Cant Authenticate to Escape Screen Saver?

dstranathandstranathan
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Cant Authenticate to Escape Screen Saver?



I admin 200 Macs. I have set all Macs to activate their screen saver after 30 min of inactivity. I have the Macs set to go to sleep after 1 hour. Its a security protocol my VPs have mandated.



Some Macs (G4s and G5s) will activate their screen saver after 30 minutes as expected, but when the user tries to authenticate to get back to work (and kill the screen saver), the Mac wont accept their password. They are forces to reboot their Mac (with open important files in the background!)



Any ideas?



More info:



All Macs run Panther 10.3.4

All Macs use Apple's Flurry screen saver

All Macs are bound to Active Directory 2003 (not sure if screeen saver uses AD to authenticate the screen saver or uses a local cache)

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Hm, is it looking for an admin password instead for some reason?
  • Reply 2 of 8
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dstranathan

    Cant Authenticate to Escape Screen Saver?



    I admin 200 Macs. I have set all Macs to activate their screen saver after 30 min of inactivity. I have the Macs set to go to sleep after 1 hour. Its a security protocol my VPs have mandated.



    Some Macs (G4s and G5s) will activate their screen saver after 30 minutes as expected, but when the user tries to authenticate to get back to work (and kill the screen saver), the Mac wont accept their password. They are forces to reboot their Mac (with open important files in the background!)



    Any ideas?



    More info:



    All Macs run Panther 10.3.4

    All Macs use Apple's Flurry screen saver

    All Macs are bound to Active Directory 2003 (not sure if screeen saver uses AD to authenticate the screen saver or uses a local cache)



    I think that BuonRotto hit upon the $64 thousand question: Which user owns the screensaver? If the feature was implementd as an administrative process, then only the administrator's password will stop it. The screensaver will have to be reinstalled as a user processor.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    dstranathandstranathan Posts: 1,717member
    Nope, the user's account is valid for killing the screen saver. I have repaired permissions, etc. Good idea...
  • Reply 4 of 8
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Sorry I can't help but, how do I get the computer to force requiring a password when coming back from a screen saver?
  • Reply 5 of 8
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    I had the exact same problem at my office; it would happen about once a month. I think it was fixed in 10.3.5: "improves reliability of user logins and mounting of home directories in a networked environment". It's probably an LDAP problem, since we also use LDAP.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bunge

    Sorry I can't help but, how do I get the computer to force requiring a password when coming back from a screen saver?



    It's a checkbox in the Security pane of the System Preferences:



    "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver"
  • Reply 7 of 8
    jimdreamworxjimdreamworx Posts: 1,095member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dstranathan

    All Macs are bound to Active Directory 2003 (not sure if screeen saver uses AD to authenticate the screen saver or uses a local cache)



    The screensaver does use the AD password.



    Can you authenticate with a local Mac admin account to turn off the screen saver?
  • Reply 8 of 8
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BuonRotto

    It's a checkbox in the Security pane of the System Preferences:



    "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver"



    Duh. I was looking under Screen Savers.



    Thanks.
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