Lion not saving system preferences on restart

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Level 1

10 points

Lion not saving system preferences on restart

I'm using Lion on a new Macbook Air where it came pre-installed. I just updated to 10.7.2 and Lion is no longer saving my mouse and keyboard settings.

I have "Scroll direction: natural" unchecked but when I restart my Mac natural scrolling is enabled. When I open up Trackpad settings the setting is unchecked by I have to re-check and then uncheck this setting to turn off natural scrolling.

I have custom modifier key settings (General Settings -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys) where I swap Command and Control. My modifier key settings are now getting reset to the default every time I restart my computer.

Any ideas on how to fix this? I've tried calling Apple Support but they are no help.

Posted on Oct 15, 2011 3:35 PM

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Answer 1

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Oct 15, 2011 11:59 PM in response to chris0047

Create a new admin user account, log into it, save the settings, log out and back in, and see it the initial problem persists.

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Answer 2

softwater

Level 5

5,556 points

Oct 16, 2011 12:05 AM in response to chris0047

Make sure the systemprefs plist file is not locked. If it is, unlock it. If it isn't, delete it then restart.

To find the file

1. Make Finder active. Choose 'Go' from the menu bar, hold down the option key.

2. Choose Library (you must have the 'option' key held down).

3. Go to Preferences > com.apple.systemprefereces.plist

4. Right-click (or hit 'cmd-i' on the keyboard) and choose 'Get Info'. If the 'Locked' option is ticked, untick it. Then Restart. If the 'Locked' option is not ticked, close the dialogue, remove the file to trash. Restart.

5. What happens now is that system will restart at default system prefs. However, it should now save your new settings. To test it, just set one of the setting that you know didn't 'stick before', then restart and see if all is good.

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Answer 3

chris0047 Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 17, 2011 12:06 AM in response to softwater

Thank you for the reply. The file was not locked. I also tried creating a new admin account and couldn't replicate the problem on the new admin account. What's strange is that the problem is hard to debug because it is not consistent. Sometimes my computer will start with the correct perferences and other types it will reset to defaults. Could there be something wrong with my user account?

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Answer 4

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Oct 17, 2011 11:17 AM in response to chris0047

Since the issue is specific to your original user account, you can proceed in two ways. One is to log into your new account, make a list of the preference files (plists) located in /username/Library/Preferences/, including any in the ByHost subfolder, log back into the original account, move everything on that other account's list from the original account's Preferences folder into a newly created folder on the Desktop, log out and back in, and see if the problem goes away. If so, you can copy the ones in the Desktop folder (one at time) back into /Preferences/, restart, and see if the problem returns. If so, you've identified the corrupt/conflicting one. Continue with all of them until isolating the bad ones. That'll save you the trouble of resetting preferences.

The second way is much more detailed and I'll not burden you with the steps unless the above doesn't fix the issue.

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Answer 5

chris0047 Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 17, 2011 2:02 PM in response to chris0047

I tried what you had suggested before posting even just deleting all the perferences but the problem still persists. I also have other odd settings that won't save like the trackpad with/without inertia setting.

I think it may be related to something else. I use my Macbook Air with an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I just had this happen again when I disconnected my laptop from everything and then reconnected it back. It seems this problem may be related to connecting and disconnecting external perpherials?

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