Logout issues...what can trigger it?

[mconners]

Hi Folks,

I am beyond frustrated and this is probably causing me to not think clearly on this one so please forgive me.

We have several of of physical sciences Mac laptops that are attempting to logout. We have removed via configuration profiles any chance of this. The login window options are set to unchecked for auto logout. In the energy saver system preferences, we have those set to never. Additionally, there are no updates or other items attempting to install that require a restart.

I have pulled my hair out here trying to understand what the heck is happening and why a log out is being attempted in the middle of classes.

Maybe a different approach would be to put in an auto logout but at 3 hours or some other crazy number? The lab coordinator is having their student(s) ensure they are restarted between classes. Needless to say, the faculty are very unhappy but I literally don't know where else to look.

Perhaps one of the packages I built for them is causing this, but I don't believe I captured any system preferences that would have done that. Even if I did, I am not sure what to look for as far as a plist file or some other file that might contain a logout command.

Any thoughts or insights would be most helpful. At this point, I am venting to help talk this out a bit.

Thank you Everyone!!

[osxadmin]

check under system preferences->Security & Privacy->Advanced...-->what do you see under "log out after xx minutes of inactivity"?

[osxadmin]

sometimes when you combine payloads with a single configuration profile it causes conflicts.

[osxadmin]

also clear any caches from the client.

[SGill]

You might test to see if this command helps:

sudo killall cfprefsd

[mconners]

Thank you for the quick replies. I am going to grab an affected Mac and see what I can see. I am also imaging another right next to me to see if I can replicate the problem. Hopefully as consistent as this seems to be, we can find a the root cause. Thanks again!!

[michael-brodt]

I would also go back through every policy and make sure there is nothing that was accidentally set to trigger a logout. Make sure there aren't any maintenance scripts that are set to run.

A few questions to ask as well..
1. Is there any rhyme or reason in terms of which computers or what time they are doing this?
2. Is there anything specific to these computers that is not on any of the others? 3. Is there something different about the users that are logging in to these particular computers? 4. Does it do this with a local account (assuming you are using network accounts)?

If this issue doesn't happen with every account, try deleting and re-creating the accounts on those computers, ensuring that you get rid of the old user folder.

[mconners]

Well, I did find on the one Mac in system preferences->Security & Privacy->Advanced...-->what do you see under "log out after xx minutes of inactivity" was set to checked and 15 minutes!! I have no idea where that is coming from, but now I have to understand how that is being set. As @osxadmin mentioned, perhaps it is a combination of settings into a single profile that is causing the problem.

I understand that the login window configuration profile has been causing some issues in the past. Maybe this is another issue that we are seeing when certain settings are enabled? I will dig a little deeper.

[mconners]

An update:

We found like others have, the login window configuration profile is NOT disabling the auto logout issue. So, for a work around for the short term, we have changed that value to 240 minutes which does work. I know JAMF has mentioned there is a problem with the login window configuration profile. For some reason, having this setting disabled has defaulted to 15 minutes and checked in system preferences->Security & Privacy->Advanced.

Thanks to Everyone for your suggestions and guidance. This group is amazing!!