Automatic launch application & Fast User Switching

Hello everyone. How automatic to launch app or to run applescript every time when change user (login) via Fast User Switching?

13045147 - APEX_CUSTOM_AUTH.POST_LOGIN SHOULD NOT CALL AUTHENTICATION FUNCTIONIn version 4.1, calls to wwv_flow_custom_auth_std.post_login() behave like calls to login(). The procedure called the pre-authentication and authentication functions. It therefore required a valid username/password combination and could not be used to simply change the user, as in previous versions.
Solution: There is a patchset exception for this available on metalink - search by bug number.>
Regards,
Igor

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Apps do not launch after fast user switch; requires restart

I have 3 users accounts on a mid-2010 with 12 GB RAM; two with parental controls - the kids.
The kids like to play games (particuarally Minecraft), so will log in a play for a while. Typcially when one is done playing they will use the fast user switch menu to go back to the "Login Window..." They are pretty good about shutting down the apps afterwards due to previous performance issues.
When the second user logs in, the only application that seems to work is Finder. Clicking on an app in the dock results in the "Denied"sound. Tyring to launch from Finder or from the dock using "Open" results in nothing happening. It just seems to ignore it - not even the spinny wheel.
It is almost like everything is locked for the second user and the restart clears it. Generally it is responsive for the upper menu items so it does not seem to be a memory or CPU issue. Activity montor does not show anything out of the ordinary.
This does not occur on my accout which I am currently running as an admin. (I shouldn't but am). I can login and run all the applications but if I switch to the second user nothing launches.
I have re-installed Mavericks, and ran both the file and permissions repair on disk. I cleared all of the old cahce. The only thing that seems to work reliably is to restart the system.
It also seems that if the first user logs out then when the second user tries to log in the system just seems to hang after trying to log into the second account. It swtiches to the user screen but gets stuck with the spinny wheel; this requires the one finger force reboot.

Generally yes, they will keep running. You can confirm this by running the "Activity Monitor" app to see their CPU usage.

