New user account is empty

This morning I wanted to create a new user account for some tests.
When I logged in to that new account there was a long pause before the desktop appeared, but when it showed up it looked like it should - except that its user folder was completely empty.
I went back to my own account and ran Disk Utility. Volume check failed.
I removed the test account, and then booted my emergency disk to run Disk Warrior.
This did not help; when I created another account it still turned up empty.
When I go look with File Buddy from another account I can see a Library folder: this contains only a Prefs folder, with 2 prefs files (loginwindow & bezelservices). Nothing else.
This is on an iMac G5 (ALS) running 10.4.9. I set it up when 10.4.4 was current, and haven't created new accounts since. The User Template seems OK.

Yess!
Solved it.
A fruitful 2008 to all

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How can I set up a new user account that has access to iPhoto data on Admin account?

I have set up a new user account for my son. I have set up his parental controls but I would like him to have access to the data in iPhoto and iTunes from the Admin account. I do allow him access to the applications with the parental controls, but they are empty. Thanks for your help!

Is your regular user an Admin?
Yes. So is the new account I tried to set up.
Are these apps installed in the main /Applications folder?
Yes.
Are they App Store apps or installs from disc/download?
Both, but App Store purchases are a clear minority, and aren't much of a problem, due to the ease of re-downloading and activating. The downloaded programs are the ones that present the problems. I have not been good about archiving serial numbers and the like, mostly because I've never had a problem like this before.
What specific apps are you having trouble with? For instance, I know that MS Office and Adobe CS5 for perfectly well for all users on my MBP.
This is a very long list. Let me give you some of it, and if you really need all of them, I'll add to the list later.
1Password 4
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Old user account not accessible - Had to create new user account

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Hi decemberbaby,
Try this procedure.
Delete all the Apple Cookies in your browser, and empty the Cache.
Go here Discussions Sign In, and try logging in with your original Apple ID again.
If that still doesn't work, delete the Cookies again, and go to My Info, and log in with the original Apple ID.
If you get the error message "Your Apple ID or password was entered incorrectly.", click on "Did you forget your password? Click here for assistance".
On the page that opens, you can also click on "Forget your Apple ID
ali b

