System Root: All normally hidden folders are visible

Same issue here on MDD G4 (dual 1ghz). Also I tried rebooting off of the 10.5 DVD and running a repair disk and fix permissions.

The same thing happened to me. I don't know why, but I used the same method I used before when I had hidden files that were visable:

Create a new plain text file in TextEdit. List the names of each file/folder in your root directory that should be hidden. Save the file to the root of your HD and name it .hidden

TextEdit will probably say something about file beginning with a dot are reserved for the system, just continue.

The .hidden file (which itself is hidden) was used up until Tiger as one of the three ways to hide important system files. Although the use of the .hidden file was discontinued in Tiger, the Finder still respects it therefore the files listed in it will be hidden.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for that hint... I'll try that out if nobody can come up with a FIX for what happened here. I'd rather not do some workaround when something in the system is obviously out of wack... and given that my other macs don't exhibit the problem. seems like there ought to be a way to get the OS back to normal by undoing whatever got messed up here?

I've got the same issue. The folders/files became visible after installing Leopard and using migration assistant to move my files over.

I searched around and discovered that .hidden is obsolete though OS X will honor it if it's there. I believe that OS X starting with 10.4 uses Launch Services to determine what needs to be hidden. I've tried resetting Launch Services by deleting Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices* and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist restarting then emptying the trash, but the files are still visible!

Has anyone found a valid solution to this?

Only happening on my wife's G4 PB .... and she is quite annoyed.

SWL wrote:
Has anyone found a valid solution to this?

I think my solution is valid, unless you want to try and reinstall the OS. It's not tricking the system into doing something it shouldn't, It doesn't affect the files in any way, and it took me like 3 minutes, so now I can move on to bigger, better things... or something like that.

Yeah, I have this problem too. Clean install on Macbook Core2Duo 2ghz. All root folders are visible.

I also have this problem. Clean install on MacBook Pro 1.83.

What gives!?

I had the same problem on my rev1 PowerMac G5.

I did an Erase and Install and could see all the normally hidden files at the root of the drive, I tried repairing permissions, which didn't seem to work correctly and took over 20 minutes with no progress bar, I restarted, that didn't work either.

What fixed the problem was an Archive Install with Preserve User settings. Everything is fine now.

I was prepared to erase the drive and reinstall, but the Archive worked.

I finally fixed this problem by running:

sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /bin
sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /cores
sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -P -a V /etc
sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /mach_kernel
sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /private
sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /sbin
sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -P -a V /tmp
sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /usr
sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /Volumes
sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -P -a V /var

then deleting /Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices* (2 files) and rebooting.

Most of the files/folders became invisible right after running SetFile. The symbolic links (/etc, /tmp and /var) became invisible after the reboot.

This seems to work for 10.5: http://devnulled.com/content/2007/08/how-to-show-hidden-and-protected-files-in-o s-x-finder/

I tried "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE" and it didn't change anything? I still the root folders that should be hidden.

You have to restart finder by issuing the "killall Finder" command.

EXCELLENT
That solved the visible folders issue perfectly.

I noticed the issue after a difficult failed upgrade carbon copy then erase and install 10.5.
Had to manually move the files and settings back onto the 1.8 G5 20" imac.

This worked for me.

Have to make sure that text edit does not automatically add .txt to end of file name. Also make sure that file is plain text (Unicode (UTF-8)). Must reboot to see results.

Took some trial and error to get that straight, but then it worked.

Thanks a lot for the advice.