How to get "fast user switching" and network shares playing nice

I've been alternating between banging my head against a wall and reading every forum I could find to try and get a reasonable compromise between using "Fast user switching" and sharing a folder from a file server. It baffles me how the network share/mount model of OSX/AFP is completely killed by fast-user-switching; this is a big problem with Apple requiring users to be actively logged in to share music/video from iTunes which therefore essentially requires fast-user-switching if anyone else wants to use the computer. (anyone find it odd that you can share files without being logged in, but sharing songs requires an active login for each user who is sharing? Apple: time to make iTunes sharing a service!)
For the sake of example, lets just say I want to share my /Groups folder from my desktop and have it be accessible to my laptop. Here are all the things that I tried:
Apple Method 1) Share /Groups in the Server.app on the desktop (running Lion Server), use finder on the laptop and drag the share icon to "Login Items", alternative use a startup Apple script using "mount volume" Both of the options work and will mount the /Groups folder under /Volumes/Groups, of course when the second person logs in via fast-user-switching (and occasionally the first person for no apparent reason), they will get /Volumes/Groups-1 since /Volumes/Groups is already taken. Tomorrow we log in a different order and now the previously /Volumes/Groups-1 user has their mount at /Volumes/Group and vice versa. Any links, aliases, finder sidebar references, and application settings which pointed to yesterday's location are now BROKEN. Not very user friendly to my mother-in-law who is trying to find those pictures of the kids and doesn't know anything about mount points. I also can't reasonably mirror the file location structure on the desktop so that application preferences that are synced between the two (portable home directories) work. fail.
Apple Method 2) Use automounter and set up by hand direct maps for /Groups or an indirect maps for the children of /Groups. Now it will automatically get mounted to /network/servers/SERVER/Groups/ on the laptop and on the desktop it will automatically create a similar symlink structure so that the same path (/network/servers/SERVER/Groups) work both on desktop and laptop. Cool. Except when the second person logs in, the /network/servers/SERVER/Groups/ mountpoint is already owned by the first user and they don't have any permissions to access it. Fail.
Apple Method 3) Use mount_afs and specify directly the mount-points. Have each user have their own startup AppleScript which mounts /Groups to a different location (e.g. /Users/Shared/username/Groups) that way they don't conflict with multiple users. On the desktop, set up symlinks from /Users/Shared/username/Group to /Groups so that it will be the same as the client and applications settings will work when synchronized back/forth by portable-home-directories. Will it work, yes it does, but what a bear to maintain. Is this really what I should expect to do just to have multiple users on my desktop and laptop (which again is essentially required now if I want to do any type of iTunes sharing). This can't be what apple expects.
What I ended up doing - the "not quite apple" solution.
Non-Apple Method 4) After a read of "Autofs: Automatically Mounting Network File Shares in Mac OS X" (http://images.apple.com/business/docs/Autofs.pdf) at the very end there is a single paragraph of "Kerberized NFS": "A Kerberized NFS mount can have multiple connections from multiple users, each using the correct user’s credentials for each transaction. This allows administrators to support multiple users, each authenticated with their own credentials to the same mount point. This is very different from AFP and SMB mounts," (emphasis mine)
It appears that by using good 'ole NFS (abeint with Kerberos for security!) you can actually have multiple users on the same mount point. Roughly following the guidance at https://support.apple.com/kb/TA24986?viewlocale=en_US. What I needed to do was:
1) create /etc/exports on my desktop and add a single line "/Groups -sec=krb5". The existence of /etc/exports triggered a start of nfsd which no longer has any GUI options in Lion.
2) Add a line to /etc/auto_master on my laptop "/- auto_mymounts" to reference a new direct map.
3) Create /etc/auto_mymounts and add a single line "/Groups SERVER:/Groups" to create the direct map.
THAT'S IT. Three lines in three files.
Now when I log into my laptop, there is a /Groups that is a network mount of my desktop's /Groups, same location AND it works for all of my users, even simultaneously.
In the end I'm happy with what I've got, but man was this a difficult path just to support fast-user-switching. In Lion, Apple appears to be getting away from NFS (no longer turned on by default and remove from the GUI controls) but clearly this really useful functionality which doesn't exist in AFP.
I'm really curious, after all this work. Any other ways to accomplish this?

In my example above, yes I chose to mount the share "Groups" to the top of the root since that is where I put it on my server and I wanted to keep them similar; but that was just my preference, it isn't a requirement. You can export and mount from other directories.

Logitech Keyboard Issues with Fast User Switching

I'm running OSX 10.4 on an 800 MHz iMac, and using a Logitech Cordless Navigator keyboard. The keyboard's main feature (for me) is the ability to have the function keys (F1-F12) automatically open applications and folders and such. When I have multiple accounts running though, this feature seems to be tied to whichever one I first logged into. If I switch accounts and try to use one of the keyboard shortcuts nothing happens where I am, but when I switch back to the original account I find that the keyboard has opened the program there. The keyboard types fine in the new account, and I can even change the preferences so the function keys do different things in the different accounts, but the extra functionality seems to be only available for whichever account logs in first.
I realize this may just be a Logitech bug, but any ideas how to fix this? (Also even though I'm the only one using my computer this seems like a mild security issue, if theoretically another user could activate programs on my account without the password.)
800 MHz iMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3) 768 MB RAM

Logitech support is frustrating:
Dear tajmahall14,
Thank you for your recent inquiry about your Keyboards.
I understand you are having issues with the settings for the function keys becoming non-functional when fast switching from one user account to another.
Depending on the system configuration, the Fast User Switching may or may not work. Unfortunately this is not an issue I can address. You may need to contact Apple to see if they have a possible solution to your problem.

Disable Fast User Switching for RDP (NOT HIDE ENTRY POINTS!)