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Can this be done?
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I have previously confirmed that the errors are isolated to my user account by creating a new account. I've not been able to find a way to repair whatever it is that's wrong with my original account.
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First off I'd just like to apologize if that is not the correct place to be posting this, but after looking around I don't see a perfect fit for this topic anywhere, so I figured here should be okay. Also I want to apologize if this turns out to be a rather lengthy post, I just want to ensure that I supply all info...
Okay, so about a month ago I recognized that my current user account is slowly but surely taking longer and longer to "boot up" after I put in my password and tell it to log in. What usually happens is that I click log in, the background image and taskbar almost immediately pop up but nothing else (finder icons, dock, and the multiple icons in the taskbar which include the airport signal, user name, bluetooth status, battery strength, volume, and my iChat and Adium status) the only things to immediately "activate" in the taskbar are the clock and spotlight.
As of late when I log in something especially strange is happening in that after the 5 or so minutes it takes the dock, rest of taskbar, and finder icons to appear my PB will play the default Apple sound of me emptying trash, rather there is anything actually in the trash or not. It dosen't delete the objects in the trash (if any, as I usually keep it empty), just simply plays the sound. I'm not sure if it playing this sound ties in any with the lagging log in times, I just wanted to mention it as the log in times have slowed down considerably since this sound started.
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Hi Mervin,
Bottom line given that there is no way that I know of fixing this problem, I am planning to simply create a new user account.
You can do that (but I wouldn't) this KB article outlines how:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=155373
Basically you will copy the folders within your old home to replace the folders in the new home. Here is a list of specific folders if you decide to do that but a better solution would be to sort your existing user.
Here where your important data is stored ("~" stands for "Home"):
Your Data in Documents
~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Application Support/iCal(copy the whole folder)
Also in ~ / Library/ Application Support (copy whatever else you need)
~ /Library/Keychains (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Mail (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist * This is a very important file which contains all email account settings and general mail preferences.
~ / Library/iTunes (copy the whole folder)
~ / Library/Safari (copy the whole folder)
~ / Library/iMovie (copy the whole folder)
~/ Pictures/iPhoto Library
If you want cookies:
~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist
~/Library/Application Support/WebFoundation/HTTPCookies.plist
so is there a way to transfer my current programs from one user account to the other without reinstalling???
As for applications, they should all be in your Application folder(there is only one) and available to ALL users, unless you have put "limitations" or "parental controls" on the account.
Now to the best course of action:
To find the issue affecting your existing user account, follow these steps:
Log back into your normal user account:
1. Navigate to ~(yourhome/library/fonts - drag this folder to the desktop.
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( Likely suspects are Time RO & Helvetica Fractions, also if you do not use Classic you can trash the classic fonts.)
2. Check Preferences Thoroughly;
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      Restart and test your applications.
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** Note: A very important file is the "com.apple.Mail.plist" preference file located in the Preferences folder which contains all email account settings and general mail preferences (hold this one and replace if your problem is not with Mail).
You'll have to go through some of your System Preferences and apps to set the preferences back to how you like them. (Or if you have the time and inclination, "cherry pick" through until you find the problem one or two.)
3. Check Permissions Inside Home Folder
   Navigate to yourhome/library.
   Get Info (Command - i) on folders for apps you are having problems with.
   Open the "Ownership & permissions" disclosure triangle.
   Make sure you are the owner, with "read and write" access.
Click on "apply to all"
   If this is correct, open the "Applications Support" folder and do the same      procedure (Command+I) for the folders with the names of the applications you are      having trouble with.
Note:
The reason to check this is because repairing permissions with Disk Utility doesn't touch permissions inside your home folder.
If the isssue persists navigate to ~/library/caches and drag this folder to the trash, then log out and back or restart. There is no need to replace this folder.
Good luck, let us know.

Help - iMac Storage/New user account question

Ok - so I've assumed that my user account was corrupt as Ive been having problems with Safari crashing/freezing the whole of my Mac, but thats another storey.
So i decided to create a new user account to delete the old one. I copied the following folders from my original user account into the shared folder first of all:
Pictures
Music
Movies
Documents
I've now deleted the old account and copied these folders from Shared into my new user account - actually Ive just left Music, Pictures & Movies in shared and am going to point the relevant apps such as iTunes to the shared folder.
The problem I have, is that I've lost over 100gb of storage somewhere on the Mac and I can't see where!
As far as I can see, I've deleted everything so that there is only one copy now and have emptied the Trash folder.
Anybody got any suggestions - perhaps a hidden folder somewhere?
Thanks

>>... I can't seem to see it anywhere anyway...
It would be a folder or disk image (.dmg) in /Users, along with your current account home.
>>I might try and get rid of the Events folder - not sure if I need that or not?
iMovie (2013): Updating projects and events from previous versions of iMovie
and especially
iMovie (2013): Removing old libraries after updating
say that you probably don't...
'You can delete these folders if you no longer want to work with them in the previous version of iMovie.
Before removing your projects and events, make sure they have been updated for iMovie version 10.'

Safari and Chrome will not display some pages right for new user account

Not sure this is a Safari issue actually. Behavior is also in Chrome, but not Firefox. If I need to post elsewhere please advise.
24"imac running 10.5.8. 2gb ram, software update run,
Setup a new user account. Machine will have 2 users.
When I login as the new user, in both Safari and Chrome, some pages - google, ebay, amazon, cnn, yahoo, do not display correctly. Mainly empty space, a few graphics all wrong. They do display correctly in Firefox.
I assumed it was the user. So I added a 3rd user. Same behavior. Tried giving the new user admin rights. Same problem.
For the admin account, everything's fine on those pages, both in Safari and Chrome.
It feels like the new user is not getting access to something it needs, but it also feels like more than a font problem. Thanks for any suggestions. Dan

