Major Permissions Issues With My Upgrade; All Resets Failing

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Level 1

4 points

Major Permissions Issues With My Upgrade; All Resets Failing

Hi all -

Around two weeks ago I decided to upgrade to Lion. I had been running the most updated version of Snow Leopard. I decided, because my old install was very crufty, to do a clean install.

I backed up my machine using Time Machine, separately backed up my critical files (Document directory, Music folder, etc) to a separate external hard drive, wiped the disk, and performed a clean install of Lion. I then pulled my folders back out of the TM backup individually so I only restored what I needed. I did not pull back my ~/Library folder - just the content.

Since then, I have been suffering from permissions issues. At first, they were mild - if I wanted to move stuff around in my home folder, for some reason it was asking me to enter in my admin password, for example. But now they are unbearable.

Every time I quit Safari it reopens with extensions gone, old sessions (from last week!) restoring. Mail reverts all of my preferences every time I close it, and now I can't change them back: if I try to turn off Junk Mail filtering, it says it can't write to the Preferences folder as such: http://i.imgur.com/hT4hp.png. I can't open some applications.

The first thing I tried was [Directory]->Get Info-> set myself as the owner to everything and active it for all enclosed folders. That didn't do anything. Neither did "Repair Permissions" in Disk Utility.

Finally, I decrypted my entire disk, booted from the recovery partition, and ran the "Reset Password" app, which is supposed to reset all permissions and ACLs. It threw the following messages/errors:

-bash-3.2# /Applications/Utilities/Reset\ Password.app/Contents/MacOS/Reset\ Password

2011-08-05 14:45:04.983 Reset Password[355:9503] Could not check in to check for terminal pokes.

2011-08-05 14:45:24.142 Reset Password[355:9503] Repair Home Directory permissions started

2011-08-05 14:49:08.441 Reset Password[355:9503] Some user permissions have been reset

2011-08-05 14:49:08.441 Reset Password[355:9503] Repair Home Directory permissions complete

2011-08-05 14:49:08.443 Reset Password[355:9503] Repair Home Directory permissions error: Permissions reset on user home directory failed.

Restart and all of the same permissions problems are still plaguing me.

Anyone have any idea what is going on? Googling around it seems like permissions issues in Lion are well-documented. I've tried all of the fixes I can find. Luckily, I still have my old SL TM backup lying around in a folder, so at the very worst I can wipe my machine and clean install SL and pull that stuff back to there, and I'll only lose a few documents. I had thought of clean installing Lion again and using the Migration Assistant to pull stuff over, but a) I don't know why that would make a difference and b) if Reset Password can't fix the ACLs and permissions I doubt Migration Assistant can.

Help, anyone?

Black Macbook, Mac OS X (10.5.2), 2.2 Ghz, 4 GB RAM.

Posted on Aug 5, 2011 3:32 PM

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Answer 1

ebinellis

Level 3

685 points

Aug 5, 2011 4:30 PM in response to PeteyWM05

Petey,

No problem with the cross=posting.

I can help you out with Terminal commands to fix your issue.

Could you give me the shortname of your user?

EE

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Answer 2

PeteyWM05 Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 5, 2011 5:16 PM in response to ebinellis

Hi -

Yes, it's chris.

thank you!

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Answer 3

ebinellis

Level 3

685 points

Aug 5, 2011 5:37 PM in response to PeteyWM05

1. You will want to boot directly into the effected user.

2. Open Terminal.

3. These commands can be copied and pasted into Terminal one at a time, and wait for the next line that ends in chris$ to indicate the process has finished and the shell is ready for the next line:

sudo chflags -R nouchg /Users/chris/

sudo chmod -R 775 /Users/chris/

sudo chmod -RN /Users/chris/

sudo chown -R chris:staff /Users/chris/

The first removed locks from all files in your home folder.

The second command will correct the permissions of all files in your home folder.

The third removes any ACLs (access Control Lists) from the files in your home folder.

The last command corrects the ownership of the files in your home folder.

4. Reboot the computer as soon as all commands are completed.

One thing about these commands: your ~/Library/ folder will not be hidden as Lion intends after running them.

If you really want it hidden you can run this command:

sudo chflags nohidden ~/Library/

Lemme know how it goes.

EE

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Answer 4

PeteyWM05 Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 7, 2011 6:51 AM in response to ebinellis

Hi ebinellis -

Just got the chance to run this after returning from travel.

Some of the permissions issues - like not being able to edit stuff in my home folder - are gone. Hooray!

A few things still remain - I can't open iWork applications anymore, and iTunes won't see/sync my AddressBook contacts/groups to my iPhone - so maybe those are different issues?

