Sharing album artwork with fast user switching and soft links

We have 4 users, 4 iPods, 4 sets of playlists. Each has their own account. All the music lives on an external drive and each iTunes is set to store its music in the same shared folder. That all works fine.
Now we're getting into album artwork, and I want to share that too. I found a posting somewhere that suggested a soft link from /Users/Me/Music/iTunes/Album Artwork -> /Volumes/BigDrive/iTunes Artwork. I did that with one user and it worked fine - copied Album Artwork folder and set soft link and voila, all the art. I also set all permissions to allow r/w from everyone.
But when I set the soft link from 2nd user, iTunes shows no art. I can browse all the art files fine from that users Finder.
Thanks for any help!
mac mini Mac OS X (10.4.9) iTunes 7.1.1

And just like that I may have found the solution! IT suddenly occured to me that one of the settings that got changed when we imported my wife's profile was a change to the sleep settings. Previously, I had had my iMac set to never go to sleep, since it shares our media with the rest of the house and runs eyeTV to record TV shows and such. For a little while after my wife's account was imported the settings to changes so that the computer would go to sleep after 15 minutes. I'm not totally sure why, but I think having that set up somehow meant that when we switched accounts my other account just "went to sleep" and therefore stopped sharing the iTunes library. After I noticed the change and switched the computer back to "never" for sleep the problem seems to have stopped.
So perhaps check your sleep settings? That seems to be the only change I can think of that got things working correclty for me. I'll keep digging though and see if I can find any more helpful info. Good luck!

Similar Messages

Home Sharing stops working with fast user switching

I have a late 2013 iMac running Mavericks. The main account has my iTunes library with Home Sharing enabled. The AppleTVs and IOS devices can see the Home Share and it works well. But, it stops working when user accounts are accessed on the Mac.
For instance, as soon as I select "Login Window..." from the fast user switching menu, the share is lost. I did not log out, iTunes is still running. I simply showed the login window. All IOS and ATVs loose the share. Switching to another user also stops the share. It's as if iTunes is completed halted and not allowed to run in the background.
When moving from the login screen back to the user account where the iTunes library is located, the home share is restored. Likewise, moving from a 2nd user account back to the main account where iTunes is runnning restores the home share.
I have a MacPro running Mountain Lion, and it works fine. The iTunes library is always available for the devices, even if multiple users are signed into the Mac, or if the Mac is on the login screen.
Any work around for Mavericks? It competely breaks the entire media ecosystem if every device looses the home share if someone tries to use their account on the Mac.

And just like that I may have found the solution! IT suddenly occured to me that one of the settings that got changed when we imported my wife's profile was a change to the sleep settings. Previously, I had had my iMac set to never go to sleep, since it shares our media with the rest of the house and runs eyeTV to record TV shows and such. For a little while after my wife's account was imported the settings to changes so that the computer would go to sleep after 15 minutes. I'm not totally sure why, but I think having that set up somehow meant that when we switched accounts my other account just "went to sleep" and therefore stopped sharing the iTunes library. After I noticed the change and switched the computer back to "never" for sleep the problem seems to have stopped.
So perhaps check your sleep settings? That seems to be the only change I can think of that got things working correclty for me. I'll keep digging though and see if I can find any more helpful info. Good luck!

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.

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?

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

Issues with Fast User Switching, language pref, greyed out menu options

I have only one user logged in to my Macbook. If i want to select the other user using Fast User Switching and clicking on the username in top right corner of screen, nothing happens. The other user at this time is still logged out.
Incidentally, when i click on the airport symbol, the wireless networks are often greyed out and i can't change networks unless in go into network prefs.
One more thing - i have english and spanish selected as languages in international preferences. I ca not switch back to english at all - by clicking on the flag in the menu bar or by going into sys prefs. When n battery power, power characteristics are also greyed out and unable to select a different profile.
any help welcome.
thanks

It sounds like everything in your menu bar is florfed.
Can you log in to the other user account from the login window instead of by fast user switching? If so, does that account have the same problems with the menu bar?

Safari misbehaving with fast user switching after Mavericks upgrade

Anybody else have this problem with fast user switching?
Since upgrading to the worst OS upgrade in history, not only have I lost TB's of data from my external drives, but Safari is behaving like a spoilt brat when fast user switching is used.
If I leave safari windows open and switch users, then switch back, the Safari windows are collapsed to about a tenth of their normal height and stuck in the top left of my screen. When I say stuck, I mean that if I attempt to move them, they snap back.
The best part is, it's not consistent, so I can't reproduce it at will.

