TS3104 Keyboard viewer appears during Fast User Switching in Mac OS X 10.7

Apple Article TS3104 addresses Keyboard Viewer appearing during Fast User Switching in Mac OS X 10.6. I am running OS X 10.7, Lion, and have the same problem: when logging into a different account, Keyboard Viewer appears several seconds after the Password dialog box appears. However, the solution posted for 10.6 does not work: clicking Hide Keyboard Viewer during Fast User Switching dismisses the password dialog box and then does close the Keyboard Viewer, but the problem recurs the next time an attempt is made to switch users. Any ideas?

As of this evening, the Keyboard viewer problem is no longer appearing. Earlier today I installed updates for AirPort Utility to version 6.3, Safari to version 6.0.5 and iTunes to version 11.0.4: is there some connection? There have been no other recent system changes or software updates.

Similar Messages

  • Login security problem during fast user switching

    Here are the steps to reproduce the security problem I'm seeing on my system:
    1) Users A and B are logged in.
    2) User A was the last user and user A put the system to sleep.
    3) User B wakes the computer from sleep and sees the login prompt asking for user A's password.
    4) Instead of clicking "Switch Users," user B enters his username into the username field (where user A's is already provided) and user B enters his password.
    5) User B then goes to user A's account.
    In short, user B is getting into user A's account. More about my particular setup: I have two accounts on the computer, one for work and one for personal use. Though they're both mine, the accounts have different usernames, long names and passwords. Both are administrator accounts. The above isn't reproducible with a standard user account, only administrator accounts.
    I created a third administrator account and tried the same steps to get access to an account. The third admin account could also be sent into the last user's account (the user who put the system to sleep). A new standard account could not.
    I'm guessing this is something peculiar to my setup, but can anyone else reproduce this on their system? Or it could be my search didn't pull up a thread where this is already discussed.
    thanks in advance,
    jody

    Joseph Tate wrote:
    Both are administrator accounts.
    That's why.
    This is a well known phenomenon. It isn't a bug. Admin users pretty much own the machine, they can do anything they want with their own admin password.
    It is not a good idea to use an admin account for everyday use because it introduces security risks. Admin accounts should only be logged into for admin purposes. I recomment keeping your newly created admin account, and changing your other two accounts to standard, and then continue using them normally. This is a much more secure setup, it is what Apple recommends, and will solve the "problem" of User A unlocking User B's screen and vice versa.
    Even when you need to do an admin task like installing software, there's no need to actually log in to the admin account. You can do this from either of your non-admin accounts simply by entering the admin username/password when prompted. I do admin and even root tasks from my non-admin account this way all the time. It has been months since I actually logged in to my admin account.

  • 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.

  • Fast User Switching Porblem

    Hey everyone,
    I've recently had a problem with the fast user switching feature on Mavericks.
    There is only two users on the machine, and if I'm log into my name and then switch to my girlfreinds account, rather than just lgging her in and switching, it will log me out and go to the log in screen.
    I've reset all the settings, made a new account to test it and the same thing happens there. I can still click on the name on the top right corner, go to Log In Window and then log into the other users and that will keep me loged in. But if I click on the other users name and enter the password, it will log me out and go to the log in screen.
    Any thoughts?
    v. 10.9.2
    iMac 27' 2009 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
    16GB Ram
    Cheers
    Penri Mainwaring

    When you have the problem, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.
    These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
    Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
    ☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
    ☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
    ☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
    Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
    View ▹ Show Log List
    from the menu bar.
    Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above. Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first. Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
    The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough. It is never necessary or helpful to post more than about 100 lines. "The more, the better" is not the rule here.
    Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
    Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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

  • Time machine effect with fast user switching

    I already calculated it will take 11 hours to do my initial back up of 420 gb. but my Gf wants to login. I am certain this will at least slow to process down if not pause or cancel. does any one know for sure?

    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.

  • Is Xsan compantible with Fast User Switching in 10.4 Tiger?

