Auto log in not working

Good morning ( from NZ )

I have had to start using my iMac 10.11 as my 10.7 is just about terminal. Delayed as long as I could. I have enabled auto log in and I don't log myself out yet i have to log in regularly which also means the mail comes up empty and I have to choose a mailbox. I haven't noticed if it is just first thing in the morning i.e after a certain number of hours I have to log in. I am the only user and have never had this happen in 10 years of using macs and their different systems. Auto log in has always worked.
As always these things are just annoying when all steps seem to have been taken.
Any advice please?
Thank you

Something I came across in my auto login set up for a whole lot of classroom macs - I had to select the display login window as 'Name and Password'.
When I had 'List of Users' selected it required a login, despite there only being one user on the computer.

Auto Login.

To which are you referring Aussie? The login at startup or downloading mail and manually using a password? If set up is correctly carried out, Mail should simply download when the application is open. Leaving it open you can opt for whatever checking period you want.

In Mail > Preferences > General you can select every minute, five minutes, fifteen minutes etc.

Thank you for replying. I have your reply and one other. I just had a look at the accounts pane and have changed it to Name and Password just to see what happens but interestingly although I am requested to log in ( at times) it only comes up as my name (and password) and not the other accounts. I know what you mean about the list of users coming up which is how it was on my other computer if log in was required but that isn't what is happening on this computer. I don't seem to be having to log in during the day after time off but I did this morning and have had to on couple of other occasions so I need to watch if it happens after being off during the night ( length of time). It shouldn't happen at all as far as I'm concerned . Auto log in should be just that and has always been as automatic as it suggests ( on my other computers) so all I can wonder is if there is a setting that logs me out at some point that I don't know about.

Hi harryb2448,
I wasn't sure if there were two problems or if they were linked so my post was ambiguous. I hoped by saying I had had 10 years experience it would show I knew at least basic things. Yes I know what you are referring to and I have mail set to bring in new mail every 5 mins but to answer your question.. the having to log in despite being set to auto is at start up but I need to now watch if it is only happening first log in for the day ( and even then why ?), it hasn't happened throughout today other than this morning so now I need to see what time it happens again i.e tomorrow at first opening after some hours of inactivity.
With the mail ( which looks like it might be separate glitch) I sometimes click on the postage stamp to open the application and it shoots up displaying very left column Inbox etc but with a blank message page and at the top it says No Mailbox Selected so I have to click Inbox to bring up the messages.
It has happened more often than the log in mystery.
It's annoying more than anything and I don't understand it. I have tried to find any relevant info on this weird behaviour through google, there was a sort of related item which suggested quitting mail at the dock then reopening and I did that but it still happened again.
Just incase it's significant, I will say this is a refurbished computer, done by a competent person but not a professional. Mostly he has an interest in repairing macs and is successful in getting them up and running but I do have niggling doubts when quirks happen. The last one we had from him would never start in Safe Mode and I thought it should do so. Is just an observation. I don't know if it's possible for little things to be not quite right.

If you go into System Preferences > Security & Privacy you can opt there to set password after sleep etc.

Hi Aussie

This is how my auto login is set up.



Do these setting match yours?

(In case you're wondering what "Clean Admin" means: I set this up when my iMac was working perfectly. Should a fault or problem develop, I can always log in as "Clean Admin" knowing it is "fault-free" and use that account to investigate the problem.)

Ian

Hi Ian.. I have a couple of replies I haven't been notified of. Your reply has shown me where the setting is that is requiring me to enter a password even though I am on auto log in. "disable auto log in" is greyed out even though I am on auto log in, you would think it would be available as an option to negate auto log in but as it stands it looks like I have to have the 8 hour setting for password which will be why it comes up in the morning. It didn't this morning but that will be because I couldn't sleep and was on computer during the night. I had thought that Sandra's suggestion worked but it's probably more a time issue.
Yes i understand your description of Clean Admin. I learned of this as good practice some years ago and elected to have great grandmother susie smith as the clean account. Never had to use it but i always set it up. The others are son who still only uses the 10.7 and only for for Trade Me and granddaughter who needed this one for Minecraft.
So now i understand where it's coming from so thanks for that. There are little things that aren't working properly such as list of users not coming up when box is checked but it doesn't really affect anything and even though mail fails to open properly many times it does get going with an extra push or by selecting Inbox which then brings up all messages.
10.11 is a big jump from 10.7 and imap mail behaves differently from pop. I'm not yet comfortable with deleting an email and having it disappear from web mail as well. I'm very grateful I had forewarning of that.

