Lion changing permissions on external hard drive & consequent Sonos issues

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Lion changing permissions on external hard drive & consequent Sonos issues

Since I moved to Lion the permissions do not work properly on my external hard drive. If I plug my hard drive directly to my computer the permissions appear as normal with my user name being at the top of the list and having read & write access. However if I plug the hard drive into my Airport Extreme under Sharing and Permissions it says "You have custom access" and the first name on the list is (unknown) although "staff" and "everyone" remain the same. I cannot access the external hard drive through Disk Utility either, though I can if I plug it in directly.

The effect of this change is that, although I can access the hard drive through my two computers on the network when it is plugged into the Airport Extreme, I cannot access my music on the hard drive as I cannot set up a shared drive with Sonos.

The above problems are both new since I installed Lion, I have been using an external hard drive on the Airport Extreme for 5 years as the server for my Sonos system. I haven't changed anything else. I reformatted the hard drive, erasing everything, it worked for a few days then the permissions changed again.

Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jun 5, 2012 2:23 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 9, 2012 9:25 AM in response to JCShearer

I too have a very similar problem, only since installing lion. I have two external drives, both with with 4 partitions connected through a USB hub. One partition, which I use for Retrospect, fails to function, (Retrospect says it is locked) after a few backups. When I check permissions a new character has appeared called staff, which is read only. Sometimes it takes two or three attempts to either set staff to read and write or remove it. Then, combined with a restart, I am able to successfully run a retrospect backup. So far the most backups which occur on schedule are 2 in a row and when I check, a new guy has popped up in the permissions (staff or as i recall custom showed up once). Terminal gives me this response:

[Bills-Computer:/Volumes] bill% cd /Volumes

[Bills-Computer:/Volumes] bill% ls -go

total 8

drwxrwxr-x@ 13 510 May 29 22:19 FuzionXP

lrwxr-xr-x 1 1 Jun 9 11:13 Imac Main HD -> /

drwxr-xr-x@ 57 2006 May 24 03:37 LionKlone

drwx---rwx@ 21 782 Jun 9 11:31 Retrospect

drwxrwxr-t@ 58 2040 May 22 14:52 SnowDrive

drwxrwxr-x@ 50 1768 May 24 06:41 SnowKlone

drwxrwxr-x@ 14 544 May 29 22:19 Time Machine

drwxr-xr-x@ 31 1122 Feb 4 20:57 Tunes_Photos

drwxr-xr-x 13 510 May 11 14:29 Winclone

Any suggestions how I can set and stabilize the permissions on this external drive so I can count on a Retrospect backup would be appreciated.

24" iMac 2.4 Ghz (mid 2007, new motherboard 2009), 4 GB mem, Lion 10.7.4

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Answer 2

PBHughes

Level 1

0 points

Aug 15, 2012 11:34 AM in response to Bill Mullen1

I have the same issue with 10.6.8, Snow Leopard. It is maddening. I can get it to work, then after a program like iMovie or Premiere Elements uses it, the program cannot access it. I have to unplug the drive, restart the program and use it. After I sart a project, make the video and try to save the project, it says it cannot write to the same drive it just saved the video to. I have to unplug the drive, shut down the program and start over. Thus means I lose the project unless I save to the local drive, which I do not want to do. I obviously save it if I have to, but have to then copy it to the external drive. This has to have been done during some security "upgrade." Between this and the fact they broke iMovie in an "upgrade" causing the output to DVD to be of very poor quality, I may have to return to Windows. I loved my Mac fromt eh moment I bought it until they began updating and breaking things. They took a wonderful system and ruined it.

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