The application "Login" has unexpectedly quit.

[cleep]

Hello all. So I have a Mirror Drive Door 2003 G4, the last one the could boot OS9, and I've had a persisting issue with it for a long long time (as in the topic title, when I login, I get the error pop up saying Login has unexpectedly quit). When I installed OS 9 way back when, I used the method outlined around the web (and on here no doubt) about pulling the 9.2.2 disk image off this Mac's restore disc it came with.

I've put up with it for the longest time but I'm kind of annoyed I've never been able to figure out a fix. I came across some minor "os 9 tidbits" page from years ago that very briefly mentions how some guy fixed his login crashing issue by increasing it's memory, didn't explain how to do that though, as I presume the login app is actually the system file located in system folder, but I did come across a tutorial on here about using ResEdit to increase memory of those files so I did it and unfortunately the crash still happens.

Also tried turning off multiple users and deleting all preference files I could find related to it, then turning it back on and setting it up again. Didn't work.

If I restart the Mac with extensions off unsurprisingly the crash does not happen, though it does give me an error about having started up with extensions off and needing to enter the password for the account. I'd actually be happy for it do this every time anyway; I don't actually need multiple users switched on as I'm the only account, it's just this computer is accessible by several other people and they're not allowed to use it (children, need I say more). I can't figure out how to have the account locked with a password without multiple users being turned on though, and I'm pretty sure it's something to do with multiple users that's crashing login.

Naturally I've come across other people over the years online who have posted in forums with the same issue but beyond being told to "turn off multiple users" no one ever seemed to get a response.

I'm wondering if perhaps the version of Login in system folder is mismatched in this release of OS 9, and maybe there's actually a newer version somewhere I should be using (or perhaps use an older version that doesn't have this bug)?

[GaryN]

I'm going to take a guess that since you didn't mention otherwise, that you installed OS9 on the same volume as OSX.

The issue you're describing is very uncommon simply because there aren't that many dual-boot OS9/OSX machines in use with password protection anymore, and actually, there never were.
The vast majority of folks with G4's back then settled for Tiger + Classic so this "problem" is not documented.

The following is a pain and you'll probably be tempted to save it as a last resort, but if the first sentence IS true, then you:

1) Back up everything that needs it.
2) Initialize and partition the drive in two OR add a separate drive for OS9 (doesn't matter which - objective is to separate the two OS's - either works).
3) Reinstall OSX if you had to wipe it.
4) Set OSX as a single-user with password protection.
5) Install OS9 on the separate partition volume or drive volume. *

* You have correctly determined that OS9 password security lives in the Multiple Users functions. In order to have the best chance of getting it all correct, you have to tolerate the OS9 Setup Assistant with its silly questions etc. If you do, you will find it creates your admin account in the Multiple Users Panel for you. There will be only one account there - you. Then, all you do is dbl-click your name and add a password.

6) The very next time you boot OSX, immediately goto System Preferences/Spotlight/Privacy and add the entire OS9 volume to the places that Spotlight will NOT index.
6a) If it's OSX Leopard, THEN goto System Preferences/Time Machine/Options and EXCLUDE the OS9 volume from backup. Yes that means a separate backup solution for OS9 is necessary.

The reason you resort to all of this is simple:
First of all, you can because you evidently have the real System discs - that makes it easy - at least compared to not having them.
It starts you over with a completely clean slate. You now are guaranteed there are no bad preferences files lurking around etc.
Doing it this way also guarantees you won't have dual-boot issues in the future with Spotlight and/or Time Machine (if Leopard).
This will prevent b-tree errors in OS9 down the road caused by Spotlight or TM writing indexes and such on the OS9 volume that OS9 can't understand.

** I'm guessing that the login credentials and/or passwords for the two OS's are getting confused at boot somehow.
The old MacOS had/has NO knowledge or even awareness of the UNIX-based monstrosity that is OSX and is easily confused by anything OSX writes to disc that lands at or near root-level on a volume where volume data (b-tree, indexes etc,) lives.

This probably includes boot data such as user passwords - which takes us back to the beginning re: undocumented dual-boot problems.

That's MY best guess. Possibly there are others around here (with Multiple-User experience I don't have) who have another idea…

[IIO]

Also tried turning off multiple users and deleting all preference files I could find related to it, then turning it back on and setting it up again.

why did you turn in on again? "users" is the most useless controlpanel of all in OS9, i would just get rid of it.

oh wait, i didnt notice the story about "children". well so if you have a reason, then we need a real fix.

[IIO]

first thing to try is to assign some 5% more "minimum RAM" in the "get info" window to both the finder and the multiple user APPC

[cleep]

I'm going to take a guess that since you didn't mention otherwise, that you installed OS9 on the same volume as OSX.

