Fast User Switching causing iMovie 09 to hang/freeze

I recently purchased a new Unibody 2.4Ghz MacBook Pro 15.4"
My wife uses it to process our home movies in iMovie '09. So I thought it would be swell to utilize Fast User Switching so she could do that with her account when the MacBook was free and wouldn't have to mess with my currently logged in session.
But it seems iMovie '09 just doesn't like it. Every single time she works in iMovie for awhile, then I Fast Switch back to my logged in session, then she Fast Switches back to hers with the open iMovie ... The iMovie locks up/freezes with the spinning pinwheel of death and has to be Forced Quit. And sometimes it is hung so bad I can't kill it or switch back to my session or anything and I am forced to reboot =\
Is this a known issue? Anyone else notice this problem? And most importantly is there anything I can do, or is there any update that could be coming down the pipe, that will fix this?
Thanks.

have you found anything on this? I have a Mac mini running two displays... neither USB, and experience this consistently. not finding many cases on the internet for this - sounds like a rare issue. suspicious could be linked to video - my two displays are at a pretty high resolution.

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Since upgrading to Leopard, every attempt to execute a "fast user switch" results in the system hanging. After a few minutes, the fans switch into top speed, and the only way to continue is to power down and reboot.
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FUS always worked fine under Tiger.

There is already a thread on this topic:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1197967&tstart=15
I see, as with all of the others who have responded in the other thread, that you also have a PowerMac G5 tower.
What are you using for a graphics card? Do you have a Radeon X800 XT or other Radeon, and perhaps also a 30" Cinema Display HD?
Is your menu bar transparent or white/gray as it was with Tiger?

10.4.3 hangs on fast user switching or logout

Hello!
Since installing Tiger, it often occurs that fast user switching or logout hangs. The system is responsive, but it is impossible to switch to a different user. If I kill that user's loginwindow process from a terminal, everything is o.k. again.
It seems to happen exclusively, or at least more frequently, with one specific account, so I suspect it must be either programs she use or some preference files. I've checked all her preference plists with plutil, and they appear to be o.k.
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The easiest way to change user is from the terminal, by typing:
su <username> and then provide password. when you're done type "exit"
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Thanks for the link, baltwo!
This got me some good info on how mail messages are stored in Tiger, but unfortunately, I still can't find the missing messages, which were in the inbox in 10.3, but didn't show up following the 10,4 upgrade. I found the inbox folder, and it only seems to have the current files, can't track down any evidence of the missing files.
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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.
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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

Fast User Switching with Mounted Network Drive?

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I've not had any luck with the suggestions in the link either.
Here's two other approaches I've tried and failed with:
1. Creating a new share point on the cube itself so that one user can mount it as a different volume. Then the issue is that I still don't have a volume named "Jukebox" available to each user when switching. I DO have access now to the data from both accounts, but under 2 different mount points (volume names) and the xml file for iTunes is hard coded with the path for each mp3 including the "Jukebox" volume name... so no go.
2. Tried figuring out a way I could script a mounting of the share with the terminal thinking I could then run that shell script at startup. Can't seem to get the sytax right. If I create a directory in /Volumes and mount and afp share to it, it takes on the ownership of root/wheel which I can't access in the finder and can't seem to change.
BUT I'll keep playing with both these ideas a bit... the first one might be overcome with a bit of logic and the 2nd if I can get the syntax right to mount the share with afp_mount and give it the correct ownership/permissions such that when a user logs in she/he sees the volume on the desktop and has full r/w access to it.
thanks again. if you offhand know the syntax for that, let me know

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Hello, Everyone.
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iPad
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But I like Fast User Switching! Any better solutions?

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Now when I say 13" it could be some other size but it's about that size give or take.

Yes, it's when you user Fast User Switching.
Here's snapshot before the screen resized. Ignore the window in the lower right, I moved it from the upper left before taking the screen shot.
I hate to say it but I'm glad I'm not the only one with this bug.

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Let me try to elicit a more helpful response...
One of the problems I am encountering with an iPod connected and using fast user switching is that if the iPod is syncing with one user, and I switch to another user, the second user sometimes will try to take control of the iPod and sync with the second user's library.
Is there a way to tell Mac User's 2 account to ignore User 1's iPod?

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Thanks

Thanks for the reply. I attempted to set up some new user accounts, and now thing are even worse. Before I set up the new user accounts, I deleted some old accounts I no longer needed. I neglected to log out of my other account before trying to switch between the two new accounts. When I attempted to switch to the new user account, the rotating cube got stuck. The new account desktop did show up, but without a menu bar, only the dock, and the icons for my two hard drives. I couldn't switch back to my main account and had to reboot by holding in the power button. Once I had rebooted I attempted to log off of my main account. No login window appeared, only the OS X desktop screen. Again I was forced to reboot by holding down the power button. Once back to my desktop, I checked and repaired permissions. I deleted the two new user accounts, and now when I attempt to switch to the remaining account I have, again, the rotating cube gets stuck and when the new desktop appears for the account, there is no menu bar, only the dock the HD icons. Programs on the dock don't launch either. The dock icons bounce, but that's it. I'm afraid I've done something seriously wrong. Any advice on what might be causing this bizarre behavior?
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Fast User Switching Freeze

My wife's Macbook has been having a problem for the past couple of months. If she attempts to switch users (away from my son's account) using the fast user switching, the screen goes blue and just seems to hang there. She usually just forces it to shutdown and restart. She has noticed that she can switch to the login window, then select her account, and all works well.
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Have same problem now with my iMac -- when I had it in the past, it was due to account privilege issues -- if one of the accounts did not have admin privileges, but another did, system was prone to freezing. I suspect permission problems. I'm not sure this is the current problem on my machine; problem does not occur if I log out of one account before switching back to the first account.
Try making all accounts admin & see what happens...

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

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.
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Crashing with Skitch, Snapz Pro, Fast User Switching - graphics card issue?

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Clean install of the OS and apps but Skitch locked the machine when accessing prefs etc. in the app. Then discovered Snapz Pro locked the machine when attempting to screen grab. Now, after creating a new user account and activating Fast User Switching the machine locks when switching to the new user.
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System Profiler tells me this about the graphics card:
*ATI Radeon X800 XT:*
Chipset Model: ATY,R420
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4a48
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-A35801-109
I just flashed the ROM to 109 (from 108) today, but still have the issue.
Thoughts?

Malcom,
If I turn it off, then I lose the ability to jump between users without having to kill everything I'm doing. Yes, that does solve the problem, but only because it removes the cause of the problem. I'm trying to find a solution to the issue.
-Steve

Fast User Switching causing iMovie 09 to hang/freeze

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