Thanks for your thoughts. Here's what I've learned. The browsers display correctly for the new user after SafeBoot. I removed all startup items, to no avail. Removed all fonts from the new user account, nothing. Removed all fonts from the admin user's library, nothing. Then I removed all fonts from the HD library, and that fixed it for the new user. Now I just have to figure out which one it was.
So in summary, a bad font in the HD library was affecting Safari and Chrome (but not Firefox) in new user accounts, but not in the admin user's account. Nice. D

QT Macworld keynote works with new user account

Hi,
This is a really annoying problem, I can only watch yesterdays Macworld keynote if I setup a new user account and view using that user.
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If anyone has any idea of what could be causing this to happen I would be very greatful.
Stephen

This worked for me!
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1543453#1543453
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http://www.greebo.net/images/proxypac.png
(PNG, 81k)
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New user account not showing access to apps

I had no problem creating a new user account on my iMac. It showed up with all the basic apps as expected in the dock, and the complete set of apps available in that folder.
On my iBook G4, I went through the same steps -- far as I can tell -- and the new user account showed none of the apps in the dock. No access to them. I don't have any parental controls on.
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chuck

Hello,
Log into your new user account and then locate this file; com.apple.Dock.plist
It's here: /Users/YourName/Library/Preferences. Drag that file from the Preferences folder to the Trash, empty the trash and reboot. Log in to the new user account and see if the Dock is there. You can access your applications from the Applications folder, not just the Dock. Double click your MacintoshHD icon on your Desktop, then click Applications... voila!
Carolyn
Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

New User Account Access

I have created a new user account, and I am trying to put on Parental Controls. An example is that I want the new user to access Excel and Word and NOT MSN. When I "add" these applications under the parental controls it seems the new user id either gets access to all the MS Applications or none. How do I create this type of access? Do I create shared folders, make an alias and all user access to just the folder?

Hello,
Log into your new user account and then locate this file; com.apple.Dock.plist
It's here: /Users/YourName/Library/Preferences. Drag that file from the Preferences folder to the Trash, empty the trash and reboot. Log in to the new user account and see if the Dock is there. You can access your applications from the Applications folder, not just the Dock. Double click your MacintoshHD icon on your Desktop, then click Applications... voila!
Carolyn
Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

Cannot log in to new user accounts

I am a long time Apple user and am completely confounded by a problem I am having creating new user accounts on my G4/400 PowerMac running OX 10.4.11. I've been attempting to setup some user accounts for my kids to use. I have no problems setting up the accounts but when I log out of mine and try to log in as them the login window shakes from side to side indicating an incorrect password. This is something that I had a problem a year ago and never solved and today I am trying once again with out success. I feel like I am doing everything correctly since I've been able to do this on my G3 iBook and MacBook.
Here are a few things I've also done.
-repaired permissions on the drive ( I have 2 in the machine right now but the other is just my iTunes LIbrary drive)
-deleted the old user accounts that I setup but couldn't access.
-tried setting up more new accounts
-repeated the process several times without ever being able to successfully login to any of the new accounts that I created.
Any advice to solve this problem would be appreciated.
Thanks
Chris

Hi cc_mac,
I don't know if you have solved this one yet, but I had exactly the same issue when I recently had a hard drive failure and had to re-install everything. I had copies of all my files, but when I went to set up the user accounts, I could create each account, but I couldn't log in.
There is a simple solution, you will need to be in an admin account and you will need to use the command line, so open up a terminal window.
Use the following command for each account you need to fix:
sudo passwd <username>
where <username> is the account name that you cannot currently log in to.
You will need to enter your admin password to allow you to use sudo, so do that. Then you will be asked to type in the new password for the new account. Just to be absolutely sure, you will be asked to re-enter the new password, so do that, and you are done.
Log out of your admin account, this should bring you back to the log in screen. Now, if everything has gone according to plan, you should have an operational user account.
I'm not sure what the cause of this issue is but it might be some sort of permissions issue happening in the background. Nevertheless, manually setting the password this way seems to have fixed it for me. I sincerely hope this helps you too.
Kind Regards,
Mark D.

