Can't unlock admin access in System Preferences

[bobschwenkler]

The other day I tried to change my username and home folder name in osHigh Sierra.

I was tired and out of it and when I made the change in Users & Groups it showed blank fields and abnormal field values. I didn't notice the message lower in the window saying to restart for changes to take effect.

I got weirded out by the blank fields and abnormal values, so changed a couple fields back to what they had been and hit Apply.

At that point I restarted and wasn't able to log back in in the admin account.

I used Terminal in Recovery mode to reset my password, which worked enough to allow me to log back into my user account, but I'm still not able to access admin privileges once I'm logged in. When I click the lock in System Preferences it also no longer automatically fills out the admin user name either.

I have no other user accounts on this machine.

Hopefully what I'm saying makes sense, feel free to ask questions to clarify.

Any ideas what I might to do fix this?

 

[chscag]

Changing one's home folder name and or user name usually leads to disaster which is why we normally do not recommend it without a cloned backup of your hard drive.

See if this article from the X Labs helps you to recover. Apple also has several articles in their knowledge base which you might want to take a look at.

 

[bobschwenkler]

Thanks. My issue isn't with my home folder, all of that is working fine.

I'm simply having trouble unlocking System Preferences as an admin - I can't change or create more users, etc.

I'm not terribly worried about losing the data, I have a 1 month old backup and most of my important stuff is in cloud storage anyways, but it would be nice to fix this if I'm able.

 

[bmcc123]

Any updates?

I'm having the same issue

 

[maimarcial]

The other day I tried to change my username and home folder name in osHigh Sierra.

I was tired and out of it and when I made the change in Users & Groups it showed blank fields and abnormal field values. I didn't notice the message lower in the window saying to restart for changes to take effect.

I got weirded out by the blank fields and abnormal values, so changed a couple fields back to what they had been and hit Apply.

At that point I restarted and wasn't able to log back in in the admin account.

I used Terminal in Recovery mode to reset my password, which worked enough to allow me to log back into my user account, but I'm still not able to access admin privileges once I'm logged in. When I click the lock in System Preferences it also no longer automatically fills out the admin user name either.

I have no other user accounts on this machine.

Hopefully what I'm saying makes sense, feel free to ask questions to clarify.

Any ideas what I might to do fix this?

I just did that now.. and I'm so regretful huhuhuhu what did you do to fix?

 

[IWT]

If one feels that one has to change the User Name & Home Folder Name, then this Apple article may help: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201548

If not followed to the letter, problems can occur.

Obviously people have their own reasons for changing these names, but it is not "everyday practice" to do so.

If you find yourself in the situation of having to Rename your Home Folder to match your Account Name (macOS High Sierra), this Link may help: https://apple.stackexchange.com/que...home-folder-to-match-account-name-high-sierra

Ian