Cannot authorize as admin but can su

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Having a bizarre problem on my Mac and was hoping you guys could help.

My main user that I use every day is no longer allowed superuser privileges in the GUI. For instance, if you go to System Preferences/Accounts and 'Click the lock to make changes' it will always reject the password I enter with the message 'Try entering your information again.' and an 'OK' button.

I figured that the user had dropped out of the admin group but that is not the case. When I use 'groups' you can see that it is clearly there. I also have no problems using su & sudo from the command line. When you check the user with dscl it is still in the admin group.

I added another admin user from the command line using dscl and used that to remove and then re-add admin privileges from my main user but that didn't work.

I've also tried running Disk Utility and Repair Permissions but that hasn't worked either.

Am running a MacBook (early '09) with the latest version of Snow Leopard (10.6.2)

Any ideas?
 

bobtomay

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Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Try this - open Keychain - on the menu bar go to Keychain Access - Keychain First Aid and run a repair
 

bobtomay

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15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Next couple of things I'd try would be:

wouldn't do either of these without a bootable backup

move the keychainaccess preference file to the desktop - located in your home folder / Library / Preferences / com.apple.keychainaccess.plist - trash it if it works, move it back if not

Maybe wait for more input, then:
Create a new Keychain - definitely not without a backup - have never had to do this and am not aware of all the ramifications of this act
 
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Next couple of things I'd try would be:

wouldn't do either of these without a bootable backup

move the keychainaccess preference file to the desktop - located in your home folder / Library / Preferences / com.apple.keychainaccess.plist - trash it if it works, move it back if not

Maybe wait for more input, then:
Create a new Keychain - definitely not without a backup - have never had to do this and am not aware of all the ramifications of this act

That sounds a bit drastic at the moment. The stupid thing is I've created a new admin user from the command line that I can use to validate in the GUI at any point. So it is just more of an annoyance that my main users can't.
 

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