can't click the "click the lock to make changes" button when installing

E

ekullhu

Registered
Ok my problem is that when I try to install anything and get to the screen that requires me to click the little lock icon to enter an admin user & password nothing happens when I do click the lock.

I am running 10.1.5 and the problem has only just started, I have successfully installed apps previously.

thanks for any help
 
Ah, no. I can actually click the lock icon and it changes to blue on mouse down but the prompt to enter user/pwd doesn't appear, and hence I don't get an option to install? any ideas anyone? I don't want to reinstall my whole system but I can't install new software till I figure this out...
 
Ouch, that's not good... There's a couple of possibilities.

1- the installer applications is corrupted. It's in /Applications/Utilities/ You can try to replace that with one from another machine..

2- Something to do with your account. Make a new admin account and try it again logged in as that user.

3- Someone screwed with the sudoers file- It's in /etc/sudoers. I'm not totally sure that the installer cares about that file, but it may... It looks like the following by default.
#########################################
# sudoers file.
#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# See the sudoers man page for the details on how to write a sudoers file.
#

# Host alias specification

# User alias specification

# Cmnd alias specification

# User privilege specification
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL
#########################################

3- Your NetInfo database is corrupted. If that's true, you should also have problems creating new accounts and loggin in. I'm guess that's not true though our you would have mentioned it....

Hope one of these helps...
-todd-
 
todd thanks for your ideas.

1. unfortunately I only have one mac nowadays that I can play with so I can't copy the installer app. I used to be a network admin with lots of hardware to play with but no longer... also none of my fellow mac users that I am on a network with from time to time are brave enough to venture into the wonderful world of OS X

2. I have tried installing logged in as root but I have the same issue. I didn't create a brand new login though.

3. my sudoers file looks exactly as your's does.

4. The NetInfo idea is possible except that I can click the lock to change preferences in System Preference and it does axactly what it should, and I can also log in fine. Also after thinking about it if the problem was with the NetInfo database then it should still request my user/pwd but freak out when it comes to authentication. (maybe)

I will try to make another login but I don't think that that is the source of the problem since I tryed with the root login.

any more ideas?
 
I'm still going with my first though- the installer program is bad. Perhaps you can copy it from the installer CD? If not, write back and I'll see if I can get it to you somehow. I'm off to a meeting- good luck...
-todd-
 
ok that was a really good idea to copy the installer app off the OS X install CD. but alas no luck. So I guess i've proved that it isn't the installer but some system setting/file somewhere. hmmm
 
yeah I've already tryed the root idea plus tried the new admin user account as well. going to try testuser's ideas of the Apple's Repair Privileges utility next. I ran a disk utitly from the command line on boot up (holding down comand-s on boot then typing a command that I can't remember off the top of my head. apple tech support's idea) but no luck.
 
nice coincident: just updated to the recently released 10.6.2. that fixed the problem.

...
- a problem that prevented authenticating as an administrative user issues
...
 
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