Can't log into iCloud: Verification Failed - Your username or password is incorrect.

You could try applying a fix that worked for other iCloud account related issues back in DP1: Simply deleting the files in the following folder:

~/Library/Application Support/iCloud/Accounts (that's not the library folder in the root directory, as I'm guessing you're aware)

I am. 🙂

This does not help, I already deleted the whole Accounts folder. Sorry for not mentioning it.

Already tried that as well. Looked the same like the normal upgrade but without the hoped-for wizard. 🙂

There's a second interesting file in that /var/db folder:

.AppleDiagnosticsSetupDone

Also 0 bytes, so another present-or-not file like .AppleSetupDone

Rather you than me though 😁

Actually, now that I come to think of it, the wizard-lite struck me as unusual - I'm not sure that it is normal for every update. It might be that the firmware update changed something that prompted OS X to confirm that it was still on the same computer and not just cloned someplace else. Maybe reapplying the firmware update would do the trick?

When deleting the .AppleDiagnosticsSetupDone the system is performing a hardware check. It's nice when you assuming faulty hardware.

Well that figures I guess. Good to know.

Out of ideas for now though... 😟

It did not. 😀

I applied both the firmware and the system upgrade packages as I was reapplying the upgrade. But of course it could be that he noticed that the firmware didn't change. However I hope that this wizard will come up again. I would hate to reinstall and reconfigure 10.11. 😐

Alright. Thank you for your valuable time and precious hints, friend. 🙂

A further thought: Have you tried logging in to iCloud.com on a browser and looking at Settings > My Devices > The Offending Computer > Remove Device.

Of course you may not see your computer logged in, but it would be interesting if it actually was. It would confirm your username and password works elsewhere.

Yes, already tried that as well. My Mac is listed there because for some works I still boot into Yosemite. I removed the device again and it keeps out there as long as I use El Capitan. My iPhone and iPad are still listed there. So:

Username and password works under: iPhone, iPad, Yosemite, iCloud.com. It does not work for El Capitan. It's clearly a El Capitan bug.

Worth a shot :]

I've read and/or tried to troubleshoot dozens of iCloud account related issues with 10.11 and yours seems the strangest to me - all others could be explained/resolved without assuming a bug that either doesn't correctly read/decrypt username & password from server or fails to check them against input properly. Bizarre!

User wOlf from MacRumors brought the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SetupAssistant.plist to my attention.

It contains a key "DidSeeCloudSetup" with a value "true". So the "setup wizard light" is called "cloud setup". (Or should I be sceptical because it is not called icloud setup?)

However, I played with the booleans of this file, none of them has an effect in my case... :/

Thanks for reporting on it anyway - that's interesting.

I just tried logging out of iCloud, rebooting and, from Finder, running the Setup Assistant app (/System/Library/CoreServices/Setup Assistant.app).

It prompted me to login to my iCloud account with a username and password, much like after the first boot of the update. It changed nothing else - didn't even close down any other apps. It contains an executable called "minilauncher", reference to which is contained in a compiled (i.e. gobbledigook) file close to the string "firstbootiCloudlogin"...

So, you never know...

Thank you, that was again a valuable hint. You localized it.

I experimented in combination with the SetupAssistant.plist - again none of the booleans in there made any difference.

• open Setup Assistant.app:

  Terminal shortly flickers, nothing happens.

• Setup Assistant.app/Contents/SharedSupport/MiniLauncher:

  Nothing happens at all.

• Setup Assistant.app/Contents/SharedSupport/SetupAssistantSpringboard:

  Well, the wanted wizard light starts here. Yeah. But the only thing ever happened was "Setting Up Your Mac..." and then it closed. So I removed the whole plist, rebooted and called the app again. And YES, this time the iCloud setup really started. I could enter my login and it was accepted. M8, I love you. <3

However, there are still some problems. iCloud Keychain is not activated and if I try to activate it, I still get the username/password incorrect error and also my iMessage won't login, but I was expecting something like this. I am a great step further. Thank you for walking this through with me. I really appreciate this. 🙂

Well, after I called SetupAssistantSpringboard a second time it allowed me to login into keychain. Nice. So there is only Messages and the App Store Login missing in my login journey. I realized that "Messages" in't even listed in "Internet Accounts" under "iCloud". "iCloud" now is listed in Messages itsself, but deactivated. I can't activate because it wants me to log in (which won't work).