Windows 7 Pro.
I do virtually all my administration of 150 workstations (various domains and workgroups) remotely via RDP, and with Windows 7, I am finding more and more complications with Fast User Switching. Anything running under another user account may well
interfere with what I need to do: it may slow me down by consuming system resources, or it may, in fact, lock files that I need to remove or update.
When I log on remotely via RDP, I am notified that another user is logged on, but I have no option to log the other user off. If I then attempt to update a program that the other user has open, it may not update correctly because the other user has files
in use. I have been told I can use WMI to force another user logoff. I could probably run shutdown -i and force the user off (but, of course, that might log me off as well). However, this is not a good approach; when I run updates, I typically connect to anywhere
from five to 30 workstations simultaneously, and by the time I get logged onto all of them, I have no idea which had other users logged on and which did not. I would have to repeat on each of 30 workstations just to find out. I need a way to force-logoff the
other user during my logon process.
In the middle of running software installation, I may disconnect (NOT LOGOFF) from a workstation, take it to another site, then reconnect to the station to finish the installation. I may even just walk away from my computer for 15 minutes while updates are
running. If a non-administrative user attempts to logon, it asks me for permission, but allows the user to logon if I do not manually deny it. All non-administrators must be automatically denied logon when I am logged on.
It seems that disabling Fast User Switching would do this, but every time I have posted anywhere on the issue, I get another set of instructions on how to hide the entry points for Fast User Switching. That may work well for managing local logons
but fails miserably to protect my administrative environment.

Hi Brian,
Base on the KB article 279765
How To Use the Fast User Switching Feature in Windows XP, when not using Fast User Switching (FUS) and a non-administrator is logged on, a member of the Administrators
group can establish a remote desktop connection and has the ability to logon to the machine locally and gets a prompt to logoff previous logged on user. When an administrator is logged, any member of the Administrators group may establish a remote desktop
connection. If a non-administrator attempts to connect, you may receive the following error message:
“The user <Domain or Computer Name>\<username> is currently logged on to this computer. Only the current user or an administrator can
log on to this computer.”
In Windows 7, if the Fast User Switching is turned off, the Administrator cannot attempt to login locally. Administrator can do a Remote Desktop Session
to the Windows 7 machine and put his credentials. Once he attempts to login, he gets a prompt that looks like below.
“Once Administrator clicks on Yes, the User1’s session is disconnected.”
After logging in, Administrator can launch the Task Manager, click on “Users” tab and logoff User1. The prerequisite for the Administrator
to be able to do a Remote desktop session to the Windows 7 machine is to enable Remote Desktop services on the Windows7 machine.
In the interim, when the Administrator is logged in and has not attempted to logoff User1 yet, if User2 tries to login, the Administrator will get a
prompt that looks like below.
“If the Administrator clicks OK, User2 will be allowed to login and the Administrator’s session will be disconnected.”
This is a known issue.
Regards,
Sabrina
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How does fast user switching know which energy settings to use?

When using fast user switching and keeping 2 accounts logged in, which accounts' energy settings take priority (assuming their settings don't match)? For example, let's say I set my account's display to sleep after 15 minutes and my wife sets hers for 30 minutes. If we both keep our accounts logged in and then leave the Mac on the login screen, who wins?
The reason I ask is because my display won't stay asleep. Unlike my example above, I've made sure both accounts have identical energy settings (sleep the display after 15 minutes & the iMac itself is set to 'never sleep'). I can get it to sleep (usually by pressing control-shift-eject), but it will not stay asleep. I don't think any applications are causing this (I've shut down all apps to test - only Time Machine is scheduled to run automatically). I'm starting to wonder if fast user switching could be the cause? I usually keep both accounts logged in at all times and return to the login screen before heading to bed. I then force the display to sleep with control-shift-eject, but several hours later I wake up to a bright room because the display has turned on again. I haven't tried turning off fast user switching yet, but I can see where that might confuse the OS?
Oh, I've also disabled waking on bluetooth activity just in case my wireless mighty mouse was losing its connection & waking the display upon reconnection - no luck.
Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated - it's driving me nuts, especially since I can't just turn off the iMac display itself without powering down the entire system.

