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Admin account changed to Standard

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macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 6, 2013
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This issue was Resolved

UPDATE 3: I erased the entire drive and reinstalled OS X Mavericks, the CPU hogging tasks are no longer running. However, my battery life appears to have been halfed? At 100% it calculates the remaining time at 4 hours and 15 minutes. It used to be around 8-9 hours. Not sure what all happened with my MacBook.

UPDATE 2: There's a new problem. After having gone through the Root account and setting everything back up, I noticed that my MacBook Air battery life was only about 2 hours and 30 minutes at 100% when it used to be around 8-9+ hours. I looked at Activity Monitor and I noticed some tasks being run by the Root account that is using over 100% CPU power?

UPDATE: I solved the issue by following the steps listed here: http://www.personalmacgeniuses.com/2013/10/31/case-of-the-missing-admin-account/#.U8M0GlY2zf4

I reinstalled OS X 10.9.4 and when it was finished, I noticed that all of my Admin accounts changed to Standard ones. I'm unable to change any of my settings. How can I fix this?

Thanks!
 
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chabig said:
Very strange. What happens if you click the padlock? Can you open it?
Click to expand...

No matter what I do, I can't enter what was previously my Administrator name and password. But the password hint is the one I set for this password.
 
The problem is, that there's no GUI method to do much of anything, because there appears to be NO admin account, so no simple way to authenticate to fix the issue.
Here's the plan:
Enable the root user account.
Log in to the root user account.
Then, you will be able to change one of the other accounts to an admin.
Log out of the root user, and log back in to your admin account. And, now you will be able to change the other account to an admin (if you need to do that)

You will have to discover how to enable the root user, when there's no admin account (because you have to authenticate to enable the root user). I'm not sure how to do that, I did it quite a few times when Leopard was first released (with a similar bug), but it's been a few years, so there may be other procedures to do that - I'm just not familiar with that now.
 
Try this...reboot to single user mode (command-S). Once booted you will be at a command prompt. Type:

/sbin/mount -uw /
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

That will force the next boot to be like it would be out of the box from Apple and you'll be prompted to create a user account. That user account should be an admin account. Once created, you ought to be able to change the other accounts to the way you want them.

By the way...if you don't have a current backup, STOP! Make a backup. Then proceed.

Credit: http://www.hackmac.org/tutorials/how-to-create-a-new-administrator-account/
 
I have solved this issue! That was a real pain though, it kind of worries me that it was so easy gaining access to the Root account though :eek:
 
You can't just say you solved the issue without sharing the method. How did you solve it?
 
chabig said:
You can't just say you solved the issue without sharing the method. How did you solve it?
Click to expand...

I got back into my account by following the steps listed here: http://www.personalmacgeniuses.com/2013/10/31/case-of-the-missing-admin-account/#.U8M0GlY2zf4

But I have a new problem now. I checked Activity Monitor, and there are several processes being run by the Root account that are sometimes going over 100% CPU power and my MacBook battery is draining rapidly!

Should I just go ahead and back everything up, erase the drive, and reinstall the OS?
 
DeltaMac said:
Last step in your link is to disable your root user.
Did you do that?
Click to expand...

Yep, disabled it. Activity Monitor is running something called CrashReport two times, and SubmitDiagInfo. Both are running under the Root account at a range of 30-130% CPU power.
 
I ended up erasing my entire drive and reinstalling OS X Mavericks. Activity Monitor is no longer showing the CPU hogging tasks, and my MacBook isn't running hot. However, my battery life appears to have been halved. At 100% it calculates my remaining battery time to be around 4 hours and 15 minutes. Before my issue went down it was around 8-9+ hours. I don't know why I'm having issue-after-issue.
 
Alphabetize said:
it kind of worries me that it was so easy gaining access to the Root account though :eek:
Click to expand...

In general, if you have physical access to a machine, you control it. OS X, Windows, Unix, etc. If you want to protect your data, encryption is the solution.

A.
 
(It gets really confusing to read this thread. Please don't update your OP with ALL of your results. Some folks (like me) get more out of reviewing the various posts (not just yours), and to see ALL answers on the first post is just wrong… :D )

Continue to watch your Activity Monitor.
Watch for high CPU tasks, or high memory use, particularly the memory display to see it the memory stays in the "green" or moves to yellow, or red...

Your occasional high battery drain will recompute the expected battery life, and that may not necessarily indicate real life battery use. Let it go for that 4 hours, 15 minutes, and see if the battery life has not "magically" extended (or really does last only that 4 hours)

You also may still have the spotlight database building after a full reinstall of OS X. That can sometimes take several hours, and WILL show a lot of drain on your system while in progress.
 
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DeltaMac said:
...to see ALL answers on the first post is just wrong… :D
Click to expand...

Macrumors does this all the time for updates on news articles! I did it in reverse order though.

DeltaMac said:
Continue to watch your Activity Monitor....
Click to expand...

Everything is back to normal. No CPU-hogging tasks, fans not running loudly, and battery life is back to where it was before this fiasco. Spotlight had already finished indexing the day before actually, so I'm not sure what was causing significant drain.

Anyway, it appears to have been resolved.
 
Alphabetize said:
Macrumors does this all the time for updates on news articles! I did it in reverse order though.
Click to expand...

I would agree with DeltaMac. Your edit does make the thread confusing to read. Forum threads often reflect a troubleshooting approach to problem solving and are best read in chronological order. The manner in which MacRumors updates news articles is irrelevant.
 
In a moment of complete stupidity I ended up disabling admin privileges on all users. Ive tried the above linked steps and it just stops after passwd root, its been like that for 30 mins... I don't know what else to try

IMG_0330.JPG
 
andeify said:
In a moment of complete stupidity I ended up disabling admin privileges on all users. Ive tried the above linked steps and it just stops after passwd root, its been like that for 30 mins... I don't know what else to try

View attachment 577035
Click to expand...

http://www.hackmac.org/tutorials/how-to-create-a-new-administrator-account/

Did you try following the steps from this link that chabig posted earlier? This would cause the setup process to run at restart so you can make a new admin account.
 
Another method to change the standard account to admin:
Boot to your Recovery system.
Open the Terminal from the menus.
Type in resetpassword, then press return.
You will see the reset password window.
Choose your hard drive, then choose the account (which will be System Administrator (Root))
Enter a password, which you will want to remember.
Click Save, then Quit that utility, and restart.
You should boot to a login window. If it boots straight to your desktop, Log out of the user account.
Then, on the Login screen, choose the Other user. The account name is root. and the password is the one that you just created.
Log in. And - you are in the Root user, which can do almost anything. Change your normal account to an Administrator account (and it will let you do that).
Log back out of the Root user, then log back in to your normal user account.
Done.
Oh, be sure to disable the root user. You should only enable that when you need it, otherwise leave it disabled. Your system is more secure then.
 
andeify said:
In a moment of complete stupidity I ended up disabling admin privileges on all users. Ive tried the above linked steps and it just stops after passwd root, its been like that for 30 mins... I don't know what else to try

View attachment 577035
Click to expand...

The last command you typed was "passwd root" and the normal response you should have given it was the new password for root, followed by return key and then it will prompt you to type the same thing again (so that there were no undetected mistakes). Then it will confirm that it has changed the password.

Note that when you use the "passwd xxxx" (for any other non-root password) it prompts you for the current password. See the man page for "passwd" command to get the details.

Bottom line, is that it will sit there forever waiting for you to enter something. So give it something to continue the process of changing the password.

Good luck…
 
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