Lion Permissions Problem

I may have some good news but I need some brave souls to test it out. I have run these commands and haven't had a single problem since! The first command removes all ACLs from files in the home directory: chmod -R -N ~ This command puts the necessary ACLs back where they belong: chmod +a "everyone deny delete" ~/ ~/Desktop ~/Documents ~/Downloads ~/Library ~/Movies ~/Music ~/Pictures ~/Public That's it. My problems disappeared. If this doesn't work or you are afraid of Terminal, I also ran across this in all my searching: http://www.fixkb.com/2011/08/reset-home-folder-permissions.html Let me know if this works for you as well and if so, spread the good word!

Great! That saved us from re-installing the OS the 2nd time round!

Look, I have discovered something that is easy and helpful. As we all know, the Lion installation DVD does not directly have a utility to reset the password and clean out these pesky ACL files and correct home folder permissions. This is one of the things that have put people in a panic, including me, and I don't know UNIX. So, I was tenacious in my search for an answer and discovered something.

1. Hold down Command-R while rebooting under Lion.

2. You will have option to open the Terminal from the Utilities Menu. Do it.

3. Once in the Terminal window, type the following command: resetpassword

4. The will launch a graphic interface password utility which makes life easy.

5. In the top box, be certain that your HD is selected.

6. Be certain that "YOU" are selected as the user.

7. Then type in your new password. ( I used the same password.)

8. Then you have to verify it. ( Again, I used the same password."

9. Type in your hint.

10. Now, before saving, I elected to DELETE ACLs and return the home folder to its original state. The check box at the bottom will be obvious. You cannot miss it.

11. Finally, I used the SAVE function to reset the password and a message will appear.

12. Finally, quit out and select a startup disk.

I am all for a simple approach. This one, and I cannot take credit for it, is the easiest and most user friendly that I've seen. I'm one who gets concerned about typing code in the terminal, but I certainly was able to type "reset password" and hit ENTER. If you haven't do that phase correctly, then you simply will not launch into the graphic interface password utility. Also, I find this to be one of the most foolproof methods for the timid.

So im having a problem with the "custom" permissions...i have my pictures folder shared and I want the owner (me) and "everyone" to be able to read/write...but when I import new pics, they default to read only and when I try and apply the folder permissions to the enclosed items i now have two lines for "everyone", one that says W/R and one that says "custom". As you can imagine that is f'ing everything up! lol

Can you tell me the path to type for the chmod -r -n command please. I am not familiar with the mac format for directories.

Also is there a way to set default permissions for all new imported pics to be w/r for everyone or do i have to change each pic as i import it?

Just like someone else earlier in the thread, I'm having the exact same issue. Permissions are all screwed up. Machine wouldn't start, you name it. After two erase and installs and manually pulling data from a TM backup, it's starting. The first command returned en error but the second one fixed the permission issue. That was only 5 minutes ago, so God knows what I'll wake up to in the morning. Thanks for the help!!

Mac pro 2.66 Quad, 5Gb RAM, 10.7.1, 4TB

I so wish I'd read this thread an hour ago.

Same problem. Borked permissions, starting with iTunes and spreading system wide. I found a solution for iTunes, started to use that elsewhere.

[sudo chown -R [username]:staff /path] or something similar

today, stupidly, without checking what damage it could do, I tried to fix my primary HD with the same fix. My HD is now dead.

I am amazingly ****** off. Not only that Apple have injected a bug this *stupid* and severe into their new OS, but that I was dumb enough to try a Terminal hack I didn't understand.

It is extremely fortunate that I have a functioning backup [still in Snow Leopard] and can try to get everything working again. If I'm /incredibly/ lucky I may get my primary HD working again - it contains 5 years of photos and all my music.

otherwise : Apple, do not ever do this again. Subjecting your users to this is shocking in the extreme, and totally ****** unneccesary. Even posting a warning, when you have this many users complaining about it, would have been something. Utter bs.

[and relax]

further development:

The backup firewire drive worked perfectly, and is now also upgraded to Lion. More importantly, the [cmd+R] boot worked. I didn't think it would. I managed to repair the primary HD permissions there, and rebooted into it.

my username was then available in Get Info, which I switched to Read & Write, then applied that system wide.

my Mac is now functioning again. Rather joyously, this also got iCloud working.

it remains to be seen whether this will hold out. I'm still hugely impressed with pretty much all of the new Lion features - the entire OS just works and feels far better, to the extent that it feels like a new machine.

this bug, however, will hurt Apple. It makes an otherwise superb experience very, very nasty. It turns a useful feature into a colossal pain, and makes the user feel like they've lost control. If I wanted that I'd use Vista.

