Strange User Permissions/Group OS X Lion

Thanks for that info. I didn't really have any older folders except for photo albums in iPhoto and music albums in iTunes. I did have some issues trying to open items in my Time Macine backup. When I entered Time machine, opened my Pictures folder and clicked on the iPhoto library, an iPhoto app screen would appear that had an Open button in the upper right. When I clicked on that, nothing would happen. Is there something else I should try to make sure that I can recover these kinds of items from my Time Machine backup short of deleting the folders on my Mac and trying to recover them from the backup? I can do that if necessary as I have the same folders on my Snow Leopard partition.

I would say easiest thing to do is simply copy one of those folders or items to your hard drive then look at the permissions on it. So long as the permissions look ok then you should be fine

I came here trying to figure out what "fetching" was too, and have only been completely confused by this thread.

I just moved from a SNOW machine to LION, using Migration assistant.

Previously to that a few years ago I migrated from a Leopard machine to a Snow machine.

And previous to that I also used Migration Assistant to move from a Tiger machine to Leopard...years ago.

I've never used Time Machine for anything other than a silent backup.

So rather than run in circles trying to figure out the cause - how about a simple FIX?

I have a new 2011 Mini running Lion, and every item I Get Info on says "fetching".

Is this a problem? If so - How do I correct this? Repair Permissions doesn't do it.

How about changing the top level directory/folder "Get Info" - to the right users and permissions, and then use the "Apply To All Items Enclosed" option?????

OR - Can I just create a NEW USER(admin) account - copy the files over to it - and delete the old account?

@igirl1: You said it yourself: each time that you bought a new Mac, you've used Migration Assistant to move your user account from one machine and one version of OS X to the next - all the way from Tiger to Lion.

That actually means that your user account - regarding its Time Machine backups - is in the same situation as mine - and probably as that of all other Mac users all around the world who have had their Tiger account migrated by either an upgrade of the OS and/or Migration Assistant, all the way up to Lion today.

In other words: the Time Machine (backup and) restore functionality that they should be having at their disposal, is not functioning properly. To be precise: they cannot restore a complete folder together with its contents, at least not *every* folder with its contents. They *can* restore individual files, yes, but not complete folders with their contents.

How about fixing this problem, you ask? Well, I'm afraid that is not so simple. It's up to Apple's programmers to do that. I'm hoping that they are working on it!

To answer your questions:

1. The "Fetching..." is not a problem on itself, it is a clear indication, a symptom of a serious problem in the user account's permissions and groups permissions, after a migration or upgrade from a previous OS X version (apparently originally from Tiger). And we, users, cannot correct it, as far as I know and as far as I have tried to correct it.
2. Do NOT try and change the user and group permissions of the top level directory/folder and all of the "items enclosed"! Every single file and folder residing on your hard disk has (or is supposed to have) a very cricital and precise list of user and group permissions (and some other stuff called ACL) that allows the operating system, the applications and the users and groups of users, to create, edit, copy, backup, delete, restore etc all those files in a correct way. Changing underlying permissions can really mess up things, so please do not try to follow that path. If you have messed up these permissions already, there's a solution for you: http://www.fixkb.com/2011/08/reset-home-folder-permissions.html (be sure to use the tab that says "No Disc - Lion", in your case).
3. Your final suggestion could work - but who is willing to take the risk of losing files, permissions and settings? I really don't know if all your original user's settings will be copied over, if all the permissions on folders and files will be adjusted in the right way, and if there won't be any other issue that is not easy to foresee. Before you want to try it out, you might want to read the following discussion and article: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1934031 and http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428?viewlocale=en_US

Cheers!

Folders containing files that do *not* have the "Fetching..." group in the Sharing & Permissions list of their "Get Info" window, but instead have the "wheel" group listed, will not be restored with their contents - only the empty folder itself will. Folders containing files with the "Fetching..." group listed in the "Get Info" permissions list, will be restored normally, with their contents.

I've just done some experimenting in my own system, with some interesting results. In my system the "empty-folder issue" was not new with Lion, and it did not matter whether the affected user account had been migrated from Tiger!

I have a dual-boot Lion-SL setup and each startup disk has a number of user accounts migrated from Tiger. I therefore do see the "fetching" in the group field when I am booted into Lion - I was an early responder in this thread, and I had reported this bug to Apple earlier. My "main" system however is still Snow Leopard, and my Time Machine backup volume is Snow Leopard only - I have never backed up my Lion partition with Time Machine. All that follows was done solely with a Snow Leopard boot disk and its Time Machine backup.

First, I looked for some files in my home folders that had "wheel" as the group owner - I found only one among hundreds of "normal" files that had the same primary group name as the username, as is the case for Tiger-migrated files. I don't know why you would get any files within a home folder that would have wheel as the group owner - where did yours come from?

