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.
Has anyone else experienced this? Any fixes out there? Google has not revealed anything on this.

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...

Similar Messages

Mac OS X 10.5.6 Fast User Switching Freezes Screen

The past two Mac OS X versions (10.5.5 and 10.5.6) result in the screen freezing after initiating Fast User Switching. Version 10.5.4 worked as designed, but 10.5.3 had the same issue. Seems to be video display related. Using a 20" display does not result in the screen freezing. Has anyone else had this issue or have any fix suggestions?

The past two Mac OS X versions (10.5.5 and 10.5.6) result in the screen freezing after initiating Fast User Switching. Version 10.5.4 worked as designed, but 10.5.3 had the same issue. Seems to be video display related. Using a 20" display does not result in the screen freezing. Has anyone else had this issue or have any fix suggestions?

Video freeze with Fast User Switching

I can't seem to find anything on this specific topic in the forums, but it's plagued me pretty much since I got the i7 iMac a year ago. The problem is this: when I have more than one account logged in via Fast User Switching, the video will freeze on me. Details:
* by video I mean not the display as a whole, but any video content that is playing -- YouTube, iChat video, etc.
* only the video freezes. Audio keeps playing.
* if I close the other user account, video will resume its normal functioning.
* if I constantly move the window in which the video is playing, it will keep playing.
* if I switch away from the window and return, the video will play again for a brief second.
Those last 2 I find especially puzzling, and they lead me to believe that somehow the computer or the video card somehow is "forgetting" that it needs to redraw the video.
I brought this issue up to a very friendly and helpful Apple rep who suggested zapping the PRAM, which did help for a couple of days but even a restart will do the trick for a while.
Anybody else seen this issue? Any solutions?

Same here. Not specific to 10.7.x, had it in 10.5 and 10.6 as well. The problem is made worse when also using Screen Sharing. All video is stalled (audio plays on). Sometimes the video continues when the mouse is moved. The video also continues when the system volume is changed using the keyboard.
And with all video I mean really all video. Even transitions in the login screen pause until I press the volume keys.
Usually there is no problem with one specific user, and the stalls can usually be fixed by logging that user out, as if that user somehow "owns" the video of the Mac.
Very annoying, and I do hope someone has a solution.
Any specific stuff the other me too's here have installed? I've got Flash Player, Click2Flash, Perian, SizzlingKeys, Flip4Mac for instance.

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.

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?

Bonjour + Fast User switching = messages going to the wrong (inactive) user

We use iChat for Bonjour in our office– fast file transfers etc.
If a user is one of 2 or more logged in on a machine– through the use of fast user switching, we've noticed that incoming messages (initiated by another user on the network) will often go to the switched user (i.e. the inactive user) not the user we're currently logged in as.
We've been able to repeat the issue.
1. Log in as user 1, fast user switch to user 2 (leaving user 1 logged in but inactive)
2. Go to new machine, log in as user 3
3. Send message from user 3 to user 2
4. Look at user 2 screen. No messages
5. Send message from user 2 to user 3. User 3 will receive message, and will be able to send message successfully back to user 2.
6. Log out use 2
7. Log in as user 1
8. Notice all the messages that were going to the 'inactive' user profile.
Has anyone else seen this type of behavior?

HI MAtthew,
Welcome to the Apple Discussion Pages.
I have not seen this (I only have one Mac).
However there is an item in IChat Preferences > General section that can set the staus of the Users account to Offline or Away when using Fast User Switching.
What is yur set to and does it make any difference when changing it ?
Away in normal circumstance menas someone can still Invite you to chats (or Text you)
Ralph

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?

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.

Fast User Switching with Mounted Network Drive?