Setting Up a New User Account - iTunes issue

My wife and I were both using our Mac as a single user, but logging into iTunes under separate iTunes accounts to download our own music and apps.
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When she plugs her phone into the iMac to sync via iTunes, she gets the following message:
*iTunes could not sync information to the iPhone " " because another sync client is already running*.
Anyone had this problem and found a solution ?

I recently had this same error message problem with my 3GS. Here's everything I did, one of the steps solved the problem...
1. Restarted with the phone unattached.
2. Repaired permissions using Disk Utility.
3. Restarted the phone. Here's where I had some difficulty: After swiping to confirm the shutdown, the screen went black, and I had the spinning icon that wouldn't go away. I ended up having to hold the lock and home buttons down to force shutdown the phone. I powered it back up, and it took forever to start, but it eventually did. I then power-cycled it one more time, and everything was back to normal.
4. Started up iTunes. Go into the preferences, and under the "Devices" tab, I found my previous backup. I deleted it.
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Good luck!

How do I create a new user account?

I have a new iPod with a different iTunes account than my other devices. How do I sync the iPod on my iMac with the songs/movies from its own iTunes account? Do I need to create a new user profle on the computer for that?

As you said, I recommend to create a new user account and create a new iTunes library on that user with the content of the iPod. If you sync it with your user account, you will get on the iPod the content from a different Apple ID and maybe content that you don't want.
To create a new user account, open System Preferences > Users & Groups, and press the + button that it's below the left sidebar (where users are listed). Then, just follow the steps to set up the user account.
Now, every time you start your Mac, OS X will ask you the user account you want to start OS X with

How do I create a new user account and migrate my data to it?

I have problem with Adobe Bridge crashing when I exit Camera Raw. I was advised by my local apple service store to create a new user account and test Bridge using the new account. It works fine. So what do I do now? I don't know what in my account is causing the conflict but assume that the solution might be e newly setup user.

Checking the behaviour in another user account is a TEST, not a solution! You don't need to move everything over. Otherwise, every time you get a user account problem, you'll keep moving to a new user account again and again.
If the problem does not occur in a new user account, then the cause is something IN your user account. This is usually a Preference file. Adobe Bridge seems to crash a lot, and it can usually be fixed by deleting the Bridge folder in <user>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/
You can also try deleting the Bridge preference file, which will be in <user>/Library/Preferences, and called com.adobe.bridge5.plist (or similar).
If that doesn't work, you can test removing a whole bunch of the various Adobe files in those folders. You can always put them back if they don't change anything. And you've got a backup, haven't you? ;-)

How do I set up a new user account that can use all my software?

I set up a new user account on my 3 year old BTO iMac running OS 10.8.5. Unfortunately, when I tried to use it, the computer thought none of my software was registered, activated, licensed, etc. With 26 GB of applications on this machine, it will be a colossal chore to re-do everything. Is there any way around this?
Thanks for your time,
Larry

Is your regular user an Admin?
Yes. So is the new account I tried to set up.
Are these apps installed in the main /Applications folder?
Yes.
Are they App Store apps or installs from disc/download?
Both, but App Store purchases are a clear minority, and aren't much of a problem, due to the ease of re-downloading and activating. The downloaded programs are the ones that present the problems. I have not been good about archiving serial numbers and the like, mostly because I've never had a problem like this before.
What specific apps are you having trouble with? For instance, I know that MS Office and Adobe CS5 for perfectly well for all users on my MBP.
This is a very long list. Let me give you some of it, and if you really need all of them, I'll add to the list later.
1Password 4
ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap
Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 plus On ONE add-on filters
Burn
calibre
DiskTracker
Dragon Dictate
Flv Crunch 1.5.0
GraphicConverter
Harmony Assistant
iBank
iSkysoft iMedia Converter Deluxe
MacX Video Converter Pro
QMidi
Screenium
Unison
WireTap Studio
Also, what troubleshooting steps have you taken so far?
Not much, since I have no idea where the problem is. I looked for some central repository of software serial numbers or activations, but didn't find one.

New user account is empty

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