Defective Login After Failed Update

[Victor Snakewithpain]

Yesterday, I tried to update to the second public beta of macOS Sierra. For some reason, however, the update process stopped shortly before the completion, and since there was no progress even after many hours, I decided to shut down.

Everything works fine as far as the startup is concerned, but I can not login with my regular user account. While the password is recognized as correct, the display turns black when my data are supposed to be loaded, and I am again asked to enter my password.

Neither restarts nor safe boots were of help.

As this Mac is not my main computer, there is no backup. Still, I would like to know: Is there any way to restore my login?

Update
Meanwhile, I reinstalled macOS Sierra—probably the first public beta—via the recovery mode completely, but the problem is still there, even in safe mode. Apparently, all of the disk data are still there as well, but I can simply not login due to the black screen.

Is there no other approach?

 

[sbuntin]

Yesterday, I tried to update to the second public beta of macOS Sierra. For some reason, however, the update process stopped shortly before the completion, and since there was no progress even after many hours, I decided to shut down.

Everything works fine as far as the startup is concerned, but I can not login with my regular user account. While the password is recognized as correct, the display turns black when my data are supposed to be loaded, and I am again asked to enter my password.

Neither restarts nor safe boots were of help.

As this Mac is not my main computer, there is no backup. Still, I would like to know: Is there any way to restore my login?

Update
Meanwhile, I reinstalled macOS Sierra—probably the first public beta—via the recovery mode completely, but the problem is still there, even in safe mode. Apparently, all of the disk data are still there as well, but I can simply not login due to the black screen.

Is there no other approach?

Longshot, but did you try resetting your password?

If that doesn't do it, you could try renaming your Preferences folder from single-user mode. If that works, you can slowly start adding things back in to the Prefs folder. My bets would by ByHost, login preferences, and startup items.

 

[DaveOP]

You can boot to recovery, open terminal and type ResetPassword. The Poster above me alluded to this, worth a shot. You can also enable the root user from there by changing it's password, and see if this lets you login.

 

[Victor Snakewithpain]

Unfortunately, the password change did not help either.

As mentioned, the password is correct. But immediately after the usual loading symbol appears, the screen turns black for a moment and throws me back to the user login, which seems to be an endless loop.

Also, I am not sure how to rename my Preferences folder in the single user mode. Could you explain it to me?

 

[bbfc]

Unfortunately, the password change did not help either.

As mentioned, the password is correct. But immediately after the usual loading symbol appears, the screen turns black for a moment and throws me back to the user login, which seems to be an endless loop.

Also, I am not sure how to rename my Preferences folder in the single user mode. Could you explain it to me?

Seems to be a common issue with the latest build. I had to completely reinstall El Capitan again, as I couldn't even get the recovery to work. The previous builds were quite stable.

 

[Victor Snakewithpain]

Seems to be a common issue with the latest build.

Do you mean that this exact issue is common, or that there are generally many errors in this version?

I had to completely reinstall El Capitan again …

How did you reinstall Mac OS X El Capitan? I also tried an internet recovery, which would be Mac OS X Lion since my iMac is five years old, but then it shows me that the installation was impossible as I already used the newer macOS Sierra.

 

[bbfc]

Do you mean that this exact issue is common, or that there are generally many errors in this version?


How did you reinstall Mac OS X El Capitan? I also tried an internet recovery, which would be Mac OS X Lion since my iMac is five years old, but then it shows me that the installation was impossible as I already used the newer macOS Sierra.

This particular problem seems to be common with the latest build.

I booted up my Mavericks external HD, downloaded El Capitan from the App Store, and installed it.

 

[grahamperrin]

… can not login with my regular user account …

Using Apple ID?

 

[Victor Snakewithpain]

Using Apple ID?

I mean my regular user account on my Mac. It is connected with an (obsolete, but existent) Apple ID from five years ago as that is the time when I created the Mac user account, but what I can not use since the update is my Mac user account, not the Apple ID.

In the meanwhile, I tried to create a second user via Terminal to check if the problem occurs with that account as well, but that does not work either, or I simply use wrong commands.

Is there no alternative solution? What I can also not understand is why these problems still occur despite having reinstalled the first public beta.

 

[Victor Snakewithpain]

I apologize for double posting, but as it seems, the problem is more severe than I thought.

As mentioned, I tried to create a new admin user via Terminal to check if that account has the same issues. But the problem is that the sudo line, even whereis sudo and which sudo only give me the line command not found after sudo, where and which, respectively.

echo $PATH gives me the response /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin. That seems rather long; is it alright?

That and the fact that the login issue persists even after countless reinstallations of the first public beta 16A238m, which went very smoothly, makes me seriously wonder what in the world Apple did wrong with the second public beta so that my iMac, which had been running without any problems for five years, seems to be such a mess where even acting from the Terminal has become difficult.

Or does anyone still have any idea?