Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

catapoefty

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 21, 2017
3
0
Hey guys,

So I wanted to change my admin name in my macbook pro, but something seems to have gone wrong and I'm not sure what. I changed the "full name" field and the "account name" field. A warning came at the top of the window saying i needed to restart for it to work so I did that, I also vaguely remember that some of the other info in that window had changed (don't remember exactly but I think it was "user ID").
After restarting i wanted to change something in my settings so I clicked on the lock, but when the login window opened the username field was empty. I tried to fill in my presumed username and the old one but they don't work. Luckily I can log into my computer but I can't download or edit anything. Please help! I just got a new ssd put in and I want to finally use it properly...
 

catapoefty

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 21, 2017
3
0
Thanks for the reply!

The problem is that I can't unlock anything, I copy/pasted it but you need to enter the admin password to allow it.

I have mac version 10.13 or High Sierra

And yes in the users thing it says admin.

If my only option is formating im fine with that, I don't have any important or big files on this new ssd yet. Though preferably not of course.

P.S. As you can see in the picture the "user name" field is always blank when it would usually show the name automatically. Also, "gebruiker" is admin in dutch (just to avoid any confusion)
Screen Shot 2017-10-23 at 00.33.37.png
 

ab298

macrumors member
Jun 18, 2017
62
12
Hi

Under the name : 'gebruiker', you can see that the user is shown as 'Standard' rather than 'Admin'. & that's one of your problems... there is no longer an admin user to provide an administrator's name/password for.

You can prompt the setup assistant to run again, allowing you to create a new admin account, which can then be used to give admin rights to the existing user. It's the procedure detailed in the first step here : takes a couple of minutes. Be sure to enter the commands exactly as shown.

Your download/edit problem may still require diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u`
as detailed on the Apple support page; or you could just carry on with the new 'admin' account & use it to delete the first.
 
  • Like
Reactions: catapoefty
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.