Energy Saver settings are system-wide and not specific to the user. If one user changes the settings, it's changed for everyone. Screensaver settings are user-specific.
That said, the reason that the system wakes by itself can be one of several things: the system is set to wake up (you can set this under energy saver) by preferences or some application/service, the system receives a wake-up message from something on the network (you can configure this under Security, I believe, or Network, I don't recall), or you have "chatter" related to a device plugged into your computer.
"chatter" is when a USB device or FireWire device sends a signal to the computer it's connected to. Normally, peripherals are quiet if not actively in use, but some things (cheap USB hubs, certain mice, etc) will spuriously send a signal to the connected computer and cause it to wake.

Fast User Switching Porblem

Hey everyone,
I've recently had a problem with the fast user switching feature on Mavericks.
There is only two users on the machine, and if I'm log into my name and then switch to my girlfreinds account, rather than just lgging her in and switching, it will log me out and go to the log in screen.
I've reset all the settings, made a new account to test it and the same thing happens there. I can still click on the name on the top right corner, go to Log In Window and then log into the other users and that will keep me loged in. But if I click on the other users name and enter the password, it will log me out and go to the log in screen.
Any thoughts?
v. 10.9.2
iMac 27' 2009 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
16GB Ram
Cheers
Penri Mainwaring

When you have the problem, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.
These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console 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 Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above. Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first. Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough. It is never necessary or helpful to post more than about 100 lines. "The more, the better" is not the rule here.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Fast User Switching - having account timeout to F.U.S.

Is there any way to have an account timeout to go to the Fast User Switching (FUS) window? I see the option to have it logout a user after a certain amount of time...but I dont want it to log me out. Our Family uses different logins via FUS, and I just want to make sure that if I walk away from the machine that it will lock out the kids from either my, or my wifes account, without logging us off. Anybody have any ideas? Thanks

There are no built in ways to do what you want.
One simple way I can think of is by a small apple script tied to your screen saver. First make sure that your screen saver doesn't require you to type in the password. This is set in the Security system preferences.
Next paste the following into script editor
repeat
tell application "System Events"
if exists (process "ScreenSaverEngine") then
do shell script "/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend"
end if
end tell
delay 60
end repeat
Save this script as an application and add it to your login items in the account preferences.
the program kicks in a switch to the login window within 1 minute of the screen saver being activated.
there is another way to do what you want by creating a new launch daemon but that is a bit more technical. I can explain further if you want.
Message was edited by: V.K.

Sharing one iTunes Library with Fast User Switching

Last year, I started using one MacBook Pro for Office use and Personal Home use, by creating two user accounts on it, and enabling Fast User Switching. I did this when I gave up using two separate desktops macs.
Now I have two rather similar music libraries, taking up too much hard drive space. Once I enabled Music Sharing in my Office iTunes Library, I realized that I could gain access to that Office Music Library when I am on my Personal Home User account. Since my Library on my Office account is the most complete, can I eliminate the iTunes Library on my Personal Home User account, to save hard drive space?
If so, how should I do this?
MBPro17, Pbk17 G4 1.67, Pbk G4 12 1.5, iMac G4, various G4&G5's Mac OS X (10.4.8) Airport Extreme & Express

Glen
Since my Library on my Office account is the most
complete, can I eliminate the iTunes Library on my
Personal Home User account, to save hard drive
space?
Yes.
If so, how should I do this?
Move the iTunes folder in Home/Music on the Personal
Home User Account to the desktop.
Launch iTunes. Unable to locate a library file, it
will create a new one, empty one in a new iTunes
folder at Home/Music.
Connect to your shared library as usual. If
everything is working as expected, trash the iTunes
folder on your desktop.
Regards
TD
My iTunes was created under an admin. user profile that I would like to delete. I created a second profile also with admin privlages but I want to delete the first because I messed up the shortname on the profile. So, if I delete this first profile, will I lose all of my music? Will I lose access to the music?

