the important thing is it works.

Adobe Reader 8.1.2 Quits On Admin Account OK on Guest Account

I have a new Aluminum Imac that when opening Adobe reader 8.1.2 on the admin account quits unexpectently. When I log into the guest account it opens no problem. Where do I go from here to troubleshoot this?

Just so other people that might have this problem will know I got it fixed. I found that Adobe worked in the guest account. I made another Admin account and tried it there and it quit on that account also. With a suggestion by someone on the Adobe forums that it was a permission issue I tried fixing permissions with the OSX install disk because I had already repaired permissions several times while booted normally. There was only one permission fixed called private/var/log. After that I tried it again and again it quit. So then I clicked on the Adobe icon and went to get info. At the bottom of that window is permissions for different users. I changed them all to Read from Read/Write. I then trashed everything Adobe I could find in the user accounts and the Macintosh HD folder other than the Adobe icon. I then rebooted and it then worked. I do not know if everything was necessary but it did the job.

How to prevent guest account from accessing my admin account files/documents?

I have an iMac 21" running OS 10.6.8. I have a guest account set up in addition to my own administrators account. When I log on as a guest, I am able to access all of the file documents on my computer, including the ones created on my administator's account. These are files I do not want a guest to be able to access. My question is how to change the settings so these do not show up when logged in to the guest account. I have tried changing Finder Preferences in the guest account - this can be easily changed back by the guest user, and the settings also revert back after I log out. In the admin account I checked System Preferences settings - the only thing on is printer and bluetooth sharing. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Here's a way to reset the Home folder permissions and ACLs posed by Linc Davis that may do the job.
Linc Davis
Re: Reset Home Folder Permissions and ACLs not working?
This helped meRe: Reset Home Folder Permissions and ACLs not working?
Apr 30, 2014 10:06 PM (in response to plcmms)
Triple-click anywhere in the following line on this page to select it:
{ sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR..; sudo chown -R $UID:staff ~ $_; sudo chmod -R u+rwX ~ $_; chmod -R -N ~ $_; } 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
You'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The command may take a few minutes to run, or perhaps longer if you have literally millions of files in your home folder. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear, then quit Terminal.
Here's another way to do the same thing but this time when booted into the Recovery volume:
You may need to rebuild permissions on your user account. To do this,boot to your Recovery partition (holding down the Command and R keys while booting) and open Terminal from the Utilities menu. In Terminal, type: ‘resetpassword’ (without the ’s), hit return, and select the admin user. You are not going to reset your password. Click on the icon for your Macs hard drive at the top. From the drop down below it select the user account which is having issues. At the bottom of the window, you'll see an area labeled Restore Home Directory Permissions and ACLs. Click the reset button there. The process takes a few minutes. When complete, restart.

I've made 2 admin accounts by mistake and would like to know how do I delete the second one?

I've made two admin accounts by mistake, and would like to know how I can delete the second one I made.

Apple Menu / System Preferences / Users and Groups / ... click the lock, authenticate with your password.
Select the User you want to delete, and click on the - sign.

Guest User settings bleeding into my admin account

Hi,
I recently enabled Guest User access to test some issues that I was having with my 17" Mac Book Pro running Lion 7.2. After switching back to my admin account, I notice there are some settings that have reverted to the default setting of the Guest User account:
Mail displays messages in conversation form, after I had set it to no longer group by conversation.
I think the trackpad speed has reverted to the default speed.
There may be another setting, but I don't remember what it was.

milocricket,
booting with the Alt key held down brings up the Startup Manager. One needs to boot with a Command key and the R key held down for Recovery mode.

HT5500 I can no longer connect to Facebook via Safari, Firefox and Chrome from Admin account, but I can through the Guest account? Any ideas?

For some reason, Facebook is the only site I cannot reach when logged in as Admin. When I switch to Guest then I can access Facebook. I've cleared DNS cache. I've reset Safari, etc. Something is real wierd. Any ideas?

I would try posting this in the right forum your in the ipad forum right now

I have no Admin account now, and keeps asking me to: Type an administrator's name and password to allow this.

i've installed the new beta Yosemite. After i found i didnt like it, i decided to return to Mavericks. Now, at the installation process i dont know what happened and now i dont have any admin account. so, the system keeps asking me to Type an administrator's name and password to allow this. and i cant do anything, because i only have an standard and a guest account. How can i make my standard account an admin one. Also, this makes me sick, because i cant install or configure anything.
ps. i regret about installing Yosemite beta. not good at all
these are some screenshots
http://prntscr.com/4ce3nx
http://prntscr.com/4ce43z

Do you still have a Recovery partition? To see if you do, hold down the command and R keys whilst booting and erase your boot drive and then reinstall the version of OS X that you last paid for or downloaded.
Call back if that doesn't work...
Clinton

My safari is not running on my admin account

Hello,
I have a MacBook Pro
As of last night my Safari is not running on my Admin Account. It works just fine on my guest account.
I have tried deleting the cookies, resetting my safari, emptying the cache. Nothing is working. I've made sure everything is updating, but Safari will not run.
It will bring up the Yahoo homepage, but if I try to click anywhere else, it will act like it is loading, but never bring up the page that I try to go to. Any ideas on how to help with this???

Hi ...
Try deleting the cache.db associated with Safari. Sometimes it does a better job then emptying the cache from the Safari menu bar.
Quit Safari.
Go to ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db
Move the Cache.db file to the Trash.
Relaunch Safari to test.
If that didn't help, from your Safari menu bar click Safari > Preferences then select the Extensions tab. If you have any installed, turn that OFF, quit then relaunch Safari to test.
And try troubleshooting Safari third party add-ons > Safari: Unsupported third-party add-ons may cause Safari to unexpectedly quit or have performance issues
And check to see if Safari is running in 32 bit mode. Right or control click the Safari icon in your Applications folder then click Get Info. If the box next to: Open in 32 bit mode is selected, deselect, quit then relaunch Safari.
It will bring up the Yahoo homepage, but if I try to click anywhere else, it will act like it is loading, but never bring up the page that I try to go to
Your ISP may be re directing your browser. Using OpenDNS will prevent that from happening. Use OpenDNS for better speed, more security, includes anti phishing filters, no more redirects, and it's free.
Open System Preferences / Preferences then select the Network tab. Click the Advanced tab then click the DNS tab.
Click +
Enter these addresses exactly as you see them here.
208.67.222.222
Click +
208.67.220.220
Then click OK.
More about OpenDNS here.
Topic : Manually provided DNS server addresses are higher priority than DHCP's

Admin account treating me like a Guest

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