rossco23

Q: OS X Lion - User preferences not saving

since upgrading to lion, my user preferences are not saving.

In Mail, I keep setting it to display classic view, but it defauls back the next time I use it.

In iTunes, it asks me to accept the T&C's everytime!

With Snow Leopard I wold have deleted the plist files, but they seem to be missingin Lion :-(

 

I wouls have thought Apple would have sorted issues like this before releasing a new OS!!

 

Any Ideas on how to resolve?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Jul 24, 2011 3:50 PM

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Q: OS X Lion - User preferences not saving

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  • by Mark23,

    Mark23 Mark23 Nov 13, 2011 7:54 AM in response to rossco23
    Level 3 (975 points)
    Nov 13, 2011 7:54 AM in response to rossco23

    No need to do a clean install or other complicated stuff. This worked for me:

     

     

    1. Open up Terminal (/Programs/Utilities/Terminal.app)

     

    2. Enter "chmod -RN ~/Library/Preferences" (without the quotation marks)

     

    3. Hit return.

     

     

    Repairing permissions doesn't seem to work for home folders...

     

    HTH

  • by shadrach343,

    shadrach343 shadrach343 Nov 13, 2011 8:14 AM in response to Mark23
    Level 1 (45 points)
    Nov 13, 2011 8:14 AM in response to Mark23

    absolutely correct.

  • by GEMMA32,

    GEMMA32 GEMMA32 Nov 14, 2011 12:52 PM in response to rossco23
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 12:52 PM in response to rossco23

    Dear Mark23,

     

    I was thrilled to see your reply and was hopeful that your suggested fix would do the trick, however, unfortunately, this terminal-related process didn't fix why none of my purchased apps won't load at each log-in, even after saving them in the list within system preferences.....I still need to manually open each through the launchpad each time - and honestly it's so annoying that plenty of times I no longer even open them - wasting my time and money in buying and downloading them.

     

    Uggh - this problem never cropped up until I upgraded to Lion OSX and I would have thought that Apple would have sent out a fix update by now.

     

    Thank you sincerely anyway,

     

    Kimberly

  • by Mark23,

    Mark23 Mark23 Nov 14, 2011 2:47 PM in response to GEMMA32
    Level 3 (975 points)
    Nov 14, 2011 2:47 PM in response to GEMMA32

    Dear Kimberly,

     

    I'm sorry to hear my solution didn't work out for you.

     

    • Have you tried opening those programs like you're used to and when the apps are displayed on your dock would you mind right clicking them, next choosing options and ultimately clicking open after login?
    • If that doesn't do anything run Disc Utility from the Utilities folder within Programs and choose repair permissions.

     

    The upgrade process from Snow Leopard to Lion wasn't a flawless one, or so I've read... It's better to have Lion installed cleanly on the long run IMHO, so that's up next:

     

    1. If that doesn't help I've found it less frustrating to whipe my hard drive altogether, given that you backed up all important stuff on something like a Time Capsule, anyway somewhere external.
    2. An update was issued by Apple some time ago adding a feature to Lion so now you can install Lion from Apple servers using the Apple ID used to purchase any copy of OS X Lion. So make sure you have that update on board before doing so. Network credentials might come in handy as well if you're on WiFi...
    3. To use this feature, you should press the alt-key before the screen lights up and hold it until you see either two hard disks or a firmware password box, in the latter case enter your firmware password and then you'll see the two hard drives. Choose the drive that says recovery. You will now be presented with four options.
    4. While you can browse the internet you'll want to choose to reinstall Lion. If you've gathered the credentials there should not be a hold up, the estimated time for the install to finish is somewhat exagerrated IMHO, so it should run pretty fast
    5. The result should be a supposedly flawless working peace of hardware that rightfully is the bearer of the Apple logo, well at least after some time of fine tuning.

     

    regards,

     

    Mark

  • by Mark23,

    Mark23 Mark23 Nov 15, 2011 1:39 AM in response to GEMMA32
    Level 3 (975 points)
    Nov 15, 2011 1:39 AM in response to GEMMA32

    By fine tuning I mean restoring your keychains from backup, opening the backup keychain and dragging it's contents to your new login keychain.

     

    After you've repaired permissions throught disc utility (spotlight search for it in the upper right corner) and you should be good to go.

     

    Apple should fix this though...