mgilan

Q: ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist dissapears randomly

Hi,

 

for last ±2 months I have problem with $SUBJ. I use no apps like Onyx, so does anybody have some idea why this is happening? It's really annoying when all my settings are gone.

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jun 30, 2011 10:26 AM

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Q: ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist dissapears randomly

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  • by baltwo,

    baltwo baltwo Jun 30, 2011 12:16 PM in response to mgilan
    Level 9 (62,256 points)
    Jun 30, 2011 12:16 PM in response to mgilan

    Haven't a clue, but you could make a copy and restore it when the original disappears. I've never seen that behavior.

  • by mgilan,

    mgilan mgilan Jul 1, 2011 12:49 AM in response to baltwo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 1, 2011 12:49 AM in response to baltwo

    Yeah, but this is a little bit impractical :-/

  • by mgilan,

    mgilan mgilan Jul 2, 2011 2:58 AM in response to mgilan
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2011 2:58 AM in response to mgilan

    So nobody with similar issue?

  • by Bob Lang1,

    Bob Lang1 Bob Lang1 Jul 2, 2011 3:52 AM in response to mgilan
    Level 5 (4,080 points)
    Jul 2, 2011 3:52 AM in response to mgilan

    mgilan wrote:

     

    Yeah, but this is a little bit impractical :-/

     

    Depends how clever you are...  You could always write a command script that runs at login or some other time and performs these steps:

    If (the file exists in library) copy file to save location

    else copy file from save location back into library

     

    Bob

  • by mgilan,

    mgilan mgilan Jul 2, 2011 6:56 AM in response to Bob Lang1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2011 6:56 AM in response to Bob Lang1

    Yeah, a script could do it and I can do one, but this solves a consequence and not the cause.

  • by baltwo,

    baltwo baltwo Jul 2, 2011 11:20 AM in response to mgilan
    Level 9 (62,256 points)
    Jul 2, 2011 11:20 AM in response to mgilan

    Create a new admin user account, log into it, and see if the problem persists. As I noted before, yours is the first I've ever heard of this issue.

  • by mgilan,Solvedanswer

    mgilan mgilan Jul 3, 2011 3:01 AM in response to baltwo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2011 3:01 AM in response to baltwo

    I tried to repair permissions on my own, chown -R user:staff /Users/user and it looks o.k. Strange is, when I was looking on permissions in path to GlobalPreference, that they were o.k. Changes also were entered into the file, so I thought it was o.k.

     

    So thanks to you all for your ideas, I will follow if the problem re-appears and I will let you know.

  • by AussieDJ,

    AussieDJ AussieDJ Jul 3, 2011 3:18 AM in response to mgilan
    Level 4 (1,435 points)
    Jul 3, 2011 3:18 AM in response to mgilan

    You would lose those settings if you did a PRAM Reset, or perhaps your PRAM battery has ended it's life?

  • by mgilan,

    mgilan mgilan Jul 3, 2011 7:33 AM in response to AussieDJ
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2011 7:33 AM in response to AussieDJ

    Hmm, I'm not sure if settings like mobile me account, keyboard shortcuts and translucent menu bar are stored in pram. I have this issue on ±6 months old MBA and I see there no issue where volume/brightnes level, startup disk, ... are dissapearing. So I do not thought this could be issue with pram.

  • by baltwo,

    baltwo baltwo Jul 3, 2011 3:31 PM in response to mgilan
    Level 9 (62,256 points)
    Jul 3, 2011 3:31 PM in response to mgilan

    thumbs_u.png

  • by bigheadjer,Helpful

    bigheadjer bigheadjer Jul 10, 2011 2:27 AM in response to mgilan
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jul 10, 2011 2:27 AM in response to mgilan

    Hi mgilan, I am having the same issue.  I'm just trying to narrow it down at the moment.  Did you at any time install MagicPrefs or are currently using MagicPrefs?  I've found some other people who use or have used that app before to be experiencing the symptoms that my account is going through right now.

  • by mgilan,

    mgilan mgilan Jul 10, 2011 9:08 AM in response to bigheadjer
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 10, 2011 9:08 AM in response to bigheadjer

    Hi bigheadjer. Yes, I have used MagicPrefs before. Thanks for giving me a tip of what could have been the cause of the issue.

  • by bigheadjer,Helpful

    bigheadjer bigheadjer Aug 10, 2011 7:30 PM in response to mgilan
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 10, 2011 7:30 PM in response to mgilan

    Hi, after a lot of mucking around and starting a conversation with the creator of MagicPrefs (see here) and following his suggestion to use fs_usage to monitor, my next suspicion is the Mail app.

     

    These are the unlink calls that generally precede the GlobalPreferences.plist file disappearing from my Library/Preferences.

     

    09:20:26.435  unlink                 [  2]           /Users/jetset/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist                               0.000004   Mail               

    09:20:41.436  unlink                 [  2]           /Users/jetset/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist                               0.000004   Mail               

    09:20:56.436  unlink                 [  2]           /Users/jetset/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist                               0.000003   Mail   

     

    The two bundles I have installed are GPGMail and MailFollowUp.  Anyone else running Mail with these bundles?  It's also possible that it's a weird bug in Mail that's deleting GlobalPreferences, but that's much more unlikely because then almost everyone using it would be experiencing this issue.

  • by mgilan,

    mgilan mgilan Aug 11, 2011 1:18 AM in response to bigheadjer
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 11, 2011 1:18 AM in response to bigheadjer

    Hi,

     

    I am/was using GPGMail bundle. This is really interesting. Also repairing permissions with chown was not successful for you?

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