[Dan Frakes]

Dreambiz said:

* I recall seeing a terminal prompt return (with no result message one way or another).

This is odd. You should have seen a new shell prompt after the mv command completed successfully. If you didn't, there was a problem.

Quote

Which brings up a question. Why would there a /Users/'newusername' folder at all? It was supposed to be renamed from oldusername to newusername, but the 'newusername' user folder (creation date of when I first tried this) exists and seems to be blank/generic. Does this need to be deleted before the old one can be renamed to the new? Is it possible that there was some error initially and then logging on to the new user created a generic Users/'newusername'? Then, when the process was repeated (correctly) the 'rename' could not succeed because there was already one of that name in existence?

It does sound like something interrupted the process. If the "new" folder is empty, try deleting it and then running the command again.

[Dreambiz]

Alright Dan (and briancross1 !) I have discovered the cause of this problem.

The temporary admin account I created for the purpose of doing The Full Monty had no password. I did this deliberately at the time as a precaution just in case - so there would be no way I'd be locked out of my Mac.

It appears that Terminal requires an actual password to be entered (not just a default/blank one). When it asked for the password, I was simply pressing enter/return. This worked in the dialog boxes while changing the short username but not in Terminal. But, of course, Terminal doesn't return any messages.

All I did to resolve this was to add a password to the administrative account I was using and it worked like a charm.

Is this a known issue with Terminal?

Thanks for your help and patience, Dan. Perhaps, briancross1, this was your issue too?

[briancross1]

Dan,

It sounds like dreambiz figured out that he needed a password and that seemed to work. Unfortunately I had one already (as described earlier it was the same for both accounts).

I decided to create an entire new user account and start over. It eliminated the folder that I could not change because I did not have access priveleges. Obviously I lost all of my settings and had to start over but it looks like I got to where I wanted to be.

Thanks for the help.

briancross1

[Dan Frakes]

Dreambiz said:

Alright Dan (and briancross1 !) I have discovered the cause of this problem.

The temporary admin account I created for the purpose of doing The Full Monty had no password. I did this deliberately at the time as a precaution just in case - so there would be no way I'd be locked out of my Mac.

It appears that Terminal requires an actual password to be entered (not just a default/blank one). When it asked for the password, I was simply pressing enter/return. This worked in the dialog boxes while changing the short username but not in Terminal. But, of course, Terminal doesn't return any messages.

All I did to resolve this was to add a password to the administrative account I was using and it worked like a charm.

Is this a known issue with Terminal?

D'oh! Yes, sudo does require an actual password. I assumed no one would have an admin-level account with a blank password ;)

[ohucan2]

Tried the full monty twice; does not work must be doing something wrong. Return in terminal tells me that there is no folder named "new user name"
I have a space in my new user name. Could that be the issue? (eg: Full Monty as opposed to Full_Monty or FullMonty)

[Dan Frakes]

You short username cannot contain a space; that's definitely a problem.

[md108]

I want to change my shortname ("The Full Monty") and I'm hoping for
the simplest way to do it as I've only had the computer for one day. ALL I'VE
DONE is install Logic Studio (mind you it's a big install that took hours...)
and the driver for my Firewire soundcard (Apogee Duet). And that is it. I
haven't created or copied any other files to it. Because I have done so little to
it is there an easier fool proof way to change the short name??

[Professor]

Looks like we could really use a leopard version of changeshortname...

I'll contribute... what do you say Dan?

[pinktuley]

I tried this but got stuck when it came to entering my password into terminal. After entering in the sudo command I hit return and saw the password prompt but when I tried to type my password in nothing happened at all as cursor never moved. I hit return again terminal tells me that there is no folder named "new user name" I restarted my Mac and tried it all over again and got the same message. When I go into the original account I see the shortname and home directory are changed but the username is the original one I started with.

How do I make the password cursor move. Have I missed something?
My Macbook if very new and I don't care what I lose on here. Thinking of doing a complete reinstall and updating all over again. Is there a way to fix this?