A few followup questions, if I may:

1) Are there any other normal disk maintenance things I shouldn't run now? For example, can I still safely run Repair Disk Permissions, or will that try to undo certain things done above?

2) If I'm using Dropbox to sync a folder with another machine, and I run this on both machines (with a different username on both machines), will they interact negatively in any way?

3) Because of the other issues in iWork and iTunes, I am considering backing up my (newly permissions corrected) volume, clean-installing, again, and using Setup Assistant to migrate over from the new backup. Do you think that would help fix anything yet hidden, or just be futile?

THANK YOU!

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Answer 5

ebinellis

Level 3

685 points

Aug 8, 2011 12:10 PM in response to PeteyWM05

Running a repair of Disk Permissions using Disk Utility targets the following folders on your HDD:

/Library/

/System/

/Applications/

It will not touch any of the files in your /Users/ folder, so you are fine to continue using this tool.

I don't know enough about DropBox to give you a conclusive answer on #2, but I believe it ignores permissions, in which case you will be fine.

I would test your remaining application issues in a newly created Admin user on the system to isolate the issue.

If iWork was migrated, it may have permissions issues as well, have you applied the permissions associated with your Applications folder to enclosed items yet?

1. Right Click on your /Applications/ folder in Finder.

2. Choose "Get Info"

3. Unlock the padlock in the "Sharing & Permissions" section.

4. Leave the permissions as they sit.

5. Click the gear button and choose "Apply to enclosed items"

6. Reboot and retest your issues.

Please let me know if:

A. Applying permissions to Applications resolves the issue.

B. If the issue persists in a new Admin user.

EE

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Answer 6

PeteyWM05 Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 9, 2011 7:15 PM in response to ebinellis

Thanks EE. Before I got this I AppZapped iWork and figured I'd retry installing. If I have any more issues I'll try these steps. I can't thank you enough for your help!

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Answer 7

ebinellis

Level 3

685 points

Aug 11, 2011 10:06 AM in response to PeteyWM05

It was my pleasure. Lemme know if you run into any other problems.

EE

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Answer 8

enderFP

Level 1

5 points

Sep 5, 2011 9:14 AM in response to ebinellis

Thank you so much for posting this. This cleared up issues for me as well.

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Answer 9

Sep 6, 2011 11:15 PM in response to ebinellis

Thanks ebinellis for the terminal commands and explanations for each. They cleared up an issue with Sonos update for Lion.

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Answer 10

ebinellis

Level 3

685 points

Sep 8, 2011 9:11 AM in response to Daniel Sonnenfeld

Its awesome to see this is helping multiple people!

If I was a little less busy these days I would get around to my original plan of writing some walkthroughs of common issues related to OS X.

EE

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Answer 11

Sep 12, 2011 6:44 AM in response to ebinellis

Read your profile and you are a well equipped to answer these questions. Now, I have one that has been perplexing me and has caused issues. I know how to reset the USER permissions and deal with the ACL files by booting Lion in the Recovery Mode, entering the terminal, and using the command, "resetpassword." That worked wonders. Also, v5.0 of Cocktail, brand new, is equipped to do the same thing. However, I would greatly appreciate a definitive answer, because I have not seen one to date.

1. What are the correct permissions for the internal HD? Mine are as follows:

system-read and write

wheel-read only

everyone-read only

2. What are the correct permissions for the user? Mine are as follows:

user (Me)-read and write

staff-read only

everyone-read only

Thanks!

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Answer 12

Bergrace

Level 1

5 points

Sep 15, 2011 8:51 AM in response to ebinellis

Thank you ever so much!

I was having the same "Denied Permission" and "Need To Authenticate" problems relating to my Downloads folder ++ I ran your commands in Terminal and now everything seems to be back to normal.

Well, exept for my CPU fan spinning up 2100rpm(iStat Pro) as I type this??

It has never done that before..

Thanx.

P.J. Berg

Edit:

The fan calmed down again after a few minutes.

Message was edited by: Bergrace

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Answer 13

Oct 24, 2011 12:19 PM in response to ebinellis

Thank you! You were also able ot cure my permission ills! I thought that I was going to have proceed with a clean install! 😠

Thanks again. Cheers!

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Answer 14

auralwiz

Level 1

5 points

Nov 25, 2011 2:01 PM in response to ebinellis

Help! I tried these commands (substituded my name instead of chris) and now my mac will not respond to keyboard inputs or mouse clicks. it boots up and the mouse moves and thats it. I tried booting with the shift key and had the same results.

I just spent 60 hours upgrading and installing all my software.

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Answer 15

auralwiz

Level 1

5 points

Nov 25, 2011 2:03 PM in response to auralwiz

btw I wanted to add that as I went through the terminal command steps the third step:

sudo chmod -RN /Users/michaelortega/

reported a fail.

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