Cannot login to secondary accounts; can't fast user switch

I am on a Macbook, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB hard drive, 10.4.8. Today, I developed a strange problem with logging in. I have auto login set so I log in automatically to my main account, which (thank God) works. However, if I access Fast User Switching to switch to a secondary account I have set up, called Test, the transition starts (the cube rotates) , switching to a solid blue screen...and never goes any further. I cannot seem to find any way to bring up the login screen on startup, either; I must allow my main account to boot up, and then try to switch accounts. If I turn off auto-login, I get the login screen, but login to the other account still fails.
If I select, instead, the Login Window from the Fast User Switching menu, I get that screen. But when I select an account other than my main account, and try to log in, I get that blank blue screen. I've waited many minutes to see if something will eventually happen, but no go. The only way to get control of my Macbook back is to hold down the power button until it shuts down.
I have run Tech Tool diagnostics and have repaired permissions (no errors found). I deleted my Test account, and redefined it; I also defined a second test account, one with admin privs and one without. No problem creating the accounts. However, when I try to log in to those accounts, the computer hangs on the blue screen.
I'm not sure when this problem began because I have not been using my Test account for a couple of weeks. A lot has changed since then.
Any suggestions, anyone?

More info: I turned off auto-login, and was able to log in to my test account. Then, I was able to use fast user switching to switch to my main account. I will try again restarting into my main account and see if I can switch to Test. This failed consistently before I posted here. Perhaps the "sense Mac guru" circuit kicked in and cured the problem. I'm about ready to turn in so won't post a follow-up until tomorrow. Right now, I need to use my two accounts to get the job done (a writing job with screen shots of a new unaltered account). Then, I'll go back to trying to see if the problem still exists when I log in to the main account first.

Passwordless Fast User Switching?

Hello all!
I know it was not possible with earlier Versions of MAC OSX. But may we meanwhile have a way to enable fast user switching without providing a password any time ...
I am maintaining 2 User accounts on my Server Lion. Since I am the only user on that Mac, security is not an issue concering fast user switching. Under certain tasks I desire to do, I need to switch between the 2 accounts rather often and it is annoying to always provide the password. I do not have much applications up and running and therefor fast user switching is almost the same effort as LogOut/LogIn
I would highly appreciate a setup which allows me to switch between the 2 Users just by a mouseclick. But of cause I would like to keep the password protection for a LogIn either remote or local.

This is a terrible idea from the standpoint of security, but to answer your question:
10.7: Keyboard Shortcut for Fast User Switching - Mac OS X Hints

Screen has a bluish tint after fast user switching and then warning tone

Hi all I'm having a bit of a problem that I hope someone can help me with. First the details, I have a MBP bought in late '07 and running Tiger. I was doing full backups using "Backup" and I also had Safari, iTunes, and Word open. I briefly switched to my other account using fast user switching and when I returned to the original account the whole screen had a blue tint to it. Like the color profile was off. This has happened before and a restart usually cures it, I haven't restarted yet but I am fairly certain it will correct the problem this time too. But is there anyway to prevent this? My second question is the one I'm more worried about. It also has happened before but usually when using more CPU intensive applications. When I went to System Preferences and opened up the display preferences in an attempt to correct the previous problem I heard a very loud tone. Like some type of warning tone, it was loud enough that it startled me. I had iTunes playing and after the tone the music got very quiet but relaunching it brought it back to normal. I'm just wondering is this some type of warning tone? Is it something I should be concerned about? Besides the music everything else seemed unaffected, although the previous times that this has happened usually when using handbrake there was noticeable problems after the tone (like applications crashing). All of these problems are gone after the computer is restarted though. Does anyone have any insight on these issues? Thank you.
-James

OK I ran TechTool and everything passed except for the volume scan. Then I checked this with Disk Utility and the HD failed for a few minor reasons, like invalid block count. I repaired it using the fsck -fy command in single user mode. The computer seems a little faster now. I don't know if this error is related to the beep in any way, I may try talking to an Apple genius to see if they know. Since it seems like pretty minor errors I'm not too worried about it but it does seem to be happening often. The last time I had this error was when I posted a question here about it which I just checked was on March 1st. So this error happened again after a little more than 2 weeks which seems excessive to me. Any thoughts?

