Fast User Switching Question from newbie

Hi
This is probably a simple question, so I apologize in advance...
I was looking around in system preferences and was customizing a few settings. Prior to my changing "something" I had my user name in the title bar (upper right) and I could switch to my other account via a pull down menu. My user name is no longer in the title bar and it seems that the only way I can switch accounts now is by using the Shift-Cmd-Q option now.
How do I get the user name back in the title bar so I can switch accounts like I used to do?
Thanks
RIch

Found it by searching, apparently a fairly common prob. It works now.

Similar Messages

Fast User Switching From Screen Saver

How can I make my Mac display the login screen (as though I'd selected "Login window" from the fast user switching menu) after the session has been idle for a certain time?
I can make it log out after some amount of inactivity, but I don't want that. I want my programs to continue running.
I can also set the screen saver to require a password, and clicking the "Switch user" button on the password dialog will display the login screen. I'd effectively like to skip that step and go directly to the login screen without having to push the button.
note: I stole the wording of this question directly from here , which was posted 2 1/2 years ago. One solution then was to download a custom Script Saver and use a custom Apple Script, and the other was to purchase a 3-rd party product which costs $50.
The reason I want to do this is because I am setting up an iMac for a family with small children. The iMac will be shared by 4 people, and training the kids to click on the "Switch User" button is a hopeless task, so please don't suggest "train the users to click on the 'Switch User' button".
Also, this is not my computer. I want to keep the solution as simple and fool-proof as possible, becuase I don't want to get called if something breaks (which is why I'm disinclined to use a script or buy a 3-rd party product I don't trust).

PS -- Script Saver has been discontinued.
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/9599/scriptsaver
So that's not an option anyway.

Fast User Switching Hangs Computer Following Upgrade from Panther to Tiger

Upgraded my computer (G3 B&W) to Tiger from Panther, and now Fast User Switching doesn't work. Have a family of 5 that shares this computer. Each new user can log in, but when you try to switch back to an open account, the computer hangs. It worked fine in Panther. May be just due to the fact that this is an older Mac - if so, my second question is whether there's a good way to get back to Panther? It worked great on this Mac, and Tiger is noticeably slower. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated - Thanks!

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.
Thanks again for the reply - very much appreciated.

Trigger Automator action upon re-login from fast user switch?

I normally leave my account logged in on my Mac, and via fast user switching, return to the login window when I'm away from my Mac. (So my account stays logged in, but OS X remains at the user login window.)
When I re-login, (how) can I trigger an Automator action to execute upon my return to my account?

Try adding the action to your Login Items in Accounts preferences. Save the automator action as an application 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

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

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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Fast User Switching through Profile Manager

We recently started using OS X Server to manage our Mac computers, currently only 2 but further expansion is expected. I only have one of the Macs set up on the server for testing purposes. We are primarily an Active Directory network and I have implemented Open Directory through OS X Server and bound that to the primary Windows domain controller.
So far, things have gone quite smoothly with the integration except for implementing fast user switching on the single client machine tied to the OS X Server box. I have gone through Profile Manager and under the Login Window settings for the laptop, enabled fast user switching. However, it still does not work on the client machine after the changes were pushed out.
The user does not get her user name listed in the upper right and we have found no other method of using fast user switching. She specifically wants to display the login window when she's not at her desk (and this is required for security reasons). As it is, she has to completely log out of her machine every time she leaves her desk which is, inconvenient, to say the least.
I have searched through the discussions here and every mention I've found that seems to reference this issue also references using network home directories, which we are not doing. I have the home directory set to continue to reside on the local machine so the AFP/NFS issue shouldn't apply.
Prior to implementing OS X Server, the only thing we were unable to do was limit external drive use and writable media on the Macs since they don't recognize those GPOs from the domain controller. Updates were easily handled through a third party appliance that we already use for all our other devices and computers on the network. At this point, if fast user switching is unavailable, it would be less work and less inconvenient for me to simply limit the external media use locally and allow the Mac to be locked by removing the influence of OS X Server.
If anyone knows how to enable it though, this would be my preference since the Software Update is *easier* through OS X Server.

I found the problem. The device group that the laptop in question was assigned to also has an option for fast user switching that was not enabled. I enabled it there and the problem was resolved.

Fast user switching dissapears

i have 3 users, on my user sometimes the fast user switching name that sits in the top right corner will disappear. sometimes it is there.... it is completely random. so to get the fast user name back i have to open account prefs, open the lock, click log on options...... and it re appears. (note the enable fast user switching tab is still checked!)
I am assuming that prefs have become corrupted, unless it as a bug, or another cliche in the system.
I have done all the disk permissions etc
cheers leigh

At this point I think you should get Applejack...
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19596
After installing, reboot holding down CMD+s, then when the DOS like prompt shows, type in...
applejack AUTO
Then let it do all 5 of it's things.
At least it'll eliminate some questions if it doesn't fix it.
The 5 things it does are...
Correct any Disk problems.
Repair Permissions.
Clear out Cache Files.
Repair/check several plist files.
Dump the VM files for a fresh start.
First reboot will be slower, sometimes 2 or 3 restarts will be required for full benefit... my guess is files relying upon other files relying upon other files!
Disconnect the USB cable from any UPS so the system doesn't shut down in the middle of the process.
After it completes, go back and do step 3 for each user, or just step through it the first time by just typing applejack without the AUTO.

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.

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?

Fast User Switching Question from newbie

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