[technolawyer]

Dan writes: "perhaps you’ve got two Macs and want the same short username on both"
That's funny. I bought a Mac Pro recently for my office. After tweaking all the settings, I used SuperDuper to clone the hard drive. I then bought a second identical Mac Pro for home. I used SuperDuper to restore the image to the new Mac Pro. It worked like a charm.
I then figured that I should change the short user name on the second Mac Pro so that there was no confusion for Mobile Me, remote access, etc.
But now seeing Dan's comment about people actually wanting identical short names on two Macs, I'm second-guessing my plan.
Are there any pitfalls to having two Macs with the same short name, especially regarding Mobile Me? Should I just change the computer name instead?
Thank you.

[mcmlxxiv]

I just wanted to tell everyone that I followed the instructions to the letter and my computer exploded :-(
No, not really, it worked perfectly so far as I can tell. I bought a used Macbook (4.1, model) and the guy I bought it from had a funny name (said aloud it sounded like "the co*k" :D ) so I absolutely had to change it.
THANK YOU DAN
Following properly written instructions is one of life's joys is it not? Now I am myself again :-)
The only side effect so far (this is an edit hours later) is that my downloaded widgets were not displaying, they were there and it was just to just to double click them in the widget organizer to get them to display again. Also I was choosing a folder to save some converted files to and the old name came up under "places". It was just to ignore it.
I have read through all of the comments and I recommend to all who are thinking of trying this that you too should read the comments beforehand. There is some good advice in there from people who have f* it up already :) like the spaces in the terminal line etc.

Incidentally, as I created a 2nd admin account from which to work, as per the instrucs, I used the same password for both accounts, then when you are asked for a password in terminal there is no confusion as to which one. The 2nd account is only to be deleted afterward anyway. I also printed the instructions so that when I logged out of the account that was to be changed or if anything went wrong I had them at hand.
Message was edited by: mcmlxxiv

[whitedog]

Hi Dan - I only now got around to reading this article. Though I don't currently need to change my short username, I will be saving this article for future reference.
One question, though. When I view groups in the Accounts preference pane, the list of group members on the right has a check box by each name, most of which are unchecked. It looks like you can enable and disable active membership in a group by checking and un-checking these boxes. Is this correct? While this is not something I would usually mess with, I'd like to know what I'm doing if the occasion arrises. Thanks.

[rayc]

Dan:

I must say thanks for the article on changing the short user name.

I followed your procedures and it wworked fine..but...you knew there was going to be a but...
Itunes whacked my ipod touch..It would not sync or recognize it at all. Itunes would recognise my 5G ipod video though.
I tried to do a forced restore and that ended in a kernal panic error.
I put the Touch on my other mac and ran a restore but after it was done it would not sync or load it.

I found another article about reloading I tunes8..

Before you can reinstall iTunes, you need to delete all the files associated with the original app.
1] Go to Hard Drive>Library>Receipts. Now go to the View menu and select by list. You want to delete all the iTunes packages.
2] Now make sure you delete the iTunes app from the Application folder.
3] Go to Home>Library and trash the iTunes folder.
4] Then Home>Library>Preferences and trash all the com.apple.iTunes files.
5] Empty the trash
Now give the installer a try.

After downloading and reinstalling Itunes8 ( it found all my tunes/podcasts/movies ) It was able to find my Ipod and all is good.

BTW: IPhoto also asked for the location of my photo library after the rename.

Thanks for the help.
Rayc

[Barnabas]

Thanks a lot you for helping me out!
I did the third degree intervention, and it looks like a success. I can now log in and find my house carrying my name.

However, the process doesn't seem to be complete. I share this iMac with a friend (indeed it was from her account that I was able to change mine); and when she logs in under her own account and looks in the Finder for HD > Users, she sees both the old and the new username!
And worse: under the old name there's still the original 20 GB data stored that belong there, whereas under the new name just the folder names (unaccessible) are shown, without any content.

So what's the next step?
How can I completely get rid of the old name, and be sure to get all data stored under my new name?