I have a 2014 BTO 27 inch iMac and I have the same problem with open windows being locked to the top left/right of the screen and just a fraction of their previous size after switching to other users and then switching back. In addition if an open window is not bugged into either of the top corners it may still get re-sized
Due to screen backlight issues, I went through being shipped (and returning) 3 BTO iMacs before settling with this current one and each of those iMacs had the same fast user switching bug. This leads me to think that a re-install will not neccessarily solve this issue as I am assuming that the BTO iMacs they shipped to me from China were brand spanking new. We see this behaviour with Safari, Chrome, Mail, iCal, and iTunes since these are the apps that we commonly leave open. We do not have these as full screen apps either, just open windows.
It is very easy to replicate this bug. Open a few of the above mentioned apps, and then switch to another user; I'm guessing even the guest user will do if you have no other users on your system. Switch back to the first user and more than likely one or more of the windows will be anchored at the top left or right of the screen, depending on where the window was initially. As stated by a few other users above, this doesn't always happen but switch users a couple of times and it is bound to happen before long.
Curiosly when my windows are anchored on the left after switching users, the upper edge of the window is hidden BEHIND the menu bar. If I pull the window down it appears that the red button is off screen to the left and only that portion of the window to the RIGHT of the amber button is visible.
When the windows are anchored to the right they are BELOW the menu bar, and only the red and amber buttons are visible and only that part of the window to the LEFT of the amber button is visible.
In both cases it seems the amber minimise button is the window cut-off point.
You wonder how they could have broken this feature since ML and much worse, still not have it fixed 3 months later.

Trouble with "Fast User Switching"

Leopard 10.5.1 MacBook 2.4, 160 gig.
I enabled Fast User Switching, and I see my account in the upper right part of the screen. However, my account is the only one that shows, yet I have two others. Also, When I asked the login screen to show a list of users rather than the logon screen, It does NOT show the list.
I have had this computer for only 6 days.
I have archived and reinstalled the OS. No change. Is this just my problem, or have others had the same issue? If it is me, what please is the fix?
Thanks in advance,
John

Hennapanda1 wrote:
Leopard 10.5.1 MacBook 2.4, 160 gig.
I enabled Fast User Switching, and I see my account in the upper right part of the screen. However, my account is the only one that shows, yet I have two others. Also, When I asked the login screen to show a list of users rather than the logon screen, It does NOT show the list.
I have had this computer for only 6 days.
I have archived and reinstalled the OS. No change. Is this just my problem, or have others had the same issue? If it is me, what please is the fix?
Thanks in advance,
John
When I select my name in the upper right-hand corner, the others appear in a dropdown box on my machine.

User activity with fast user switching

what actually continues with one user when another user logs on with fast user switching?
Does any activity continue, such as downloading, calculating, getting mail, or playing movies? Or does everything go into limbo until that user logs back on?

Audio output is squelched when fast user switching. Under Panther, audio playing in one user account would continue to play after fast user switching to another account. Under Tiger, the actual process continues, but the sound is muted.
Same thing goes for audio input. I learned this the hard way by setting up an app to record a two hour radio program through the built-in audio input jack. During the recording I switched to another account for an hour. When I later went to listen to the recording, there was an hour of silence corresponding to the time I was in the other account.
I really wish Apple would fix this.

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?

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

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.

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.

Logitech Keyboard Issues with Fast User Switching

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

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

Network Drive problems with Fast User Switching

I have a USB drive connected to my Time Capsule and shared to the network. On one of my computers (Mac Pro) I have 2 user accounts which access the data (music, photos). The first one to access the drive after a power on has no problems, and everything works perfectly. However, if I Fast User Switch to the other account, it can see the drive but cannot access it (permission problem apparently). I then have to click the disconnect button in finder, and reconnect, and then can use it again fine. Then when I switch back to the first account its the same deal, having to disconnect and reconnect. It is really annoying, since it marks all my itunes songs as missing and whatnot. Does anyone know how to fix it?
Thanks!

Yes, under Sharing in System Preferences both users have been added to full access of the drive. I had to do that for the non-admin account to be able to access it at all.

Sharing album artwork with fast user switching and soft links

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