    Does anyone know if Xsan is compatible with Tiger's 'fast user switching' feature (which allows you to have multiple users logged into the machine at the same time)?
    I had a very strange occurrence with my Xsan yesterday. The Xsan volume was mounted on one client only, but that client was logged in with two users. Even though no software was accessing the volume (i.e. FCP not running by either user) I noticed that my Xserve RAID was lit up like a blue Christmas tree -- something was reading data. When I launched the Xsan Admin app on the server (primary controller) it lost connection with the SAN and reported a FATAL error. Long story short... I had to log out of both users and restart the client to get control back. All appears fine now, but I'm only running one user on this client. I would like to be able to use the fast switching feature, but how do I prevent Xsan problems?
    Also.. is it possible that Spotlight is trying to index the SAN volume? If so, how are people preventing this in Tiger?

    Very interesting... never tried it..
    Spotlight does not index your xsan, you can check it by:
    mdutil -s /Volumes/XsanVolume

  • 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.

  • Scanners usable with Fast User Switching

    Which mid-range scanner operates with multiple logged users?
    Manufacturers seem poorly equipped to answer this, since they test their products with only one user logged in—their support people come up empty-handed.  I work in a small but busy office where fast user switching is considered a basic part of the Mac OS, and I feel that if a product doesn't work with multiple users logged the maker shouldn't be allowed to state, without caveat, that it works with OS X.
    We recently tried two scanners and found them lacking: first, the HP Color LaserJet 2840 all-in-one.  After six months of support calls that often involved switching users, HP happened to mention that user switching with any of their scanners is unsupported.  (Good-bye, HP.)  Next, the Epson 4490.  Ditto—zero support.
    My intent was to use the 4490 as a replacement for the color laserjet's function as a copier.  We don't want to mess with another multi-function machine, as the makers don't seem to have their act together when it comes to drivers for those.  We miss our color laser, but we can get by with an inkjet.  In the meantime, everyone in the office needs access to a copier, and I see no reason a printer plus a scanner (with its scan-to-printer button) can't be that copier.
    Do you know of a scanner that's fully functional, buttons and all, under OS X—that is, ALL of OS X, including fast user switching?
    G4 and G5 iMacs   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   FileMaker, Toon Boom Studio

    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.

  • 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.

  • Fast user switching animation not working on new iMac with 10.9.1

    I have a late 2013 iMac with the GeForce GTX 780M, pre-installed with 10.9 and then immediately updated to 10.9.1 out of the box.
    I imported my adminstrator account from an older iMac with Mountain Lion, using Migration Assistant. No problems experienced there whatsoever. I then separately imported a second user account from the same Mountain Lion install. Both accounts are functioning normally.
    However, when I switch between these accounts, the fast user switching animation (rotating cube) does not occur - it just instantly switches screens, without even a fade in/out effect.
    I made sure the display settings on each account are identical down to the last detail, even the same color sync profiles. I also created a fresh 'test' user account with default Mavericks settings, yet switching to that from either of the imported accounts does not have the animation either.
    Any suggestions on how to trouble-shoot this? I have 'Googled' it, but all the refrences are from earlier version of OS X from 2003-2009 and mention things like not having enough graphical processing power - obviously not an issue here.

    I tried (on both user accounts):
    1. Flushing all the caches using Onyx
    2. Deleting the 'com.apple.desktop.plist' files.
    3. Switching each user account to non-standard resolutions and back again.
    The lack of the rotating cube effect is not the worst of it, as about 50% of the time I switch accounts I get an 'empty' desktop in the account I have just switched to, and I can only get the desktop icons to appear again by switching back and forth a few times. Extremely frustrating.
    I am starting to think this is yet another bug in Mavericks or a problem with the graphic drivers for the new GTX 775 / 780 cards.

  • Fast user switching and "ipod is in use by another user on this computer"

    Is there any way to suppress the "ipod is in use by another user on this computer" message that appears when you use fast user switching.
    my wife and I share a mac pro and when flipping between sessions, this message gets to be a bit annoying. i.e. if her itouch is plugged in and she is managing it through her library, if I fast user switch to my session, I get the warning dialog (ok to clear) I mention above. This is kind of annoying now, since I understand I won't be able to manage that ipod from my itunes session.
    is there anyway to suppress this behavior?

    Hi again,
    Glad to hear you got all your music files back into your library.
    I've seen this iPod error before, but I don't know why it occurs. In my experience, restarting the computer solves the problem.
    Cheers,
    Sara.

Maybe you are looking for