Sure enough, though, if I restored a test folder named "Lab" from Time Machine that contained a subfolder containing a file with a group owner of wheel, then I got this warning dialogue and the restored subfolder was empty:

But again, this was a pure Snow Leopard system - no Lion, and therefore no "Fetching"!

Finally I tried the same thing with a newly created Snow Leopard user account (with primary group staff) and I got the same result - a Time Machine restored folder that contained a file with group owner "wheel" was restored as empty. So whether or not the user account originated from Tiger did not seem to matter either!

I then tried logging in as the root user, and from there entering Time Machine and restoring the same test folder to the home directories of the other users. That worked fine, as expected, and could be used as a workaround if needed. But in practice the issue would not come up in my system, because I have virtually no files in my Home folders that are of group owner "wheel".

It seems many of us has this problem...and this are the loyal ones using the Mac since Tiger.

I am of the opinion Apple should propose or implement the way to fix this issue. I left my feedback, please do the same:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

The more the better.

Today I find out that I cannot print a pdf from Finder using the Finder Commmand+P menu.

As reported in the following thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3370001

Maybe it is related to the permissions issue. Do experience the same?

I didn't know you could print a PDF directly from Finder, but when I tried it just now it worked and I did not any errors.

I think its important to understand that seeing "fetching" in Get Info is a symptom, not a unique problem in itself - it means that the system can't find an appropriate username or group name to display. There can be a number of different causes of this, some serious and some not. As mentioned, one such cause is an old Tiger account that has been migrated to Lion. In that particular case, I'm not convinced that seeing "fetching" is a sign of a serious functional problem. The files and folders themselves seem OK - when you look in Terminal, their group names are displayed correctly. The "empty folder from Time Machine" problem raised earlier in this thread did not seem related to this issue, at least not in my system.

That's a new feature.

On my MacPro shipped with Leopard and upgraded to SL and Lion I have no "fetching" permission problem as well printing from finder is fine.

The problem is on the MacBook Pro that inherited the tiger account.

The fact that you can print means that it is a different problem. I tried to clear caches, reset printing system, repairing permissions and ACL, but the error still there.

I hope 10.7.2 can fix it.

Solution found. PREVIEW is BUGGY.

The error is trigged if you choose in the preferences "Open each file in its own windows"

Glad you found it, nice detective work.

Just remember I changed it last week.

I can reporduce it also in the MacPro...Definetely a BUG.

Quick post from one those unfortunate enough to experience this "minor" with "fetching". Picked a new 15" MBP in May; just restored my 13" MBP to the 15" (via Snow) then Upgraded to Lion on the new 15" upon release. Very buggy, slow, poor battery life etc. Decided to do an up to date full back up on Sunday, to an external drive and Time Machine. Checked the drive; all files present - file size and number of files in the backup = the source (MBP Drive).

Rebooted into Disc Utility (CMD -R); first time around tried Re-Installing Lion. Rebooted hours later (forgot to make a Bootable USB); much the same. File structure identical (apps, folders etc), unfortunately still very glitchy, showing lag; overall slow performance.

Checked the backup on the external drive (to be safe); all good. Unchanged. Rebooted with CMD -R - Disc Utility

This time around followed the steps recommended by Apple for a clean install. Erased the drive with the disc utility; clean install of Lion on the Mac Hard Drive. Rebooted, got the Migration Assistant open and directed it to the backup on the external drive. Of course I missed the part about using the same User Name - as Migration wants users separate. Used a "1" behind my name and username and continued with Migrating everything over.

Hour or two later the MBP reboots. First Apps opened need to be re-liscensed / registered; surprised but continued setttings things up. A few more minutes and I realize my 90 - 95% of my Documents folder is GONE. Understanding I now had 2 users (my original user and new user1) I checked the original users Documents folder ... 2 Folders; Microsoft User Data (folder with 4 sub folders) and Parallels. That's it, nothing more.

Thinking I'd just grab the Documents folder from my external drive backup ... Open it up - NOTHING. My ENTIRE Documents folder gone. Every "Documents folder has the exact same identical folders / files (noted above). My Virtual Machine for Parallels (Windows 7.pvm) - gone ... Saved files in sub-folders of "Documents" - gone ... Searched and searched every area possible (internal and external); not a trace. Had a suggestion that possibly I had excluded "Documents" from my Backup. Pulled another external drive I have backup on from March - April this year - 100% of the Documents folder present and accounted for.

Unfortunately I read posts here after adding another user and trying to restore files (nothing) then trying to repair permissions; change "Get Info" etc ... Finally got to where most of the Apps said I had no permission to even open a program. Gave up; rebooted to CMD -R and restored a backup from last Thursday (3 days before all this). The restore cleaned up all the other mess and put me back to my original condition BUT still no Documents at all. Very VERY frustrating to say the least.

Thought I'd post and save someone else the heartache 🙂

This bug is fixed on 10.7.2?

no.

😠