help - i deleted my yosemite admin account and cannot restore

[jasonlive]

hi
i was following a tutorial to restore all my admin settings, so i created a new admin account. logged into it, deleted my normal account but saved the "jason" home folder in the "users" folder.

then i created a new user with the name jason. i was expecting it to ask if i wanted to use the existing "jason" folder however it never did, it just created the account fresh

now i am using this fresh account and i am wondering what is going on
for example my library folder has permissions for
system=R&W
wheel=R
everyone=R
i can manually add "jason=R&W" however i dont know if i need to.

 

[jasonlive]

any experts out there know of a solution to this one?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Sorry we didn't get back to you sooner.

-Do you have a Time Machine or other backup of your data from before you attempted this?
-Can you link to the tutorial you were using, so we can get an idea of the steps you took?
-When you created the new "jason" account, did OS X make a new home folder in addition to the previous one you had left in the Users folder?
-Don't mess with the permissions just yet, we'll see if we can fix the home folder issue first.

OS X did previously prompt you to use an existing home folder with the same name when creating a new user, but I have noticed that it doesn't any longer. If it didn't create a new home folder, then it is using the existing one and we can do a more involved disk permissions repair/reset ACLs.

C

 

[jasonlive]

i tried but cant find the tutorial i took( as i have lost all my history!)
i can recall that i did the following
1. create new admin account "admin2"
2. logged into it
3. deleted existing "jason" user admin account and when the confirmation pop up appeared i selected option 2 - keep home folder
4. i recreated a user "jason"..... i think i may have done this with a standard account, not an admin account
5. i logged into "jason" and it was a fresh account
6. i logged back into "admin2" account and deleted "jason", then created a new "jason" admin account
7. after creation, i tried to log out of "admin2" and into "jason" but a pop up kept appearing - "systems and preferences..." would not let me log out as it was "...creating a user" and this lasted over 30 minutes so i rebooted.
8. am currently using the fresh admin account "jason"

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK...whatever you do, do not delete any of the user folders in the Users folder.

Are there now two Jason home folders in the Users folder?

C

 

[jasonlive]

yes, there are 2, one is labeled jason (deleted)

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK, thanks. It didn't use the saved user folder when you re-added the jason user, because it had (Deleted) in the name.

Here is a document from Apple that lists the steps to restore a deleted user:
OS X Mavericks: Restore a deleted user

I think this would work:

-Rename the jason (Deleted) folder to something else - like original jason.
-Login to your other admin user you created before.
-Delete the second incorrect jason user and save the folder, just in case.
-Rename it to wrong.
-Rename the original jason folder to jason.
-Create the user jason again, and it should use the folder you wanted it to previously.
-If all goes well and the correct jason user is created with all of your files,you can then delete the wrong folder and you should be in business.

As always, it is a good idea to have a current Time Machine or other backup of your data.

C

 

[jasonlive]

originally i took those steps. originally the folder did not have "(deleted)" written after it. that is something that has appeared later. i am thinking that perhaps it has appeared after i set finder to "show" hidden files? anyway, i am back in business, i re-created the admin user, waited a few minutes while the hard drive did it's thing, and now the deleted folder is restored and working. yay. big thanks to you Cory

 

[Cory Cooper]

No worries...glad it's working again.

Let us know if you have any further issues with that account or anything else.

C

 

[jasonlive]

Can you tell me why my original account "jason" user home folder remains greyed out. it is greyed out for all users. Whereas all the other users home folders are not greyed out.

Also, do you have any suggestions as to why the original Jason admin user cannot run a particular app. however the new admin account can run that app. ( i have verified and repaired all permissions on the original Jason account)

 

[Cory Cooper]

-What do you mean greyed out?
-If you login to that user, it should show the house icon.

It sounds as if you have lingering permissions errors. I would suggest booting to the Recovery Partition and repairing disk permissions via Disk Utility and resetting ACLs for all users to see if that clears things up.

OS X: Repair Home Folder Permissions (ACLs)

C