Big Sur beta - Unable to enter my password when asked for it in System Preferences

Hi,

When I click on the padlock to unlock the Security and Privacy panel the password box shakes indicating the password is incorrect. Same behaviour on the Users & Groups panel.

Successfully changed the password in Terminal with passed command. Also changed using “security set-keychain-password”. Unable to unlock the panels with the new password after the passed command or security set-keychain-password command.

Any ideas?
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Dave_In_Oz
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fixed by resetting the t2 chip.
Posted by
Roki3
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Same issue fixed with resetting the T2 Chip
Posted by
tbshep
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This is happening on the live os, the big ******* sur. What is going on? I don't want to recreate my user. I got stuff in there.
Posted by
lnnaie
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SOLVED by talking to Apple support. I had to reset the SMC: How to reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support

This solution was fast and did not require changes to my user account, settings, username, or password. Nice!
Posted by
ccccccb
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I´ve reset my SMC but it still not working... any suggestions?
Posted by
Romina_
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Pretty unbelievable that this is a lingering issue. I just encountered it with a brand new 2019 MBP after initial setup and upgrade to Big Sur. Solved for me by the first 3 steps of SMC reset (maybe this is T2 reset?).
Posted by
zwass
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Solved by resetting the SMC. It also fixed the Touch ID issue.
Posted by
Shijar
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Resetting the SMC on my 16" Macbook Pro (2019), which has an Apple T2 Security Chip, quickly worked for me.

Posted by
RalstonVaz
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I am glad I am not the only one having this problem. I feel like I am not alone! This is absolute garbage. I bought a whole new audio interface for my studio set up thinking that was the problem. Hopefully these suggestions work.
Posted by
EYEHATETOM
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Hi,
unfortunately, I got this error after the update 2021-03-31 when the screen was locked. I managed to log in after repeated reboots.
Posted by
stas_k
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I have the same problem. I have tried everything here, including SMC reset (tried this multiples times) and Recovery (which will not let me enter my full Recovery Key!).
It is absolutely insane that it is not fixed! Why doesn't Apple make a fix or post an answer that works?
Posted by
brainkurse
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I just tried to change my password to something simple without any special characters and it did the trick, my old password was complex with some special characters and numbers

Posted by
asimmakki
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I have now been troubleshooting this problem on a MacBook for over 2 hours.

Macbook Pro Retina 2015 model upgraded from Mojave to Big Sur. System then had a Migration Assistant run performed to restore from another computer's Big Sur backup.

The Admin account from the previous computer was added as an admin during the migration (Admin2). The Admin account created during the Mojave installation process was preserved for now as well (Admin1)

After this, attempts were made to change settings in the Security & Privacy menu.

  • SMC reset has been attempted at least 3 times. Since this is a 2015 non-T2 system, SMC reset was performed with left (Shift/Ctrl/Option) keys and holding power for 10+ seconds.
  • Admin1 was unable to unlock the S&P menu.
  • Admin2 was unable to unlock the S&P menu.
  • Admin1 and Admin2 can unlock the Users & Groups menu.
  • Admin1 and Admin2 can create a new admin user via the Users & Groups menu (Admin3).
  • Admin3 was unable to unlock the S&P menu.
  • Admin1 and Admin2 can run sudo su in terminal successfully.
  • Admin1 and Admin2 can manually create a new user and assign that user admin rights via terminal commands (Admin4)
  • Admin4 was unable to unlock the S&P menu.
  • The system was rebooted to recovery mode and .AppleSetupDone file is deleted
  • New Admin user is created during OS X Initial Setup process (Admin5)
  • Admin5 was unable to unlock the S&P menu.
  • The system was rebooted to recovery mode and resetpassword (Authenticated via Admin2) for Admin1
  • Admin1 was unable to unlock the S&P menu.

Clearly, admin access is not a problem anywhere else but the Security & Privacy panel. At this point, I'm convinced the problem is some sort of issue with the System Integrity Protection settings for the S&P panel during the transition from Mojave to Big Sur.

Reports from some people that upgrading from Big Sur 11.1 to 11.2 back when this initially came out makes me think that the SIP settings are being fixed during the update process, per "When you update Apple apps or upgrade macOS, the installer will check and reset the permissions of any item if necessary." But since I upgraded this computer from Mojave directly to Big Sur 11.4, there's no way for me to manually fix those settings that I'm aware of.

For anyone upgrading to Big Sur, it may be advantageous to obtain the installer for the version previous to current, then run the update to the next version to possibly avoid this headache altogether.

In the mean time, I guess it's time to Time Machine and wipe this machine, install Big Sur from scratch, and see if things work better after that.

Posted by
RyanMM
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