Sorry, I forgot a few potentially important details in my first post. Namely that I have OS X Leopard (10.5. on a separate drive (not just a partition, I have two drives in the Mac, one for X and one for 9). However you're correct in the assumption as I used to have it all on the same volume, recently though I came across a spare HDD I had in storage and figured I'd see if it still worked, I put it in this Mac to test it, and after that I realised I might just as well leave it in there and boot OS 9 off it so I did.

* You have correctly determined that OS9 password security lives in the Multiple Users functions. In order to have the best chance of getting it all correct, you have to tolerate the OS9 Setup Assistant with its silly questions etc. If you do, you will find it creates your admin account in the Multiple Users Panel for you. There will be only one account there - you. Then, all you do is dbl-click your name and add a password.

I don't think I actually ever used the setup assistant. I mean, I might have done, I don't actually remember, been a looooong time since I installed OS 9. I do seem to recall I set up the mutliple users after I had it all up and running though, it might be I need to just start from scratch and reinstall OS 9 which will be a bit of a pain but may be my only solution if all else fails.

6) The very next time you boot OSX, immediately goto System Preferences/Spotlight/Privacy and add the entire OS9 volume to the places that Spotlight will NOT index.
6a) If it's OSX Leopard, THEN goto System Preferences/Time Machine/Options and EXCLUDE the OS9 volume from backup. Yes that means a separate backup solution for OS9 is necessary.

I recently discovered the issues surrounding OS 9 volumes ending up with "BTree" errors which cannot be fixed by disk first aid, largely as a result of me trying to find solutions to the unexpected quit issue I have. I followed some advice on this forum (by yourself I believe), to do this. First, in Leopard I added the volume to spotlights privacy list. I went to do the same with Time Machine but couldn't. I don't use it (and as such have it turned off) anyway but all the guides on adding a drive to the exclusion list say to "Open Time Machine preferences and click the options button", but there is no options button. My Time Machine preferences just looks like this:



Anyway I figured since I have it switched off anyway that'll probably do the trick. So with that done I backed up my OS 9 install to a temp usb drive, booted my OS 9 retail disc (9.2.1), used it's disk setup utility to wipe the disc I wanted OS 9 on, then checked it with disk first aid. Was nice and clean, no errors. So I booted back into OS X and found that spotlight had conveniently removed the exception for that disk, so I readded it. I then moved my OS 9 install back to the drive, restarted the mac into OS 9. Of course the unexpected quit still occurred, but when I ran disk first aid to see if the drive was still clean I got two mismatch errors and the Btree error had come back! I also noticed on the drive a folder for spotlight called .spotlight-v100 or something very similar. It had a file inside called exclusions or something.

It seems spotlight puts that folder on the drive even if you add an exemption, as that's what it uses to know the drives excempt, I don't know if time machine also does anything even though it's turned off... Having said that though, I expect I've had this BTree error existing the whole time I've used OS 9 with OS X and even before I put it on it's own drive and I've not had noticeable problems with it (just the unexpected quit with login) so it might just be a red herring for me.

first thing to try is to assign some 5% more "minimum RAM" in the "get info" window to both the finder and the multiple user APPC

Sorry I should have given more detail to say I'd tried that, when I used resedit to increase login's memory I also did it with finder and the system (which is renamed classic on this install).

Talking of classic, it could well be the reason I have the issue. Pretty sure the disk image on the mac's restore disc was meant for the OS X classic environment, and although it can be booted, perhaps it's not meant to be? Only reason I used it and not say the retail disc of os 9 I have and then update that to 9.2.2 is supposedly the version os 9.2.2 on this macs restore discs is specifically tailored for use on this Mac and is more "up to date" than the original 9.2.2 update from 2001. Not sure where I read that, or if it's even actually true.

I must say at this point, I've never used the macs restore/software install discs to actually install os x (which I believe is 10.2 or os 9 onto this mac. I didn't buy the mac from new; I got it second hand about 11 years ago off ebay to replace a dead imac. Although I had the original discs I'd only just got leopard retail disc in the mail i intended to use with it so I just installed that. I was going to use my os 9 retail disk to install os 9 onto it too at that point but then I started looking into the restore discs and found out about the os 9.2.2 install located on that. The rest, as they say, is history. Knowing my luck this is probably the root of all my problems.

OK, so what I'm going to try and do now.

