[Solved] User Accounts keep getting disabled - unable to login

I thought my HS 10.13.6 Hack on ASRock Z270 was stable. Running for about 3+ months on this release.

Then one day I couldn't login to it. It didn't recognize any of the Users' passwords. I have 2 admin accounts and one guest.
So Googled the problem, and found a suggestion that I delete the /var/db/.AppleSetupDone file and reboot, which causes re-initialization or re-setup of the OS. Worked fine. By the way iMessage was working on the system (is that a clue?).

A couple of days later, same problem re-occurred. No logins worked again. I never logout by the way, automatic login to my account turned on.

This time I re-installed from a Time Machine backup that was a week old. A couple of hours pass, and the logins get disabled again. That is NO login works. Safe Boot fails. Can't get into the system.

I tried a fresh install of the system, and then restore of the /Library/Extensions folders where all my Hachintosh kexts reside. A day passes and all the logins get shut off again.

WTF?

Sleep never worked on this ASRock Z270 Hack. I've put too much effort into this to give up now.

Is this an Apple security issue - they disable the OS if they think it is illegal? No message I've seen says that in the log files.
Is this indicative of a HW problem? I dual boot on this system to Windows 10, and it has been running flawlessly for 9 months, so I can't believe its a core HW problem. Could it be a problem on the SSD that contains the HS install? Naturally readers of this thread may say the source could be any of these problems; but I just want to point out that I've considered them.

Boo hoo.

Anyone any suggestions or ideas?

Tony

I am no expert but I would look at the BIOS changing and probably resetting also could be the NvRAM doing the same. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will chime in with areas to look at. Good luck.

esafeddie said:

I am no expert but I would look at the BIOS changing and probably resetting also could be the NvRAM doing the same. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will chime in with areas to look at. Good luck.

Click to expand...

Interesting suggestion. But the OS doesn't sleep or reset/reboot between these 'failures' i.e. where it goes from normal to not allowing a login.

But I will keep your suggestion in mind while investigating. Thanks.

Ok so the login failures happens while the machine is running - in other words your logged on while the p/c is running and then kicked out without a reboot or shut down. That's a weird one, never came across this problem before so wouldn't know what to suggest at this stage apart from NvRAM stability and then I am clutching at a possibility.

One more item. Nothing I attempted would allow me to successfully download the latest Xcode 10 from the App Store.

I had Carbon Copied my OS to a back up Hard Drive some weeks ago, which became bootable. So I have in the past couple of hours booted into that HDD OS. I downloaded XCode 10 with no problem on that HDD.

When I go to restore the Carbon Copy Clone back to the SSD, it refuses to do so saying there is a problem on the drive - but doesn't explicitly say what the problem is.

I'm going to leave this OS from the HDD up and running for a few days and see if I can figure the problem out. Is there an error log around that might indicate problems with the SSD?

Problem was a flakey Samsung NVME SSD. At least the replaced it.