Q: Can I reset home folder permissions when it's on a separate drive?

Have you run Repair Disk on the Home volume?

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.

Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar.

Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try the action that you're having trouble with again. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard (command-C). Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).

When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.

Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

iMovie was trying to write to a folder at the top level of the startup volume, not on the "Home" volume.

iMovie '11: Copy or move a project to an external hard disk

Back up all data.

Launch the Keychain Access application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Keychain Access in the icon grid.

Select the login keychain from the list on the left side of the Keychain Access window. If your default keychain has a different name, select that.

If the lock icon in the top left corner of the window shows that the keychain is locked, click to unlock it. You'll be prompted for the keychain password, which is the same as your login password, unless you've changed it.

Right-click or control-click the login entry in the list. From the menu that pops up, select Change Settings for Keychain "login". In the sheet that opens, uncheck both boxes, if not already unchecked.

From the menu bar, select

Keychain Access ▹ Preferences ▹ First Aid

If the box marked Keep login keychain unlocked is not checked, check it.

Select

Keychain Access ▹ Keychain First Aid

from the menu bar and repair the keychain. Quit Keychain Access.

This is the sort of thing that happens when you move your home folder. Not something I would ever recommend. I have only a limited amount of time to devote to the problem.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:

ls -AOeln ~/L*/Key*

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).

Post any lines of output that appear below what you entered — the text, please, not a screenshot. If you get more than about ten lines, only post the first ten.

Back up all data.

Enter the following command in the Terminal window in the same way as before:

find ~/L*/Key* -name *keychain.sb-* -delete

The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear. You can then quit Terminal. Try again to launch Keychain Access.

Move everything from the Keychains folder to the Desktop and try again to launch the application. If it still hangs, put back the files you moved.

I don't see the point of creating a new user account if you're going to move everything you have now into it. I'd expect the results to be the same as what you have now. With a non-standard configuration like yours, you're going to trigger all kinds of obscure bugs. What I would do in your place is to put my home folder back where it belongs, on a larger internal drive or a "fusion drive" if necessary. Yours is the wrong solution to the problem of inadequate storage space.

I don't know.