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The.316

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 14, 2010
1,395
164
25100 GR
For the last few days, my screen saver has been coming on, and I do not have it set to work at all. Also, I suddenly do not have to log into my computer anymore when I wake it from sleep. Before, it asked me for my password, but now, nothing. I have no clue what the he!! I did!
 

keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
9,539
25,302
For the last few days, my screen saver has been coming on, and I do not have it set to work at all. Also, I suddenly do not have to log into my computer anymore when I wake it from sleep. Before, it asked me for my password, but now, nothing. I have no clue what the he!! I did!


Apple Menu > System Preferences > Security & Privacy

In the 'General' tab there's a tickbox for 'Require password' after sleep or screen saver begins

Also, System Preferences > Users and Groups

Then if you click 'Login' options, there should be 'Automatic Login'. Is that selected to your username? If so you can click it 'off' and that might work. Remember that option is just when you first start your computer, not for when you're coming out of sleep mode.

And in the Desktop & Screen Saver option in System Preferences, you've got a drop-down box for 'Start after' towards the bottom-left. Am I right in saying that this is set to 'Never'?

Also if you go into 'Energy Saver' in System Preferences, you can adjust the slider to never turn off the display, in case you don't want it to ever go to sleep.
 
Last edited:

The.316

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 14, 2010
1,395
164
25100 GR
Apple Menu > System Preferences > Security & Privacy

In the 'General' tab there's a tickbox for 'Require password' after sleep or screen saver begins

This was ticked already, to 5 minutes. Never needed it though because I have never had a screen saver (as you will see below).

Also, System Preferences > Users and Groups

Then if you click 'Login' options, there should be 'Automatic Login'. Is that selected to your username? If so you can click it 'off' and that might work. Remember that option is just when you first start your computer, not for when you're coming out of sleep mode.

That was also set to "Off"

And in the Desktop & Screen Saver option in System Preferences, you've got a drop-down box for 'Start after' towards the bottom-left. Am I right in saying that this is set to 'Never'?

Screen%20Shot%202015-05-22%20at%204.47.42%20PM_zps9ip4qc6h.png


Also if you go into 'Energy Saver' in System Preferences, you can adjust the slider to never turn off the display, in case you don't want it to ever go to sleep.

I have had the slider set anywhere from an hour to never, depending on what I wanted.

Everything you said, I have had since I had the iMac. I have never seen an issue like this before. As I was doing some work in the living room, I came back to see the screen saver running (the one with the colors in the pic I added to this post). Plus, when I get out of the screen saver, it doesnt ask for a password. Maybe the screen saver wasnt running more than five minutes, so maybe that is why it didnt ask me for a password. The issue though is the damn screen saver. I havent had a screen saver on this mac for a couple of years now. The only thing I remember doing the last few days was running Onyx. I tend to clean the iMac every so often, but nothing extreme. Maybe I ran something in Onyx that is interfering with the iMac now, and forcing it to run the screen saver? The only other thing I have done recently was run an update in Wndows 7, which I run via parallels, but I really dont think that would cause the problem.

Also, when it wakes from sleep, it doesnt ask me for a password. It always asked me for a password since upgrading to Yosemite.
 
Last edited:

keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
9,539
25,302
Everything you said, I have had since I had the iMac. I have never seen an issue like this before. As I was doing some work in the living room, I came back to see the screen saver running (the one with the colors in the pic I added to this post). Plus, when I get out of the screen saver, it doesnt ask for a password. Maybe the screen saver wasnt running more than five minutes, so maybe that is why it didnt ask me for a password. The issue though is the damn screen saver. I havent had a screen saver on this mac for a couple of years now. The only thing I remember doing the last few days was running Onyx. I tend to clean the iMac every so often, but nothing extreme. Maybe I ran something in Onyx that is interfering with the iMac now, and forcing it to run the screen saver? The only other thing I have done recently was run an update in Wndows 7, which I run via parallels, but I really dont think that would cause the problem.

Also, when it wakes from sleep, it doesnt ask me for a password. It always asked me for a password since upgrading to Yosemite.

Boy this is a tricky one. :( I honestly can say I've no idea why the screensaver would be coming up, when it's ticked to never enable. As you said there's likely to be a 3rd party application causing the problem, though reading a description of what Onyx does hasn't elucidated the issue at all.

I'm not sure where to start, so we'll just go with the classic tests, if you'd be happy to bear with my clumsy troubleshooting.

1) Check the hard-drive isn't corrupted - you can verify this through SMART Utility: http://cloudfront.volitans-software.com/smartutility314.zip

2) Verify Disk by opening Disk Utility, selecting the Macintosh HD volume and clicking 'verify disk' - there may be some volume corruptions causing OS X to not work properly?

3) If the above two steps do not demonstrate an issue, please could you click 'Repair Disk Permissions' on Macintosh HD through Disk Utility and then restart the Mac?

If that still doesn't fix the issue or indicate a problem, you can try an OS repair through the recovery partition. Hold Cmd + R on startup, and click 'Reinstall OS X' when you're in OS X Utilities. It won't affect any data or applications, and it'll only reinstall the OS X core files. This could potentially solve the problem if there's some weird screensaver kext that's corrupted or something ...

I really do appreciate your patience, please keep me updated and I'll sleuth the Internet for additional things we can try if this doesn't work! :eek:
 

The.316

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 14, 2010
1,395
164
25100 GR
Boy this is a tricky one. :( I honestly can say I've no idea why the screensaver would be coming up, when it's ticked to never enable. As you said there's likely to be a 3rd party application causing the problem, though reading a description of what Onyx does hasn't elucidated the issue at all.

I'm not sure where to start, so we'll just go with the classic tests, if you'd be happy to bear with my clumsy troubleshooting.

1) Check the hard-drive isn't corrupted - you can verify this through SMART Utility: http://cloudfront.volitans-software.com/smartutility314.zip

2) Verify Disk by opening Disk Utility, selecting the Macintosh HD volume and clicking 'verify disk' - there may be some volume corruptions causing OS X to not work properly?

3) If the above two steps do not demonstrate an issue, please could you click 'Repair Disk Permissions' on Macintosh HD through Disk Utility and then restart the Mac?

If that still doesn't fix the issue or indicate a problem, you can try an OS repair through the recovery partition. Hold Cmd + R on startup, and click 'Reinstall OS X' when you're in OS X Utilities. It won't affect any data or applications, and it'll only reinstall the OS X core files. This could potentially solve the problem if there's some weird screensaver kext that's corrupted or something ...

I really do appreciate your patience, please keep me updated and I'll sleuth the Internet for additional things we can try if this doesn't work! :eek:

Yeah, it is confusing me too. I appreciate the help.

I ran the permissions and disk check, and everything seemed to be ok. The SSD seems to be fine too.

Here is another doozy now....I reset the computer, and after I signed it, it brought me to the welcome user screen. That image that you see when you first set your computer up. It was in the area where it would ask you if you wanted to edit your image, then after its the part that shows that your imac is ready. You know, the gray image with the circles w/check marks in it.
 
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