Why does authenticating take over 2 mins?

[freaky]

I have a 2 GHz MacBook with 2 GB RAM installed and recently it has been taking over 2 minutes each time I have to enter my password for something. (even when I first log in)

I tried running Cocktail to repair permissions and clean up and logs or cache files, but it still takes forever. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get it back to normal?

[Giaguara]

Check on Console what is happening when it tries to authenticate you.
Maybe it tries to authenticate you in AD or OD ..
What shows in console when you authenticate somewhere or have just authenticated? (If unclear, post here and we can see what happens)
(Applications/Utilities/Console)

How much empty space do you have? If the hard drive is very full (under 10 % free space) even that could cause delays (even though it would be delays with everything).

I assume the user is locally on your hard drive and was created with setup assistant or system preferences? So the uid would be something like 501, 502, 503 ..? So no network accounts etc? And is your user with admin rights?

[freaky]

Hi Giagura,

Thanks for your help. I tried going to my account under System Preferences and clicked the lock so I could make changes. I had Console up and nothing showed up, but it took over 2 mins before it let me make changes. I then tried to change my password and it said the system administrator may not allow me to change my password.

The hard drive has 35 GBs of free space.

It shows my account has Admin rights, but it says Managed next to it.

The computer was given to me to use by my work, but I'm using it outside the network. I had to change my password in Microsoft Webmail/Exchange a few weeks ago because it expired. It seems like that may have been around the time it started getting slow. Any idea what I need to do to change the password that I use to log into the MacBook so it matches my new company password?

[Giaguara]

So it looks like your Mac still tries to authenticate to AD but times out.. and then uses the local cached AD details instead.

If only it was a matter of clicks to force Mac OS X local user account passwords to synchronize with AD server..

If you can take the Mac to work, log in to your Mac, or on login window, change the pasword. Use the rules that the AD password has to have at your work, but don't put any passwords hints as those will not be transferred to AD. That could do the trick.

The most recent AD User can be cached locally, so that the user can authenticate when disconnected from the network (typically using a laptop). When the domain is accessible, password expiration and changes are enforced, even though the user is still viewed as local. Keep in mind that local accounts do not expire and that home directory contents are not automatically synchronized- the user is responsible for manually moving files from their local home directory to their desktop-mounted windows home directory at some point when it is available.

link

Passwords section explains a bit more of how the AD password binding would work. If changing the password at login window at work does not do the trick, and you wouldn't know which settings would need to be in Direcory Access for Active Directory plugin, it may be worth to check the IT people or some sys admin at work. They should know what settings you should have for AD.

[Kees Buijs]

Originally Posted by freaky

I have a 2 GHz MacBook with 2 GB RAM installed and recently it has been taking over 2 minutes each time I have to enter my password for something. (even when I first log in)

I tried running Cocktail to repair permissions and clean up and logs or cache files, but it still takes forever. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get it back to normal?

Create another account and check if that works up to speed. if so, the account is the problem (like trying to authenticate to the outside world). If the problem persists, something might be wrong with the hardware (similar problem was cause by a bad harddrive, whatever i did to minutes to complete).


Good luck, Kees

[freaky]

I just tried creating a new account and it took about 30 seconds to log in versus 2-3 mins on my other account.

[freaky]

I did some more searching and thanks to this awesome writeup, I resolved the problem by changing the default timeout from 4 minutes to 5 seconds. Now it's super fast again!

http://prowiki.isc-csg.upenn.edu/ind...ctiveDirectory