"You may need to enter the name and password for an administrator"

I am suddenly getting this message when I try to copy a file from my new Macbookpro to my Powerbook running 10.4.9.

"You may need to enter the name and password for an administrator on this computer to change the item named "file i am trying to transfer". stop continue

I hit continue and get the error message: "The item "that I am transferring" contains one or more items you do not have permission to read. Do you want to copy the items you are allowed to read?

I say continue and get the error: "The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient priveleges for some of the items."

My network was working fine until today. I can copy fine to all other computers on my network. But not this one.

If I initiate a transfer from the Powerbook, everything works fine.

Ideas?

1.5 Powerbook 15" 1.5 gig RAM, 20" Cinema, etc, Western Digital external drives (work well)

Posted on Dec 12, 2008 1:59 PM

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Posted on Jan 5, 2009 11:54 AM

Did some research, testing, educated guessing, .... and found the reason for the error :

The error seems to occur when an account is copied from one mac to another.
Filesharing between these (same) accounts on different macs results in the message sequence (cfr original entry of this threat)

One can solve the issue, by changing the UUID of the original account on the original mac.
(preferences, accounts, right click for advanced options, change UUID)

A giant bug in OS X if you ask me (but you probably don't)

Luc
14 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 5, 2009 11:54 AM in response to vandevyver

Did some research, testing, educated guessing, .... and found the reason for the error :

The error seems to occur when an account is copied from one mac to another.
Filesharing between these (same) accounts on different macs results in the message sequence (cfr original entry of this threat)

One can solve the issue, by changing the UUID of the original account on the original mac.
(preferences, accounts, right click for advanced options, change UUID)

A giant bug in OS X if you ask me (but you probably don't)

Luc

Jan 4, 2009 11:09 AM in response to Thomas Kranz1

I experience the exact issue between a macbook pro and an iMac.
I can access the files locally on my macbook, copy them on usb-stick, etc.

but ... when I try to copy the files to my iMac ... it fails with the sequence of questions you mentioned.

However!
I can copy whatever I like from my macbook if I use my wifes account.

So...
Imho there is a problem when the SAME account is used on both systems.
In my case, I copied my account from the macbook to the (new) iMac.
Mac OS X seems to be confused when the same accounts are used.

Does this makes sense?
All help welcome.

Luc

Jan 9, 2009 2:57 PM in response to Thomas Herbert

For those looking at problems between Leopard and earlier systems, note that you can find the UUID in pre-Leopard systems by going to NetInfo Manager in Utilities and selecting the user name. So, I found the UUID on my 10.4.11 system for my username. This is the same as the same UUID that I found on the 10.5.5 Powerbook by right clicking on my username in system preferences. So, the above solution - to change the UUID for my username on one of the computers - SEEMS to be the correct fix. However, I'm not going to do this on a Friday evening before leaving town and risk messing things up with no time to fix anything.

Dec 12, 2008 9:26 PM in response to Thomas Kranz1

They may be legit messages, they may not. It is hard to say because we don't know enough about what you are trying to copy from where to where, the source file permissions, ownerships, group affiliations, and ACLs of the items you are trying to copy and of the destination directory to which you want to copy them, and who you are (as a user, and that user's privileges, relative to the computer), and how are you doing it (terminal command line? AFP?). I think we would really need to know that information in order to be able to try to help you solve this problem.

Dec 16, 2008 12:19 PM in response to j.v.

I am getting the same message and I am trying to copy personal files from my MacBook Pro to my personal USB stick. I used this memory stick for a year with no problems, and after some recent mac upgrades--it would not let me move files around anymore! This is absolutely a new bug introduced by Apple. Please, advise how to "undo the damage". Thanks!

Dec 23, 2008 6:07 PM in response to Privelife

Your stating that you can't copy files onto your USB memory stick suggests to me that you may have inadvertently pushed the "write lock" 2-position slide switch to the "lock" position on your mem stick, if your mem stick is so equipped. I have two usb memory sticks and one of them has a miniature 2-position "write lock" slider switch and if in the "lock" position, I can't write data to it.

Jan 9, 2009 2:20 PM in response to vandevyver

I'm having the same problem between a recent PowerBook with 10.5.5 and my old G4 tower with 10.4.11. I can't seem to get the right click trick to work on the 10.4.11 machine but I can on the Powerbook with the newer system. I'm reluctant to change the UUID on the Powerbook unless I know a bit more - I see a button "Create New" next to the UUID box .. Is this where I make a new UUID? I'm really scared about messing things up.

Mar 8, 2009 6:05 PM in response to vandevyver

I have been having the exact same problem for a while and this fixed it for sure. The only odd effect was that when I rebooted and logged in, the system reverted to the default desktop image. It "forgot" my custom desktop photo. Obviously that's easy to correct, and nothing else seems to have changed.

Thanks for figuring out the fix!

Apr 16, 2009 3:50 PM in response to Thomas Kranz1

I I have been having this same problem but my Mac users are logging into a AD account on the Mac. When the user map to their drive . The can see the data and copy the data off the drive but cannot add new data or modify that data that is on the mapped drive.

I get the same three messages stated in this thread. I have tried everything from resetting eh UUID, running Apple Jack to re-installing all the OS for 10.5 to 10.5.6

Note: the Mapped Drives ( Shared Drives ) are setting on EMC drives on PC servesr not other Mac computers or Apple Xservers.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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