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I'm helping someone try to get into their own Macintosh (iMac) that has been in storage a number of years. There are three accounts on the computer, two of which have admin privileges. One of the admin accounts is associated with their Apple ID. They know their Apple ID and the associated password, but cannot use this to update the local password to get into the admin account on the Mac (for reasons detailed below) -- it just hangs when they attempt to do so.

They can however get into the one non-admin account on the Mac. When in this account, they noticed that they cannot make any https connections through the browser, since Chrome says "your clock is ahead". The thinking is that this inability to make https connections is what is preventing using the Apple ID to update the admin password on the Macintosh.

They can't change the date and time from within the non-admin account since they don't have admin privileges, neither from within system preferences, nor through terminal (they could use ntpdate to change the date/time from within the non-admin account, but they can't sudo!)

It's a frustrating loop! Is there any way to update the date and time so that the Apple ID login will be able to establish https connections and (hopefully) work?

I don't have the OSX version at the moment -- it would have been the one current in 2015, when the computer was put in storage.

EDIT: The OSX version is 10.10.4, for what it's worth.

Cerulean
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    I would bet the underlying issue is not actually the clock but that the SSL certificate is out of date [not that I know how to fix that either, sorry] I'd definitely try clearing the NVRAM, though - the date/time is stored in there afaik. [Cmd/Opt/P/R at the chimes, then hold until it chimes a second time.] Also try Safari instead of Chrome. – Tetsujin Dec 06 '22 at 12:13
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    Hmmm… I wonder whether this might work as your 'get out of jail free' card - https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/164331/i-dont-have-administrator-account-on-my-mac If FileVault is not enabled or a firmware password set, this would get you into the Mac to take it over again. I'm sure it would lose keychains etc by this method & not return you to the state it was when put away, but it would be functioning again. – Tetsujin Dec 06 '22 at 12:28
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    Two thoughts: 1. Have you tried a non-Chrome browser? 2. There are other methods of resetting the admin password, from the Recover Partition. – benwiggy Dec 06 '22 at 12:34
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    Also: is the disk encrypted? If not, then dupe it to an external, wipe the disk, and restore the data. – benwiggy Dec 06 '22 at 13:06
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    @MarcWilson Non-admin users can't use sudo on macOS by default. su ADMINUSER should work though. – nohillside Dec 06 '22 at 15:48
  • Did you look at date/time, is it correct or off? If it is off, can you boot into Recovery, connect to the network from there and wait for ntpd to set the time? – nohillside Dec 06 '22 at 15:51
  • @benwiggy -- Can one dupe the entire disk from the non-admin user, including admin accounts to which that user has no access? – Cerulean Dec 06 '22 at 17:04
  • Thanks benwiggy, nhillside, Tesujin, -- Thanks, I'll pass on the suggestions. – Cerulean Dec 06 '22 at 17:06
  • If you can boot to an external disk, then you can read everything, if it's not encrypted. – benwiggy Dec 06 '22 at 17:14
  • @nohillside You are correct of course. Don't know why I said sudo vs su. – Marc Wilson Dec 06 '22 at 21:07

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