Today I have upgraded my 2020 Intel MacBook Air to Big Sur (11.1). Since upgrading, I am unable to unlock the "lock" in the System Preferences panels that require it (the window "jiggles" even with the right password) and I am unable to set up Touch ID (after entering the password it doesn't prompt me to register a new fingerprint).
I saw in other answers that others used the resetpassword utility from Recovery mode, so I did this too. The problem persisted even after changing the password. The linked answer recommends creating a new admin user, but I cannot do that as I can't unlock the "padlock" in System Preferences to do so. I also reset NVRAM to no avail.
Ultimately, I chose to reinstall Big Sur from recovery, but entering the password to unlock the disk does not "do" anything, as in, the password entry window simply fades out but the installation does not move forward and I am still able to click on the "unlock" button again.
I was wondering if anyone knew how I can solve this issue. Since the computer is relatively new, I don't mind completely resetting it.
Thank you very much.
Best Answer
Answering my own question, but... resetting the SMC (as explained here https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201295) ended up doing the trick for me.