Q: Persistent permission problems
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Feb 27, 2014 12:08 PMby Lowbflat,To capture screen shots in OS 10.8 and later, best to use Preview. Under File, you'll see Take Screen Shot with a menu for Selection, Window or Screen - you must select one.
Repair Permissions is pretty good about clearing ACL messages in OS 10.8/10.9 but cannot clear them from hidden folders such as private/ You must show hidden folders first, run Repair Permissions twice or more, then hide them again.
If that does not work, you can clear them in Terminal also. Again, you must show hidden folders first or this does not work. BTW, these changed a little for Mavericks but work in Lion and ML. There are older commands with slightly different syntax and capitalization that will not work in 10.9.x.
When you do sudo commands, it will ask for your admin password and then give you a few minutes before it asks again. You must be logged in as root or admin. Best to copy and paste - you can really screw up your system by making mistakes. ONLY do this after a Time Machine backup in case you make a mistake that causes your system not to boot.
Copy and paste the following italicized commands into Terminal, then hit Return or Enter
Show Hidden Files:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder
Re-hide hidden files:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
killall Finder
When you try to repair permissions and get ACL found but not expected messages.
ACL found but not expected on "Library".
These are benign but annoying. To remove these ACL messages do the following in Terminal:
sudo chmod -a# 0 "/-"
(replace the dash with the path exactly as found in Repair Permissions between the quote marks after the / Example: sudo chmod -a# 0 "/Library" )
if you had more than one on either directory you can execute the same command until they are gone.
If the path involves hidden folders, you must Show hidden folders first.
Example: sudo chmod -a# 0 "/private/var/yp/binding" will not work as private is normally a hidden folder. Show the folder first and it will work.
Re-hide hidden folders when you are done.
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Feb 27, 2014 1:58 PMby Lowbflat,Group differs on “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”; should be -rw-rw-rw- ; they are -rw-r--r-- .
In OS 10.9, this one shows up again every time that the App Store installs an update of any kind. Running Repair Permissions gets rid of it - till next time.
It's annoying, I suppose but doesn't seem to affect anything. I have no idea why those preferences are stored there instead of Preferences but deleting the file has no effect - it just shows up again on all of my systems.
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Feb 27, 2014 2:21 PMby mindful_compassion,In the meantime I performed an "archive and install", i.e. I re-installed the OS without formatting, but 6 of the 7 problems I encountered before are still there.
After the re-install I had one permission problem, but I could fix that with a simple "Repair Disk Permissions". I also showed hidden files and ran it again but that didn't make a difference (as I expected).
Thus, I think the only option that remains is an "erase and install".
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Feb 27, 2014 2:39 PMby putnik,HelpfulI looked up the screenshot location command. You need to do a second command to complete the process.
eg:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /users/Username/Desktop
then:
killall SystemUIServer
I would look in Activity Monitor to see if there is a second instance of Firefox running. I would have thought a re-boot should clear it.
If it is permissions repair that worry you, these are not important and don't merit a re-install.
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Feb 28, 2014 7:55 AMby mindful_compassion,@ putnik
The screenshot issue was solved after my "archive and install", sorry that I didn't write that earlier.
Thank you for the info on permissions. In the meantime, I did an "erase, install and migrate (with Time Machine)".
Directly after the procedure, the problems I had before are still there.
Also, I have a lot of permisison problems again (see below), some of which are not on Apple's "can be ignored" list:
Group differs on “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.
Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”; should be -rw-rw-rw- ; they are -rw-r--r-- .
Repaired “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”
ACL found but not expected on “private/etc/apache2/users”
Repaired “private/etc/apache2/users”Group differs on “Library/Java”; should be 0; group is 80.
Permissions differ on “Library/Java”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are drwxrwxr-x .
Repaired “Library/Java”ACL found but not expected on “Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines”Repaired “Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines”
ACL found but not expected on “Library/LaunchAgents”Repaired “Library/LaunchAgents”Group differs on “Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.Repaired “Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist”
Permissions differ on “System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/libruby.2.0.dyli b”; should be lrwxrwxrwx ; they are lrwxr-xr-x .
Repaired “System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/libruby.2.0.dyli b”
ACL found but not expected on “private/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.stackshot.plist”
Repaired “private/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.stackshot.plist”
ACL found but not expected on “usr/libexec/cups/driver”
Repaired “usr/libexec/cups/driver”Permissions differ on “usr/share/zoneinfo/Africa/Algiers”; should be -rw-r--r-- ; they are -rwxr-xr-x .Repaired “usr/share/zoneinfo/Africa/Algiers”
Permissions differ on “Applications/.DS_Store”; should be -rw-rw-r-- ; they are -rw-r--r-- .
ACL found but not expected on “Applications/.DS_Store”Repaired “Applications/.DS_Store”ACL found but not expected on “private/var/db/lockdown”Repaired “private/var/db/lockdown”
ACL found but not expected on “private/var/root/Library/.localized”
Repaired “private/var/root/Library/.localized”
ACL found but not expected on “private/var/root/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist”
Repaired “private/var/root/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist”
After unhiding all files and running "Repair Disk Permissions" several times, these permission problems remain:
ACL found but not expected on “private/etc/apache2/users”
Repaired “private/etc/apache2/users”
ACL found but not expected on “Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines”Repaired “Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines”
ACL found but not expected on “Library/LaunchAgents”Repaired “Library/LaunchAgents”ACL found but not expected on “private/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.stackshot.plist”
Repaired “private/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.stackshot.plist”
ACL found but not expected on “usr/libexec/cups/driver”Repaired “usr/libexec/cups/driver”
ACL found but not expected on “Applications/.DS_Store”Repaired “Applications/.DS_Store”
ACL found but not expected on “private/var/db/lockdown”Repaired “private/var/db/lockdown”
ACL found but not expected on “private/var/root/Library/.localized”Repaired “private/var/root/Library/.localized”
ACL found but not expected on “private/var/root/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist”
Repaired “private/var/root/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist”
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Feb 28, 2014 8:45 AMby mindful_compassion,Since still all the described problems remain (with the exception of taking screenshots in the "Play" account"), despite having solved all permission problems, the cause of these problems must almost certainly be something else (as Frank Caggiono suggested at the beginning).
