Macbook Pro Randomly Logs Off

[Blake the Great]

I have a mid 2009 13 inch Macbook Pro. For a while now, randomly it will log out and I will have to log back in. It doesn't happen a lot though when it does it seems to keep happening. The one evening it did it over 20 in a three hour period. I have went to the Genius Bar twice, the first time the Genius admitted that I had stumped him! I have also talked to an Apple Specialist for over two and half hours on the evening that it kept doing it. The only remedy that I have been told is to reinstall OS X which has been done now three times. Once before I went to the apple store, the second time after and the third time Apple did for me. The two times that I have I did a clean install and then just dragged back the home folder minus the home library. Now that I have updated to Lion, it has happened twice, so I don't know what to do. The hardware has been inspected both by Apple and by my University's IT department; both found nothing wrong. The only upgrade that I have done is I bumped the amount of RAM from 2 Gb to 4, I got the RAM from Crucial shortly after I got it. So guys any idea? Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[FrancoisC]

Wild guess here,

Maybe you have a defective keyboard, which just happen to press the keys required to log off?

 

[brah]

i am having the same issue and it is not because of a defective keyboard as someone mentioned...

 

[andyoz]

Mac Mini with Lion keeps logging off

I'm having this problem also. I have a 2011 Mac Mini Server (2 GHz i7) running 10.7.2.

For one of my accounts, the account will log me out when I step away from the computer. (It never happens when I'm actively using the computer.) Essentially, it seems to interpret inactivity as a reason to log out. It fully logs me out - it's not just locking the screen, etc.

I've disabled all my autorun programs and it still happens. Tried two different keyboards, so it's not a keyboard problem. Tried removing all my USB devices, my ethernet cable, turning off WiFi, etc. It doesn't seem to be caused by anything I'm connecting to the device.

Any ideas?

----------

Never mind, I'm an idiot. For some reason, I must have checked the following setting, thinking it was screen lock rather than logoff. To fix, I just:

--
System Preferences/Security. Select the General tab.

Click the gold padlock icon bottom left corner of the pane, you will be asked for your admin password.

Make sure the following is NOT checked: Log out after (#) minutes of inactivity
--

Doh!