Fast user Switching breaks iTunes Library on Drobo FS

Hello, Everyone.
I realize this is a bit of a corner case but what the heck, maybe you can help.
Our home iMac has two main accounts, husband and wife. Connected to it is a Drobo FS. iTunes media is on the Drobo FS. The iMac Husband account is used to power the whole house media from any device:
iPhone
iPad
AppleTV
Mac Mini
When any of these devices wants any content on the iTunes Library from the iMac stored on the Drobo FS they connect using Home Share. Life is good. But life turns bad quickly when Wife logs in on iMac thus automatically causing the Husband account to be logged out. The iTunes connection to Drobo FS breaks and homesharing is disrupted. Finally when fast switching back to the Husband account iTunes and Drobo FS seem to always be broken. The fix is to shut down iTunes and restart it.
Does anyone have tips on how to better this home theatre evironment.
Thanks,
G4M

But I like Fast User Switching! Any better solutions?

Windows XP see blank screen when remote desktop to Windows 7 with fast user switching disabled

All computers are in workgroup environment, no AD.
Windows 7 pro are configured with fast user switching mode disabled so that only one login session can run at a time. When a Windows 7 machine remote desktop to another Windows 7 machine, the remote desktop 'server' will give 30 seconds count-down for the
console logged in user to accept remote connection, or when timeout expires it kicks out the console logged in user. This is completely ok.
This become a problem when a Windows XP rd client try to remote desktop to these Windows 7 machines, Windows XP see a blank screen if the remote Windows 7 machine has a user logged in, as it is waiting for the user to log off first. This is not desirable
as our administrators want the console session to be logged out automatically if they (administrators) want to remote desktop in.
Is this a configuration problem? Is this a OS design, can't be changed?
Valuable skills are not learned, learned skills aren't valuable.

Hi,
As I know, for RDP session in Windows 7, you don't need to configure the fast user switch option disabled. Windows 7 doesn’t support multiple Remote Desktop sessions by design, that means only one RDP session at a time.
I remote into my Windows 7 machine (which has a user logged in) from my XP machine, all work fine, the user logged in Windows 7 machine is automatically "kicked off".
May I ask a question? Does this issue happen in all XP machines? If you leave Windows 7 machine started and no user logged in, the RDP session in Windows XP established quickly?
I would suggest you keep latest drivers graphic card and latest updates paches for both Windows XP (Windows XP has come to its end of the lifecycle)and Windows 7.
Yolanda Zhu
TechNet Community Support

Is Xsan compantible with Fast User Switching in 10.4 Tiger?

Does anyone know if Xsan is compatible with Tiger's 'fast user switching' feature (which allows you to have multiple users logged into the machine at the same time)?
I had a very strange occurrence with my Xsan yesterday. The Xsan volume was mounted on one client only, but that client was logged in with two users. Even though no software was accessing the volume (i.e. FCP not running by either user) I noticed that my Xserve RAID was lit up like a blue Christmas tree -- something was reading data. When I launched the Xsan Admin app on the server (primary controller) it lost connection with the SAN and reported a FATAL error. Long story short... I had to log out of both users and restart the client to get control back. All appears fine now, but I'm only running one user on this client. I would like to be able to use the fast switching feature, but how do I prevent Xsan problems?
Also.. is it possible that Spotlight is trying to index the SAN volume? If so, how are people preventing this in Tiger?

Very interesting... never tried it..
Spotlight does not index your xsan, you can check it by:
mdutil -s /Volumes/XsanVolume

Automatic launch application & Fast User Switching

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