Hello Aussie (Susan)

Just got your reply. Thank you very much.

I think the situation is this:

Your various options on the two screenshots are greyed out until you click on the padlock (bottom left, both screenshots). Clicking on it will bring up a request for your Admin Password (Not your Apple or iCloud ID - the PW you use for logging in to your Mac - no offence if you know this already. Some people do get confused).

After entering your Admin PW, you can untick the "Require Password....after Sleep or Screen Saver begins". That should take care of that.

As regards the first screenshot, again the padlock allows changes, but I don't think it matters whether you have "List of Users" or "Name & Password" checked although I have always had "List of Users" as my default.

So kind of you to comment on my Clean Admin; seems like you are well ahead of the game on that one.

Ian

Hi Aussie (Susan) again

I do agree; POP3 and IMAP do behave quite differently and moving from the former to IMAP requires a rethink of your email practices.

With IMAP, you can follow emails on your various devices if you have them; but you can also create Mailboxes which will appear on all of them. You can save emails to a Mailbox of choice and you can Archive emails - On Your Mac, to iCloud, to your ISP or to all of these if you really want to.

Just needs time.........

Ian

At this point Ian if I had the energy i would be laughing myself witless.. how could I overlook or forget to just try unlocking the lock to make the choices active. I think I've become befuddled. So no I can't be offended that you reminded me, I had overlooked it. I was busy taking the screenshots then I found it a little perplexing how to attach the images to my reply. Obviously I got there on the end but it took my attention. Even now when looking at the Security settings unlocked I still wouldn't have realised I could just uncheck the password setting box and that would be that. The menu that comes up only offers the range of times, as you will know, but when I unchecked it it behaved just as you said so that was helpful. Now that I fully understand what is happening I will leave it at the 8 hours. There have been other things going on here which won't be touching anyone out of NZ. Spark ( ex Telecom) are moving their mail service from Yahoo to a local provider and there have been things to cope with while this massive move is in transition. When I was having a problem I was given very poor advice to delete my mail account and that it would all come back but it didn't. It was extremely worrying. The external HD had stopped working ( I hadn't realised) and long story short I started this computer up and if I remember correctly my mail was here on the IMAP even though it had been lost from pop.And it was missing from Library for some unrelated reason. Apple then felt sorry for me and took me through how to restore the pop account to my preferred computer. So things have been going on causing distress. Some people have actually lost their mail through no action of their own while this move is taking place.
As for the Clean Admin had I not known I would have been grateful to have learned from you but i would have had to follow up with a text book or google for more info. I didn't fully understand at first but just thought it was a good idea and that one day it would make sense. Two very good things I learned from reading was the clean ( spare) account but the best of all was having Activity Monitor in the dock for when Force quit doesn't work and as i have mostly had old computers with behind the times systems it has been invaluable.
Thank you for the help. I see you live in Wales, I can't even imagine what it's like there but you are from Scotland where so many of us down here have our origins. As my name suggests I am from Melbourne but been here many years.
All the best....Susan

Yes it does need time. It is unnerving deleting a message and seeing it disappear from the email client and web mail. It is causing me to be cautious and always be thinking but all I need to really remember is when I delete something it will be in Trash for a month. Pity help anyone who doesn't know what to expect. I do have the mailbox system , couldn't have done without it. Have never archived anything because I don't know what will happen so I have avoided it. I don't have any other devices. Had a Samsung smart phone thing that was anything but Smart and rang people I didn't mean to ring when I was scrolling through Contacts. I now use it for taking photos which it does very well and just use an old very reliable ZTE phone for texting and ringing. i will probably get a tablet at some point but for now will keep enjoying my desktop.

lol Sue I have my email set to clear the Trash and Junk when closing the Mail program. Which ISP are you with as the majority here, certainly my curent and all former use POP.

