Cannot unlock a folder

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Level 1

13 points

Cannot unlock a folder

I cannot unlock a folder I created and locked. In Unix I see the directory is owned by "503", whereas the other folders are owned by me "GWS". Padlock is not active. Get info permissions shows "fetching..." in the first section. I am also admin on the laptop as "GWS". The behavior is the same when restarted in safe mode. OS 11.5.1, running on Apple silicon (M1).

How can I unlock this folder and get it back to myself as owner?

Thanks for reading, and extra thanks if you can help!

MacBook, OS X 10.11

Posted on Jun 3, 2022 7:00 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Gary Sears Author

Level 1

13 points

Jun 11, 2022 2:42 AM in response to Gary Sears

SOLVED!

I am indebted to Linc Davis who, on Dec 18, 2014 in response to a similar or perhaps identical problem, solved mine! Please see the link below to the problem and his solution to mine! Bed sure to read the warnings at the beginning of his response.

Repairing permissions when owner is "Fetc… - Apple Community

I'm happy and grateful to join the thousands of users in this community who have been rescued by Mr Davis. Thank you.

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Answer 2

Gary Sears Author

Level 1

13 points

Jun 5, 2022 7:10 AM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks, VikingOSX, but it failed as "operation not permitted". It's possible I messed up the syntax, but I tried it twice.

I control-clicked my user in System Preferences > Users and Groups and see that I am user 503 and group staff.

I checked the other users similarly and find there is no user 505, yet the file is owned by 505.

Here's the file:

drwxr-xr-x@ 3336 505 staff 106752 Oct 13 2021 Antiques Inventory Pictures

I confirmed there is no user 505 using

id 505 -F

Result:

id: 505: no such user

Alas.

Thank you for your time and suggestion!

Regards,

Gary

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Answer 3

Jun 5, 2022 10:20 AM in response to Gary Sears

You may have a Catch-22 issue with the folder being locked and it having a different owner uid that is not on your Mac. Can't change the owner ID on the folder because it is locked, and cannot unlock it without being the real owner.

Do the following on the folder (e.g. Desktop) that contains the Antiques Inventory Pictures folder folder:

ls -lO | egrep -i "schg|uchg"
-rw-r--r--@   1 viking  staff  schg      2861 May 18  2021 exif.txt

That will show you whether you have a system or user lock respectively on the folder. If it just returns to the Terminal prompt, then no lock was found on it. The former requires sudo to unlock, but in your case, the martian uid may block you from unlocking it.

Try the previous command again, this time recursively, note the (blue) colon separator in the chown command, and that the sudo password prompt echoes nothing you type:

# your username : your group name
sudo chown -R $(id -nu):$(id -ng) ./foldername
# if successful, then… remove system lock
sudo chflags -R noschg ./foldername

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Answer 4

Gary Sears Author

Level 1

13 points

Jun 6, 2022 6:10 AM in response to VikingOSX

Hi -

The first command containing the egrep returned nothing.

Here's how I entered the 2nd command at the directory above the recalcitrant folder, which is named Antique Business:

sudo chown -R $(GWS -nu):$(staff -ng) ./Antique\ Business

-bash: GWS: command not found

-bash: staff: command not found

Password:

GLB-MacBook-Pro:~ GWS$

I filled in my password, but failed. Did I type the command incorrectly (judging by the errors for "GWS" and "staff")?

Here's the way the file still looks:

drwxr-xr-x@ 3336 505 staff 106752 Oct 13 2021 Antiques Inventory Pictures

As before I do appreciate your time and efforts.

Hoping I screwed up the command and the solution is now only a matter of typing it correctly.

Regards!

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Answer 5

Jun 6, 2022 6:22 AM in response to Gary Sears

That ls command needed to be run in the same folder that contained your Antique\ Business folder. If you did that and it did not match either schg or uchg, then there is no System or user lock on that folder.

Wrong usage of the syntax.

The $(id -nu) returns your short name (e.g. GWS) and the $(id -ng) returns staff. You do not replace the command id with literal strings as you have done.

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Answer 6

Gary Sears Author

Level 1

13 points

Jun 6, 2022 8:10 AM in response to VikingOSX

I was happy to learn I had misunderstood the command syntax as it presented the possibility that doing it correctly could still work. Alas, doing it correctly also failed:

GLB-MacBook-Pro:~ GWS$ sudo chown $(id -nu):$(id -ng) /Users/GWS/Antique\ Business/Antiques\ Inventory\ Pictures

Password:

chown: /Users/GWS/Antique Business/Antiques Inventory Pictures: Operation not permitted

GLB-MacBook-Pro:~ GWS$

I know how to (temporarily) disable SIP, or perhaps I should become root. Do you think either of those methods could work?

Thanks and regards -

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Answer 7

Gary Sears Author

Level 1

13 points

Jun 6, 2022 8:39 AM in response to VikingOSX

P.S. I became root and failed again:

GLB-MacBook-Pro:Antique Business root# chown GWS Antiques\ Inventory\ Pictures

chown: Antiques Inventory Pictures: Operation not permitted

GLB-MacBook-Pro:Antique Business root#

I don't think SIP is involved as these are not system files.

Regards,

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Answer 8

Jun 6, 2022 2:40 PM in response to Gary Sears

You omitted the -R switch in:

sudo chown -R $(id -nu):$(id -ng) /Users/GWS/Antique\ Business

which would apply your user name and group id to the designated folder and its children files and folders. Once you have done that and there is no 503 user owned file or folder inside it, you should be able to remove the folder.

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Answer 9

Gary Sears Author

Level 1

13 points

Jun 6, 2022 10:26 PM in response to VikingOSX

Hi -

I didn’t use recursion but rather used chown on the troublesome folder itself. Must chown be done one level up, i.e. on the enclosing folder? The Antique Business folder (which encloses Antiques Inventory Pictures) is already properly owned by me.

Thanks again for looking at this!

Regards -

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Answer 10

Jun 3, 2022 7:34 AM in response to Gary Sears

You can try the following in the Terminal:

# your username : your group name
sudo chown $(id -nu):$(id -ng) ./foldername
# if successful, then… remove system lock
sudo chflags noschg ./foldername

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