Sort this out, and Lion will easily be the best OS out there.

cgDesign's terminal command tip seems to have done the trick for me. I did get an error with the first line of it - something along the lines of ubiquitous security error,

However the second line ran without error. I then rebooted, made changes to the user's settings - including adding items to dock, making scrollbars always visible, etc. Then I restarted the system again. This time, the changes made were still intact.

Thanks for posting that cg. Hopefully Apple will correct this in the release of Mountain Lion (my prediction). Much like Microsoft quickly forgot about Vista and went with Windows 7 all the way.

cgDesign's solution worked for me. I recieved the following three messages on the first command

chmod: Failed to clear ACL on file Commands: Invalid argument

chmod: Failed to clear ACL on file Notification: Invalid argument

chmod: Failed to clear ACL on file ubiquity.socket: Invalid argument

But it finished after a minute or so, and the second command worked with no problem.

After that, I restarted and it fixed two very annoying Lion issues I was having: no saving of system preferences on restart, and not being able to change the applications starting up at login through "resume" (It had been starting up the same programs at every login, regardless of the state of my computer at the previous logout). I was ready to reinstall Snow Leopard, since this was ruining all of the other Lion features for me.

Unfortunately, some of you are still doing this the hard way. I have offered two solutions that work.

1. Boot from the Lion backup partition and enter the terminal mode. Type "resetpassword". You just type in the password you've been using; however, you have the option to clear the ACL files and reset them to what they're designed to be.

2. Buy Cocktail. it will do the same thing specifically with the Disks options on the fly.

Paul Klenk wrote:

Unfortunately, some of you are still doing this the hard way.

I disagree. Using terminal didn't require a re-boot or paying money to fix an OS bug that shouldn't be there in the first place. It may be more dangerous for unwary users, but it is certainly not harder.

You may certainly disagree, but you're closing the door of options for a substantial number of people who:

1. Cannot identify the terminal;

2. Do not have the slightest idea how to use it; and

3. Are fearful of the potential consequences and rightly so.

Your are critical of me because I suggest a commercial program and that is totally without merit. There are those who would rather use it because of its simplicity.

Second, my FIRST suggestion was using the Lion partition and entering minor information in the terminal such as "resetpassword."

So, let's think outside of the envelope and realize that there are novices using the forums. They may be petrified at the thought of entering terminal command.

Are we not here to serve all users of different capabilities?

Paul Klenk wrote:

You may certainly disagree, but you're closing the door of options for a substantial number of people who:

1. Cannot identify the terminal;

2. Do not have the slightest idea how to use it; and

3. Are fearful of the potential consequences and rightly so.

Your are critical of me because I suggest a commercial program and that is totally without merit. There are those who would rather use it because of its simplicity.

Second, my FIRST suggestion was using the Lion partition and entering minor information in the terminal such as "resetpassword."

So, let's think outside of the envelope and realize that there are novices using the forums. They may be petrified at the thought of entering terminal command.

Are we not here to serve all users of different capabilities?

Sure we are. cgDesign's solution fit my skillset. To be clear, I was neither being critical of you nor "closing the door" for others. I was pointing out that cgDesign's solution was both easy and free and responding to your statement that I was doing things "the hard way".

If you understand the potential pitfalls of cgDesign's method, I would be interested to hear what those are (other than the generic "you might brick your computer if you use terminal" warning). I don't personally understand all of them, but I have used Terminal without dire consequences for quite some time. I find that these fora have been very instructional on some nice tricks for which Terminal works nicely.

For less experienced terminal users, these are more explicit instructions to follow cgDesign's method from page 1:

Step 0:

Be sure to complete ALL steps

Step 1:

Open the application Terminal.app (Utilities folder inside of your applications folder)

Step 2:

when the prompt comes up, on the line that ends in "$", paste in (exactly)

chmod -R -N ~

and hit the enter key on your keyboard, and wait a couple of minutes for this to complete. You may see several messages regarding invalid arguments - these are OK.

Step 3:

When the prompt ending in "$" returns, paste in (exactly)

chmod +a "everyone deny delete" ~/ ~/Desktop ~/Documents ~/Downloads ~/Library ~/Movies ~/Music ~/Pictures ~/Public

When the prompt ending in "$" returns, you have completed all steps. You can quit Terminal.app.

albertodoped´s / cgDesign´s method does work. I´m the living proof that a "total Terminal idiot" can restore control over his files with these two commands. Though I had nothing to lose since I was sufficiently backed up.

thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to albertodoped & cgDesign.

the terminal chmod solution worked like a CHARM, and put a quick end to a very frustrating permissions issue before i wasted too much time on it.

i'm no terminal whiz, but your instructions were very straightforward.

i would buy you both a beer if you were here in the USVI!

I've been struggling with this imac for 3 days trying everything to get permissions back. Even though when I went into terminal and copied your suggestioin, I got permission denied. But it worked anyhow..Thanks a bunch as it saved me carrying it off to the genius bar. Hey>>home of the brave..lol