Hi Harry... omg ( as they say) I would not want Trash to clear when closing Mail. My email address is xtra.co.nz which was started by Telecom and Telecom was what used to be the old Post and Telegraph thingee, you know the Govt owned department. Can't remember what it was called in Melb so long ago.Maybe PMG ? At some point years ago Telecom outsourced to Yahoo as Yahoo/xtra but there have been some ongoing problems with Yahoo so Telecom ( now called Spark and now a much smaller company) have decided to bring Mail "home" which I think is good but it's a big undertaking. Recently I realised my mail wasn't coming through from yahoo to my mac mail, I could send from it but not receive and for ages I have had to manually enter the password every time but I knew other people had to do that too however I became increasingly concerned about nothing making it to the Inbox and eventually found a posting from Spark that they were no longer "supporting" the older systems and ssl blah blah and no mail would be received on those systems but could be viewed on the web. I think it would affect a lot of people.
What I don't know is if there is a more up to date POP system than I have on the 10.7 mini but as I had this iMac sitting here naturally I'm using it and the mail system on it is IMAP by default. IMAP must offer something people want which POP doesn't but with POP I felt I had more control. My mini can't go higher than 10.7. I suppose I have been forced to move ahead.

Aussie said:

Hi Ian.. I have a couple of replies I haven't been notified of. Your reply has shown me where the setting is that is requiring me to enter a password even though I am on auto log in. "disable auto log in" is greyed out even though I am on auto log in, you would think it would be available as an option to negate auto log in but as it stands it looks like I have to have the 8 hour setting for password which will be why it comes up in the morning. It didn't this morning but that will be because I couldn't sleep and was on computer during the night. I had thought that Sandra's suggestion worked but it's probably more a time issue.
Yes i understand your description of Clean Admin. I learned of this as good practice some years ago and elected to have great grandmother susie smith as the clean account. Never had to use it but i always set it up. The others are son who still only uses the 10.7 and only for for Trade Me and granddaughter who needed this one for Minecraft.
So now i understand where it's coming from so thanks for that. There are little things that aren't working properly such as list of users not coming up when box is checked but it doesn't really affect anything and even though mail fails to open properly many times it does get going with an extra push or by selecting Inbox which then brings up all messages.
10.11 is a big jump from 10.7 and imap mail behaves differently from pop. I'm not yet comfortable with deleting an email and having it disappear from web mail as well. I'm very grateful I had forewarning of that.

Click to expand...

In you first screenshot, did you try to change the "Display login window as" option to "List of users" instead of "Name & Password?

Yes I did. At first it was set to display List of Users and one of my respondents thought it might be worth a try to change to Name and Password to fix my problems so I changed it over which didn't fix my "problem". Your advice sorted my query but in changing to Name and Password I realised it wasn't showing List of Users as it was supposed to.
It's another one of those things that happens for no known reason just as Mail still opens up intermittently with a blank message list and says No Mailbox Selected and I have to click Inbox to get all the messages to show up. I now accept it.
With the login options I might change it back and see if it rejigs it.
I know user can also be switched by clicking the name at top right.
It's just a curiosity that my last 2 computers displayed a list of users when the box was checked to do so. Any computer before that wasn't used by anyone but myself.

Just a thought viewing all the posts Susan.

Any chance the computer was a used, or pre-loved which I like better, model? Sometimes folks just use the computer in the manner it was received without doing a full erase of the hard drive and partitions, and installing their very own operating systems. This can cause User problems, When selling my computers, I do a full erase, seven passes left overnight, and then from my USB thumb of the current operating system, do an install, and when the screen comes up to start entering language and personal information, do a Command Quit. When the new owner boots for the first time, it opens right there.