1. Boot into OS 9 retail disc.
2. Backup the os 9 install I have from inside the CD's desktop, if I can.
3. Wipe the os 9 drive again.
4. Restore the backup. This time I'll move the spotlight-v100 folder too so that spotlight keeps the exclusion in OS X and doesn't potentially screw the drive up again.
4a. Of course still not sure about time machine but it is switched off, so hopefully that is all it needs to be.
5. See if Btree errors persist
6. Turn off all multiple users settings, remove everything I can, then run setup assistant to set it all up again.
7. Failing any of that just reinstall OS 9 somehow or other. I'll see if the restore discs actually have an option to install it as a bootable OS.
8. Report back with my failings. Or successes but I'm not being optimistic about it.

[cleep]

The short answer; it's fixed. Huzzah! Login no longer quits unexpectedly. I wasn't able to prevent the BTree error returning though but it's not caused me problems in all the years I've dual booted it so I'm not too fussed about that.

The long answer:

So I started the mac with the retail 9.2.1 CD I have, backed up my OS 9 drive to a usb drive, initialized it using drive setup. Copied the spotlight folder back over so the exclusion would stick next time I started OS X. Moved the backed up files too. Started os x, sure enough spotlight retained the exclusion this time. Started back up into os 9 and login still unexpectedly quit but I figured it would I did these steps mainly to see about stopping BTree error popping up, but unfortunately upon running disk first aid once again Btree error was there along with those other two calalog errors. I guess I truly want OS X not to mess around with the drive I'll have to lock it. Or figure out how to completely disable spotlight and time machine via terminal or something.

That test out the way I popped the cd 1 in for the mac, used the terminal command to show hidden folders and files so I could find the os9general.dmg in the hidden images folder on the cd, copied it over. Mounted that, went into my os 9 disk and moved everything (even the normally hidden desktop db files) into a temp folder, then copied over everything in the disk image. restarted into os 9. Followed the setup assistant at first run, now I must have used that before but what I never did do was run the mac setup assistant located in the applications > utilities > assistants folder. So I did. Set up net and user account. Went and turned on multiple user sin multi user cp, then restarted.

Fingers crossed... Logged in. No unexpected quit. It even made an unlocking sound as it loaded desktop which it never did before.

So, appears to have been entirely my doing by setting up multiple users myself all them years back and not doing it through the setup assistant that caused this problem! To be fair on me though, I didn't even know OS 9 had a setup assistant beyond that first thing that pops up when you first boot.

Anyway all fixed. Many many thanks to you guys for the help.

[GaryN]

Great to hear you got it! Now I can reveal a couple of things…

I had NO real evidence or certainty that using the Setup Assistant was the "proper way" fix your login problem. All I really knew was that using it would assure that the Multiple Users files were generated properly from scratch. So, just as I suggested wiping everything and restoring from scratch, that seemed like the best way to ensure that as well.
Exactly what happened to the Users / password file(s) will never be known. You know, sometimes it only takes one teensy-tiny little bit in the wrong place to cause everything to go straight to Hell. That bit can never be found and the only cure is a complete rewrite - just as you performed.

While I think you may have taken a few extra steps in re-everythinging everything, you ultimately got it right and that's what counts.

Having Time Machine set to OFF does do the trick just as well.

The "spotlight v100" file you saw is exactly what you think it was - the place where Spotlight writes and maintains its index but with Spotlight locked out, no index gets written. It may (don't really know) contain a flag to ensure the volume is not indexed in addition to what's set in OSX prefs.

None, zero, nada of the Time machine or Spotlight conundrums have/had anything at all to do with the login crashes. I only mentioned them because you mentioned the machine is dual-boot.

FWIW… You can use Spotlight all day long forever on the OSX volume if you want. As long as you don't re-enable it on OS9 all will be well. There's no reason to fear it will somehow "change its mind" on its own. Same is true for TM. I actually love TM. I seriously recommend it. There's simply NO easier, more reliable app than TM to keep Leopard backed up to the minute and one-click restorable. I have all 4 HDD bays filled in my MDD and one of them is used for TM backup files only. You would think you could use it for the OS9 volume also. You might then find that after restoring your OS9 volume from the TM backup, that somehow you no longer had "adequate privileges" to do anything with them and nothing in OS9 could fix that. (Yep, it happened to me) Something about OS9 never having heard of UNIX and its pile of various privileges combined with TM caused me to get locked out of my own files. For OS9, Intego "Personal Backup" available at Mac Garden is as good as it gets. When set up, it's one-click to run. You can even split one large drive into two volumes for both TM and PB. Some might object to that because it's putting all your eggs in one basket and that IS true. Depending on just how vital your files are, you might target then somewhere else or whatever. I keep my OS9 music files on an external drive that I can just grab and run with…

Again, glad to help.