Brilliant! I'm glad that running the SetupAssistantSpringboard has proved to be at least a partial workaround. Thinking about the underlying problem though, I was wondering if maybe the login keys for your account had become corrupted.

In the KeyChain Access app, you could try "KeyChain First Aid" from the main menu. You could also checkout the "Keys" items in the "Login" keychain...

Thanks for marking my answer accepted.

The keychain keys encrypt and decrypt your account login - that's why I think they may be the cause.

Failing that though, you could obviously try to force the fresh creation of the App Store and Messages accounts by deleting the related account files/plists in the manner with which you are evidently familiar. I'll have a look later to see which would seem the likely contenders.

Since you seem so interested in the progress I'll just keep you posted. 🙂

I looked with

find . -type f -exec grep -il "Apple ID" {} \;

in my Preferences dir after every file containing my Apple ID and removed all of them beginning with "com.apple.". Furthermore I removed all containing "iChat" and "imessage". The result was that the zombie process still was in there "Messages seems to expect at least a iMessage login".

But.

After some more removes and reboots and setups Messages was back logged in. But in the process keychain isn't anymore. So I now struggle with the keychain login (but its more important that Messages is back logged in) and the AppStore (there is no plist containing something with AppStore).

My daughter is back awake and I'll continue to tinker this evening. *^.^*//

Is there any solution yet? I can do nothing, not downloading updates in the appstore, nog login in iCloud via Systempref pane.

It's driving me crazy. The SetupAssistantSpringboard tip doenst do anything. It's say configuration, but after that, i'm still loged out of iCloud and can't login in iCloud.

I am seeing the same issue with iMessage not letting you login and instead kick out both username/password and activation errors. Funny thing is this happens on only 1 of my dev Macs running El Cap beta 2, the other is working fine.

I also saw the keychain error and opened a bug on it

I had a similar problem (when trying to install the iTunes 12.2 update) – my App Store updates list now shows iTunes having bee installed 6 or 7 times! The "KeyChain First Aid" worked – verify found a problem, repair fixed it, and the next try at installing iTunes worked.

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SetupAssistant.plist && rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/iCloud/Accounts && /System/Library/CoreServices/Setup\ Assistant.app/Contents/SharedSupport/SetupAssistantSpringboard

This will relog you into iCloud, and with a bit experimentation you'll get iMessage running, but App Store/Continuity won't work that easily. Please keep me posted here, I'm curious if someone manage to fix this. 😀

I gave up, this was way too time consuming. I got iMessage finally working (but none of the continuity features) and I was trying to fix keychain (I deleted ~/Library/Keychains and everything in Preferences that contains "keychain") - keychain already used to work at some point in my journey. In this process I lost iMessage again. Since apart from that there was always the knowledge that I can't login from something else than the SetupAssistant (there always would be at least the App Store verification error), I created a testuser to see if it works from there. Yes, it did. Then I completely deleted and recreated my main account (Of course I wiped the home folder). Same error in the freshly created account, I can't login into ay iCloud services. Strange. I did this whole procedure twice just to be sure before reinstalling the whole system. I really don't liked the condition of my machine any more where I have to create a user with another home folder than my first name (the chains of habit 😉) to get a fully functional account.

I created an image beforehand just in case the problem would remain the same, but reinstalling the system was a success. About 4 hours of reconfiguring my system surely are somewhat inconvenient but this seems to be deeper problem. But maybe DP 3 will already fix it. I didn't want to wait. It wasn't an useless action, I learned a thing or two in the process and I met a friendly buddy here who worked this out with me. 🙂