To prove an overview, the current problems are:
Related to third-party apps:
1) Cinebench asks me to change permission and can't load some data.
2) Firefox doesn't open because it can't access some profiles.
Related to OS or first-party-apps:
3) When switching from the (active) "Play" account to the (previously inactive) "Work" account, the desktop background settings for the "Work" account are changed (more specifically, the "Change Picture" option is activated)
4) FaceTime asks me for a password every time I log in to either account (I have never used the app and don't want to enter a password - which I not even have)
5) AppStore crashes after starting in the "Play" account
6) AppStore wants to install "update" iMovie to 10.0.2 even though I have installed the update before and have iMovie 11 installed.
Possible causes and solutions:
1) I simply moved several apps (games and Cinebench) from the Application folder of "Work" to the application folder of "Play" a few days ago. That was probably a bad idea. I will set the permissions manually as Cinebench suggests or alternatively delete and re-install the app.
2) I have no idea what caused this but I will delete and re-install Firefox and see if it solves the problem.
3) I have no idea what caused this or how to fix this (since permissions don't seem to be the origin).
4) Maybe this is "working as designed" by Apple?
5) I don't know what caused this and how to solve it.
6) I'm not sure, but it is possible that I deleted iMovie while I still used Mountain Lion and when I updated to Mavericks, the OS got confused. Does it make sense? How can I solve it?
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Feb 28, 2014 9:05 AMby mindful_compassion,Other problems emerged:
7) When I try to download Firefox or Cinebench with Safari within the "Play" account, it tells me that there is not enough disk space available.
8) When I try to open one of Cinebench's readme files, which uses the rtf format, TextEdit starts and crashes.
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Feb 28, 2014 1:45 PMby putnik,If you have been moving apps from an Applications folder in one account to an Applications folder in another, then you will have permissions problems. It is not as simple as that, plists and other necessary parts are held elsewhere. Now, even uninstalling them may be difficult as standard uninstallers may not find the parts you have moved.
iMovie '11 was part of the discontinued iLife '11 package. It's version was actually 9.x.x, so the present iMovie 10.0.2 is more advanced. See the version history here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMovie.
If you registered a purchase of iLife '11 in MAS, maybe you can download 10.0.2 from there.
The Desktop background settings can be different between accounts, so I see no problem there.
Facetime requires your AppleID password and should store it in the iCloud Keychain if you have that enabled in the Preferences. I agree that 10.9.2 is asking for iMessage and Facetime passwords a lot after the initial install, but I've not had the problem recently.
You will not be able to do so much in the Standard "Play" account. For installing most third party apps, you would be better with the Admin "Work" account. Perhaps you should make them both Admin accounts.
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Feb 28, 2014 6:14 PMby mindful_compassion,@ putnik
Thanks for the information. I learned quite a lot from you.
Since my last message, I have discovered some new problems and, because of that, will do another "erase and install" but this time migrate the data manually. This should solve all problems. After several months of minor problems and several days of major problems I had enough :-)
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Mar 1, 2014 1:33 AMby putnik,I agree that a new install and rebuild is the best way forward. Start with Adobe Flash, ClamXav and other apps running continually. I would minimise the use of third party apps though. Safari is fine once you learn your way around. The iCloud keychain makes life quite easy too. Good luck.
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Mar 1, 2014 2:51 AMby MadMacs0,mindful_compassion wrote:
@ putnik
After running ACLr8, only one permission problem remained:
Group differs on “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”; should be -rw-rw-rw- ; they are -rw-r--r-- .
That one will come back. Every time Software Update runs it checks to see what printers you have access to and will change those permissions. It's a bug, but ignore it.
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Mar 1, 2014 2:57 AMby MadMacs0,I didn't see that anybody told you how to repair user permissions, so sorry if I missed it but here they are:
Boot to your Recovery partition (holding down the Command and R keys while booting) and open Terminal from the Utilities menu. In Terminal, type: ‘resetpassword’ (without the quotes), hit return, and select the admin user. You are not going to reset your password. Click on the icon for your Macs hard drive at the top. From the drop down below it select the user account which is having issues. At the bottom of the window, you'll see an area labeled Restore Home Directory Permissions and ACLs. Click the reset button there. The process takes a few minutes. When complete repeat with any other users, if necessary, then restart.
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Mar 1, 2014 7:57 AMby mindful_compassion,I created two additional partitions on my hard drive: A 15 GB bootable Mavericks (10.9.2) installer partition and a 35 GB backup partition. After having copied all the files to the backup partition, which also included screenshots of important application settings, I held the option key during startup and installed a Mavericks. After the installation, I created my two user accounts again, configured all the Mac OS settings on both account, installed all the applications, configured the applications and manually imported the backed up data.
Now everything works perfectly again for the first time in months :-)
The only "problem" I have is that some (but not all) documents I imported seem to only have read privileges (unless I modify them manually). Also, I wonder why it says "Fetching..." next to "Read & Write".
@ MadMacs0
Thanks for the information!
@ putnik
I will think twice before I install apps that require an installation process instead of being simply copied to the Applications folder. However, I will never use Safari. The only Apple apps I like are Preview and AppStore.