I have a headless G4 Cube running 10.5.8 with a 2TB firewire drive plugged in for storage accessable to any of my macs here at home. I can access it fine with my 2 desktops over ethernet and wirelessly. Recently we decided to consolidate our 2 desktops into one using the muliple users feature. Seems to work fine, and both accounts can access the shared drive. They are logging in with the cube's admin credentials, and the shared drive is set to ignore permissions. I have the drive set to mount on login with a startup item in the system login items prefs. As long as I logout before switching users, everything is good.
The problem arises with Fast User Switching which we'd love to be able to use. I can't figure out how to connect to the drive in one account without the 2nd account then seeing it as a volume without proper permissions, then that account creates a new volume mount for it (which doesn't work with iTunes properly and seems to cause other wierd issues).
Example: So say 'user1' logs in, mounts the drive 'Jukebox'. everything seems OK so far. 'Jukebox' is on the desktop and iTunes finds the music. Now I fast user switch to 'user2' and there is a 'Jukebox' on the desktop with the red minus icon indicating I don't have permissions to access it. If I then browse the network and mount the drive, I end up with ANOTHER 'Jukebox' on the desktop. BUT iTunes doesn't see it properly. If I look in the /Volumes/ folder with the Terminal, I see a mountpoint for 'Jukebox' (with the owner of 'user1' group 'staff') and now a new mountpoint called 'Jukebox-1' (with the owner of 'user2' group 'staff').
It seems when you mount a AFP drive, it creates the Volume with the current user and staff group, but switching to another user then can't access that when it sees it in the /Volumes folder. You try to mount again and it creates a NEW mountpoint, names it with a '-1' at the end and you can use that (but iTunes cant).
So... how does one use a shared drive that you want on BOTH users desktops with Fast User Switching turned on? Is there a way to have the drive mounted BEFORE either user logs in, such that it will be seen as any other local drive (which doesn't have the issue)??
Or is there some other way I can attach to the network volume in each account on login so both have access to music and videos with full permissions?
I'm really stumped here after 2 hrs of googling, searching here and trying things.
TIA

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

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

Shared Disk - can't connect with Fast User Switching

Hi,
I've created a Disk on my Time Capsule, and shared it via "File Sharing", it's secured "with a disk password", and is working well ... sort of. I can connect to it with no issues, and so can my wife via her MacBook Pro. However, if I'm signed into my account, and she accesses her account using Fast User Switching, she can't connect to the shared volume. She has to Disconnect, and then reauthenticate, and after doing so, I can't connect to the shared volume. I must Disconnect, and reconnect. Why is this? Is there an authentication file that's set up some where on the root of the shared computer, that's preventing us from being able to signin to the shared volume? Or is something broken?
Thanks!

Complete uninstallation and reinstallation of network adapter drivers has been reported to resolve this error in some cases. Open
Device Manager and select Show Hidden Devices from the
View menu. Expand the Network Adapters category and delete all drivers under this category. After the devices are removed right click and select
Scan for hardware changes.
Brandon
Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro
Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

10.9.3 = major problem with fast user switching

I've found a major problem with the 10.9.3 update with my 27" iMac, you probably won't see it if your on a laptop. I did all the updates in past few days i.e., 10.9.3 combo update, iTunes 11.2.1.
Afterward I noticed a bug when Fast User Switching i.e. FUS. I have 5 accounts but the bug can be replicated with only 2.
I login to userA have some windows open but you can just open a Finder window. Now make the window at least half the with of the screen and move it to the right side of the screen. Then login in to userB and setup the windows the same way as userA. Now FUS to userA and then back to userB. You will notice that the Finder window has been moved to the upper left corner of the screen. This problem happened's to all user accounts you login to except the first account you logged into.
Since I didn't know what update caused the problem I had to use Time Machine to revert to my last version of 10.9.2. I then double checked the for the bug and sure enough everything was working fine. I now was going to install one update at a time and to see which one was causing the bug. So I installed 10.9.3 first and found the bug immediately.
I now know what's happening. When the switch occurs the screen is resized to about the equivalent of a 13" MBP. At this point the windows that fall some ware outside that size get moved to the upper left corner and resized. Then the screen resizes to normal but it's too late, all the window have moved and been resized to fit the 13" screen size.
You can reproduce this effect by going to System Preferences and selecting Display and then select the Scaled radio button. No select the smallest size, say, 1280 x 720. Now select the Best for display radio button again. You will now see all the windows you have open that were too big no moved and resized to the upper left corner. I know why the Mac moves the windows, it's so you don't have any windows stuck off screen.
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.

Fast User Switching Freeze

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