Tesserax Hope your still around. Have a pressing question! Finder isn't working. Permissions a mess!

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Level 1

8 points

Tesserax Hope your still around. Have a pressing question! Finder isn't working. Permissions a mess!

So I'm in day 9 of quarantine, yes I got Covid-19&20&21 :( Messing with MacBook Air (Mojave) customizing desktop, Icons, system Icons, etc. I needed to mess with permissions and must have done something wrong, maybe when I disabled csrutil in recovery mode. Now my Terminal shows: Could not determine audit condition. I can't use it at all, and I need it. Looks like my only option is to clean install, but I am very positive that my latest tinkering got me into this mess and was wondering if / could I revert from a backup I made a while back, would it fix the issue? If so, how would I go about doing a full recover, I'm not worried about losing apps, files, etc. I backed everything up. I just want my machine to run normal again.

p.s. I attached a pic of my desktop that I will unfortunately have to destroy :(

If anyone wants the files for my custom Finder icon ill send it :)

Posted on Nov 29, 2020 10:55 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,656 points

Nov 30, 2020 12:39 AM in response to Z_conda_Z

Just reinstall Mojave over what you have and it will revert everything back to the default system configuration

and preserve all your data.

Make a full back up first.

Do you have a copy of the Mojave full installer.

If not,

Download macOS Mojave from here,

Open Safari and click on this link,

How to get old versions of macOS – Apple Support

Go to Download OS and select macOS Mojave

this will redirect you to the App Store Mojave download page.

It should say Get.

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

157,830 points

Nov 30, 2020 10:46 AM in response to Z_conda_Z

Using the csrutil command in the Terminal can lead to "breaking" permissions and this appears to what may have happened when you "messed with permissions" with your Mac. Most likely, you may have inadvertently changed permissions in your Mac's home folder ... which. may or may not, be recoverable without completely erasing the system drive and re-installing a "clean" copy of macOS.

You may find the following articles helpful:

About System Integrity Protection on your Mac - Apple Support
Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder - Apple Support

To "erase & reinstall" the basic steps are:

Boot up the Mac in Recovery Mode.
Use Disk Utility to erase the system drive.
Use the "Reinstall macOS <macOS name>" option to reinstall macOS.

Ref:

How to erase your Intel-based Mac - Apple Support
How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Z_conda_Z Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 30, 2020 2:41 PM in response to Tesserax

It's alive!!! Thank you all for everything, very informative. I reinstalled Mojave from recovery mode and everything is back to working, stable condition. FYI I think I know what I did wrong ... while messing with permissions I added my user to Macintosh HD and applied to all folders inside ... whoops. Terminal working fine and didn't lose any data.

I very much appreciate the help and the timely responses. I'll try not to muck it up again. :)

p.s. still have my awesome desktop ... lol

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Answer 4

Sharhari

Level 5

6,293 points

Nov 30, 2020 2:05 AM in response to Z_conda_Z

check the issue in safe mode and also test creating a new admin user.

Hope it helps to troubleshoot further.

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Answer 5

Sharhari

Level 5

6,293 points

Nov 30, 2020 9:15 AM in response to Z_conda_Z

I'm Just trying to help you with basic troubleshooting steps. You are the best person to tell what you have done that led you to this issue.

I have link from support page for using safe mode, see if it helps.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

Note: Safe mode prevents your Mac from loading certain software as it starts up, including login items, system extensions not required by macOS, and fonts not installed by macOS. It also does a basic check of your startup disk, similar to using First Aid in Disk Utility. And it deletes some system caches, including font caches and the kernel cache, which are automatically created again as needed.

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