Admin password pop up crashes the app I'm using.

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MacBook Air 13" Late 2010

1.86GHz or 2.13GHz Processor, 128GB or 256GB Flash Storage

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Giovanni @giovanni63339

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Posted: Jul 24, 2015

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Admin password pop up crashes the app I'm using.

Hi,

I'm having trouble with my mac because every time I try to do something that requires admin rights the app I'm using stops being responsive as soon as I click and the popup to enter the admin password should appear (it doesn't). This includes most installers, settings editing and showing my passwords in Chrome.

I honestly have no idea on why it's happening (it has been a couple of weeks doing that now).

Thank you!

G

MacBook Air (13-inch, Late 2010) running OS X Yosemite 10.10.3.

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Dan @danj

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Posted: Jul 24, 2015

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Sounds like your drive is encountering problems. First see if you can make a backup of your apps and data.

Do you have a bootable external drive (USB thumb drive)? If you do try booting up under it and then run Disk Utility to fix the permissions.

If that doesn't fix it you'll likely need to reformat the drive and then re-install everything back.

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4 Comments:

Hi, thanks for the answer!

I did not have any problems with the drive, is it normal that it's giving me problems only when I want to use my admin rights?

I do have a bootable usb (I think) that came with the mac but it has really old software installed (I formatted it some months ago and I had to update the system several times before being up-to-date). I don't think the older version has disk utility, I do have a friend with a newer macbook air (and possibly a newer usb thumb drive with a newer OS), would that work?

Jul 26, 2015 by Giovanni

By the way, after a looong while I sometimes get the pop up which I didn't get before, but by that time I'd already force quitted the apps so it didn't work, I couldn't type in the password.

Jul 26, 2015 by Giovanni

Why don't you get a fresh thumb drive (16GB or bigger), then visit your friend with a couple of bottles of wine or beer so you can borrow his laptop to first reformat the thumb drive so its setup with GUID, then download the OS Installer (if he doesn't have it already) from the App Store. But before you run it make a backup copy. Then run it to install the OS onto your thumb drive. Then copy over the OS installer as you may need it. Reboot his system and then hold down the Option key to get to the Boot Manager select your thumb drive to make sure it boots up if it does shutdown his system. Don't forget to finish the wine ;-} Now when you get back home see what happens booting up with your thumb drive running the Disk Utility from it.

Jul 26, 2015 by Dan

It seems like I've got a couple of days when I won't need the laptop, so I'll probably follow your first advice and reformat the drive since I'll have time to initiate the various updates and come back every once in a while. Luckily most of my files are in Google Drive anyway. Thank you so much and sorry for the late reply. I'm also going to take your last advice and go over to my friend's house one of these days. ;)

Aug 14, 2015 by Giovanni

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Hi, thanks for the answer!

I did not have any problems with the drive, is it normal that it's giving me problems only when I want to use my admin rights?

I do have a bootable usb (I think) that came with the mac but it has really old software installed (I formatted it some months ago and I had to update the system several times before being up-to-date). I don't think the older version has disk utility, I do have a friend with a newer macbook air (and possibly a newer usb thumb drive with a newer OS), would that work? — Giovanni
By the way, after a looong while I sometimes get the pop up which I didn't get before, but by that time I'd already force quitted the apps so it didn't work, I couldn't type in the password. — Giovanni
Why don't you get a fresh thumb drive (16GB or bigger), then visit your friend with a couple of bottles of wine or beer so you can borrow his laptop to first reformat the thumb drive so its setup with GUID, then download the OS Installer (if he doesn't have it already) from the App Store. But before you run it make a backup copy. Then run it to install the OS onto your thumb drive. Then copy over the OS installer as you may need it. Reboot his system and then hold down the Option key to get to the Boot Manager select your thumb drive to make sure it boots up if it does shutdown his system. Don't forget to finish the wine ;-} Now when you get back home see what happens booting up with your thumb drive running the Disk Utility from it. — Dan
It seems like I've got a couple of days when I won't need the laptop, so I'll probably follow your first advice and reformat the drive since I'll have time to initiate the various updates and come back every once in a while. Luckily most of my files are in Google Drive anyway. Thank you so much and sorry for the late reply. I'm also going to take your last advice and go over to my friend's house one of these days. ;) — Giovanni