Most definitely a pre used/ hopefully pre loved computer Harry actually i did explain this in my message to you on 22nd Feb.. I just checked back.. I tend to think this is responsible for some quirks but I don't really know. He does quite a good job getting these cast-off machines going but it is just a side line, something he is interested in and it could easily be that little things won't behave in the manner I'm accustomed to. Overall things are fine. The last computer we got from him ( he is friend of son) had a rather spectacular break down. Can't remember what exactly happened but it was terminal. Always bothered me that it wouldn't start in Safe Mode, i thought it was a sign.
With this one I have had to adapt to the new mail system as well as anything else.
Just had to put my mind to working out how to delete text from an email when wishing to Send Again, or Reply or Forward. With the old POP mail I could just highlight text and Delete and it disappeared then I could proceed to write on the same email otherwise they get longer and longer.
With this system the whole conversation keeps coming back ( even after highlighting and deleting, which turns out not to work), there is a hidden toolbar on each message within the email and it appears you action each one individually by using the Trash symbol or the other things.
At least I think I have that right. It's getting too late and I don't want to keep trying.
It's a great little option in Apple mail to be able to delete portions of a conversation, can't do it in gmail or Yahoo.

Deleting part of conversation

Hi Ian.. are you able to help with something I can't achieve in mail which used to be basic. I have tried and tried. I just want to be able to achieve Replying to an email or Forwarding it and deleting parts of the previous conversations before sending it so that it doesn't get longer and longer. On my old computer with POP I just highlighted and deleted and the bits were erased. No matter what I now do on this computer it just doesn't work.
I have used the Trash icon on the individual messages within the conversation and they seem to disappear but when I have sent the email and checked back on it all the previous conversation is there. I have highlighted and deleted once again it seems to go but is still there after sending the email.
I don't always want to open a new email page as I might want to include the most recent email in the conversation but not all of them.
Ideally I think I need to Collapse All conversations but I can't select it, it doesn't do anything, just either flicks back to Organise in Conversation or never even tries to move to Collapse all Conversations.
I like to have details right across the page and the only way I can do this is to have it organised in conversations, if I deselect Organise then i end up with a large part of the page being blank.
I would prefer not to attach screenshots but I think I need to. I have left out the very left column of Sender's names. I use Classic layout.
I have seen reference to a Count number of messages in a conversation showing somewhere but I can't find it.

The full page is when it is Organised by Conversation, the largely empty page is when Organise is deselected. I have experimented with the different View options but nothing reinstates the full page without using Organise.

Thank you

Dear Aussie

It's very flattering that you should address me in attempting a solution; whether I can help is yet to be seen.

May I start with how it's supposed to work and then offer suggestions.

POP or IMAP; you receive an email and respond by clicking Reply. So starts the conversation. You get another response from the original sender. I'm looking now at such a conversation trail I have comprising about 6 emails to and from a sender and me. (IMAP in my case).

I have conversations enabled. Each email is presented within its own frame, that is, there is a clear separation between each email - they to me and I to them. I click on the latest email I received and the outlines of the email (the margins of the frame) become highlighted.

I choose Reply, at which point all the conversations are presented in a new message where I can respond. Sure, I can delete parts of all the previous emails, but that this will not be represented in what actually gets sent. In fact, I really shouldn't be able to alter what has already taken place.

The same happens if I choose Forward instead of Reply.

However, if I want to reply to an email, but don't want any of the previous emails included, I have to go into Mail > Preferences > Composing > and under "Responding", uncheck the boxes "Quote the text of the original message" and "Increased quote level" AND do the same under the heading "When quoting text in replies or forwards".

Caveat: I don't use "Classic Layout" where the circumstances may be different, I don't know - and I don't really want to alter my layout to test this.

One final "tip", if I may call it that. If you send an email to someone and then decide that you wish it to go to another person, but with alterations - click on your sent email (within Sent), then from the top Menu Bar, > Message > choose "Send Again" from the dropdown. Now change the name of the recipient to the other person - and NOW, you can alter any part of your email (add, delete) and then Send it.

That's the best I can offer at the moment.

Ian