System and Finder Preferences not saving

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

Create a new User go to System Preferences > Accounts > "+" (make it an admin acct) and test the preferences in this new account, if they work the problem is isolated to your User and not systemwide.

It does not sound like a permissions issue and even if it was, running Repair Permissions touches nothing within your Home folder.

Well, it is not a clean install of Snow Leopard, but what I did or seem to have found is that if I do a clean install of Lion and do not use the Snow Leopard preferences from the Time Machine Backup I have I do not have a problem. I have tried several ways to fix this and the only thing that worked for ME is a complete clean install OS and apps.

Willy

I have found a solution. This worked for me:

1) Create a new user account. Make sure it has a desireable name, otherwise you're going to want to change it later, and that will cause permission issues. (check if preferences are saving in this temporary new account, if not, I can't help you.)

2) Transfer all the files you want to keep by putting them in the SHARED folder.

3) Change permissions to the folders and files in your shared folder by right clicking and clicking on GET INFO. Then go to the very bottom of the popup menu and unlock the picture of the lock. Next change permissions so that your new account will have permission to view the files. You might have to add your new account to the list by pressing the plus button, or simply allow staff the read and right, or just let everyone read and right. Next click on the gear menu (the one with the little gear on it.) and click on APPLY TO ENCLOSED ITEMS.

4) Go to your new user account and take the things in the shared folder and put them where you had them in your older account.

Now you have a new user with the files you want, the permissions right, and preferences will save!

I really really really hope this works for you. I know how extremely frustrating it was. It worked for me, and I am so relieved now.

I had two problems when I first upgraded to Lion -

1 - Finder would not remember my preferences. I wanted to remove the 'All my files' link from the sidebar and add 'HD Drive' to the sidebar. This can easily be done in the preferences pane of finder. However whenever I would log out or restart my mac it would forget my saved preferences and revert back.

2 - I previously had 'Spaces' on my dock, however now, because of launchpad, the spaces icon was made redundant and would show up as a grey question mark. As above, I would remove this icon but whenever I logged out or restarted the icon would be back as if I hadn't done anything! Rather annoying.

To resolve this issue I did the following -

For problem number 1 -

- Open a new finder window.

- Click on 'Go' in the finder bar. Hold down the 'alt/option' button.

- 'Library' will appear. Click on that.

- Go to the 'Preferences' folder and look for 'com.apple.sidebarlists.plist'.

- Move this file to the Trash.

- Change your preferences, and log out/back in again. It will now save correctly.

For the Dock issue, do the same as above however this time you are looking for 'com.apple.dock.plist'. Delete this file and your dock issues will be sorted!

Hope thats some help.

As for the system preferences issues try deleting 'com.apple.systempreferences.plist'. If your worried about screwing up your mac then you can just send the file to the trash, restart you computer, if everything works fine, empty the trash, if it doesn't work then just restore the .plist file to its orignal location.

BatChmod worked for me, thanks Kwik!!! I haven't had mail on my big mac for over a week coz mail would never save my password, then finally realised it appeared to be a problem with saving to prefrences and their privileges, so eventually ended up here! I was pretty close to a fresh install too, so thanks for posting this!

This is a joke. My system is ruined. I've spent days trying to get to a working system again. Re-install os - no way!!! That's why I bought a mac, but LION IS A MESS APPLE!!!

I'll have to wait for the patch to be released to sort out all the BUGS and in the meantime implement all the workarounds that the net is full of because of people trying to deal with this os.

Actually I might try that download... I'll get back to you on it....

Batchmod fixed the problem - thanks Joe. Looks like we need to be unix admins with mac os nowadays.

I'm also considering reinstalling with snow leopard and having a clean system, but this might be difficult with iphoto, itunes etc..

bigrich18, thanks. Trashing Finder preferences worked for me. In addition to com.apple.sidebarlists.plist, I also trashed com.apple.finder.plist. Rebooted and now it remembers the default folder I'd chosen as well as the other finder preference settings.

Here's a slightly more detailed step-by-step process I found:

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/finder.html

Hi all,

Just posting my solution to the problem - our biggest concern was that all our applications kept opening on start-up and they seemed to be stuck from the day that we upgraded to Lion (the iTunes user agreement would keep appearing, iPhoto would keep telling us to upgrade, Firefox was showing the "Well this is embarrassing" page, etc)

The problem was that the system preferences weren't saving so we couldn't keep the "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps" unchecked. Tried all the solutions here, nothing worked, including trashing the com.apple.systempreferences.plist. However, it WAS working on a different account on the computer, so we were almost resigned to moving everything across to a new account and starting again.

Finally I decided just to trash the com.apple.iPhoto.plist & restarted the computer to see if that would fix it for iPhoto specfically and for some reason that completely fixed the problem. No more issues with System Prefs not saving and all applications are staying closed on start up. Currently having celebratory drinks as it has been a major problem for us ever since upgrading!

Hope this solution can be used for anyone who is still having problems with this. My guess would be, try trashing the plist file for any application that is continuing to open on startup.

- Monica & Aaron

Hi bigrich18,

this seems to work for me too. In my case iMail and Safari and keychain did not save there values.

I stop the programs, deleted the com.apple.xxx.plist and .lockfile then logged out and in again (important as it did not work, only deleting the files)

Now email, safari and keychain work again.

I hope I don't have to do that with all programms!!!

Regards

Alex