MacOS – leopard forgot password+launch_msg socket is not connected

leopardmacospassword

I was working on increasing the speed of an ancient (6 years old) iMac running Leopard when I accidentally set the password incorrectly. I then turned to the internet to look for an answer and found:
http://www.macyourself.com/2009/08/03/how-to-reset-your-mac-os-x-password-without-an-installer-disc/
Which seemed to work fine until I reached

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist

Which returned the error

launch_msg socket is not connected

I decided to ignore this and see where this would lead me, when I got to:

dscl . -passwd /Users/username password

It told me that I had to run:

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServicesLocal.plist

which returned the same error.

Additionally the system is very slow despite Activity Monitor telling me no programs are using more then 2% cpu or 50 mb ram. Could this be connected?

It's also worth noting that the disc reader was damaged some time ago and is useless.

Anyone got a fix?

Best Answer

The above worked on osx 10.5.8

I didn't use the "/" in mount -uw and once I did that it let me reset the password

Working command: mount -uw /

Related Solutions

MacOS – How to remove a user via single user mode in 10.7

There are several problems with the script you posted.

Don't remove /Users/Shared - iTunes needs it and will fail on certain store and sharing operations.

dscl on Lion will still whine if you start it (it's looking for the missing plist) - even if you launch /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist as Ingmar Hupp has suggested.

I've never been one to worry about cleaning up the groups since I'm deleting user 501. The system will just add UID 501 back into the Admin and Staff groups the next time the Setup Assistant boots, so I do the following: (assume the short name of the user 501 is test)

⌘+S
/sbin/mount -uw /
cd /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/
rm test.plist
rm -rf /Users/test
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
halt

I do use the official Users & Groups Preference Pane to delete all users except 501 and/or create the test user as 501 as needed since launchd can have jobs stuck if the users you are clearing aren't trivial users set up for simple updates as your case allows.

I would avoid saving a WiFi password or setting up WiFi outside the user account or use ethernet for your updates if you want to be fastidious about leaving as little of your settings behind (especially if the SSID/name isn't generic like Apple Network or has WEP/WPA keys).

MacOS – I forgot the password to Mac OS X 10.5.8 – Leopard… How to reset it

Once you are in single user mode you will need to do the following: 1) mount the file system as read-write 2) navigate to the /var/db directory 3) remove a special file that tells the computer it's already been set up 4) reboot the machine 5) go through the set up process to create a NEW admin account 6) log into the new admin account and reset the password on the original password via the system preferences

The details: Boot to single user mode, then type the following:

mount -uw /
cd /var/db
rm .AppleSetupDone
reboot

At this point the system will reboot and go through the "out of the box" setup process which will allow you to create a new Admin account. The original account will be intact.

After you've created the new user account, you can go to System Preferences, Accounts (might be Users & Groups, they keep changing the name!), and reset the password on the original account.

Keep in mind that if you do this you will lose all stored passwords on the original account, at least until the original owner is able to give you the old password.

Of course, as the new owner, you might want to just use the new account you create and delete the old one...

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