_unknown user and no permission to access files

Question

_unknown user and no permission to access files

So about 6 months ago I cahnged jobs and created a new user id so I have a home and a work id. I think I changed the main id when I did that. Then, about 3 months ago I upgraded the hard drive in my mac book pro so I would have more space. Took it to Springboard Media in PA (recommended by the Apple store). Paid for the back up. They did the upgrade and promised that I wouldn't notice any difference - I would be able to pick up working where I left off. That was sort of true. There were apps I had to re-register and photos for Elements that I needed to reidentify where they sat, etc. Small problems. Went to pull some pictures offan external HD that I have (not time machine, just drag and drop files moved off the macbook's HD) - for the first time since the upgrade - but I am now being told that I don't have permission to view the files. The permissions show that _unknow is the user with permission to access.

I am literate enough to have read related posts and think it has to do with either the change in user ids or the hard drive upgrade, or both. But, I admit to not understanding enough to understand what solution might apply to me, and how to apply it. Any help - in simplier, dumbed down computer speak - would be appreciated.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Posted on Jul 23, 2012 2:04 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jul 23, 2012 2:35 PM in response to KarateTiggerGirl

The problem occurs because the files on your external drive were saved under a different user name than the one you are now using.

If all you have on your external drive are file backups, then see the following:

Transferring files from one User Account to another

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Answer 2

Jul 23, 2012 2:51 PM in response to Kappy

I kinda knew that it was a user issue as I said that in my post. The answer you provided says " If both accounts have data for the same application, it will be very difficult or impossible to merge them by copying files & folders." and that's not exactly a good answer. I tried to copy folders from the drive but it still didn't work!

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jul 23, 2012 3:01 PM in response to KarateTiggerGirl

That's because there isn't really a "good" answer. If you have all the files in a single folder then you can copy over the folder then change permissions using the Terminal's 'chown' command:

sudo chown -R user_name:staff "/path_to_folder/folder_name"

Press RETURN. Enter admin password as prompted. It will not be echoed. Press RETURN again. Instead of entering the path and folder by hand just drag the folder of files to the space after the word "staff." Be sure to put a space after the word "staff."

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Answer 4

Jul 24, 2012 7:13 AM in response to Kappy

I got an "Invalid argument" response...

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Answer 5

Jul 24, 2012 11:43 AM in response to KarateTiggerGirl

So, the permission issue is with the external hard drive and not your home folder. The process will take a few post to gather some information about your file system and the permissions set. First copy and paste the following command into the Terminal.app and post back the command the text it produces ->

mount

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Answer 6

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jul 24, 2012 1:34 PM in response to KarateTiggerGirl

Try without "staff" - user_name: - and be sure you are entering the line correctly. Watch for spaces between command parameters. There should be a space after user_name:. Drag your folder into the Terminal window instead of typing in the information. Also, you may not need the command, sudo. If you still have a problem then try it without the leading sudo.

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Answer 7

Aug 8, 2012 8:41 AM in response to Mark Jalbert

/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)

devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)

map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)

map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)

//kwinsko@berwyn2/kwinsko$ on /Volumes/kwinsko$ (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by Kristen)

//kwinsko@berwyn2/documents on /Volumes/documents (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by Kristen)

kristen-winskos-computer:~ Kristen$

While I don't understand much of what appears there, I do know that the two //kwinsko@berwyn2 lines reference the drives mounted because I am at work. They only mount when I am plugged, via ethernet cable, into the network here at work. I should also note, that at the moment I do not have the external HD plugged in - as I left it at home. If I need to redo this step with that plugged in, just let me know. Thanks!

Any help would be appreciated. I am still struggling with this and now have my OS operating system upgrade waiting on the fix (since I don't want to do that without making sure I can access these files and then back them all up!)

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Answer 8

Aug 8, 2012 9:17 AM in response to KarateTiggerGirl

Yes, you need to have the external drive plugged in then issue the command- mount.

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Answer 9

Aug 9, 2012 6:18 AM in response to Mark Jalbert

ok... now I have the backup plugged in. Here's what I get (again, I know the @berwyn2 paths belong to the network here at work that I am plugged into. I can unplug from those at any time if I will need to in order to fix things!)

/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)

devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)

map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)

map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)

//kwinsko@berwyn2/kwinsko$ on /Volumes/kwinsko$ (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by Kristen)

//kwinsko@berwyn2/documents on /Volumes/documents (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by Kristen)

/dev/disk1s10 on /Volumes/My Book (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled)

/dev/disk2s0s2 on /Volumes/WD SmartWare (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, read-only, noowners)

kristen-winskos-computer:~ Kristen$

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Answer 10

Aug 9, 2012 7:20 AM in response to KarateTiggerGirl

Kristen,

I'll briefly explain what this means so far.

/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)

This is you boot drive.

//kwinsko@berwyn2........
//kwinsko@berwyn2........

These are samba network shares.

/dev/disk1s10 on /Volumes/My Book (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled)

This is the partition on your external drive that's giving you permission problems.

/dev/disk2s0s2 on /Volumes/WD SmartWare......

Western Digital partition voodoo.

So, /Volumes/My Book is a HFS+ jounaled filesystem with owners enabled. Let's have a quick look inside /Volumes/My Book. I need your user id expressed in numeric form. Copy and paste the following command into the Terminal.app

id -u

And then

ls -aln /Volumes/My\ Book | head -15

Post back the commands and the text produced. We are almost there!

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Answer 11

Aug 9, 2012 7:29 AM in response to Mark Jalbert

First - let me say "THANKS" for this help, and the last explination. I follow so far - and that's saying something!

ok, so the id -u command gave me this:

503

and the other longer one gave me this

total 11681432

drwxr-xr-x 94 503 503 3264 Apr 2 07:22 .

drwxrwxrwt@ 7 0 80 238 Aug 9 09:12 ..

-rw-r--r--@ 1 503 503 67588 Jul 11 12:51 .DS_Store

drw-------@ 3 503 503 102 Mar 30 2010 .Spotlight-V100

drwxrwxrwt@ 3 501 501 102 Jan 7 2011 .TemporaryItems

d-wx-wx-wt 3 503 503 102 Jul 11 13:41 .Trashes

-rw-r--r--@ 1 503 503 0 Mar 30 2010 .com.apple.timemachine.donotpresent

drwx------ 47 503 503 1598 Aug 9 10:17 .fseventsd

-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 501 3848320 Nov 19 2010 04. Thousand Foot Krutch - Heat Miser.mp3

drwxrwxrwx 4 501 501 136 Mar 5 12:48 2007

drwxrwxrwx 4 501 501 136 Mar 31 17:39 2007a

drwxrwxrwx 4 501 501 136 Jul 10 11:24 2008

-rwxrwxrwx 1 501 501 383255 Mar 24 2010 2008 Winsko B Form 1040 Individual Tax Return REVISED 2010.pdf

-rwxrwxrwx 1 501 501 387064 Mar 24 2010 2008 with bad golden para number.pdf

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Answer 12

Aug 9, 2012 7:40 AM in response to KarateTiggerGirl

Ok, you have used sudo so I don't need to explain the process. We'll use a command similar to Kappy's suggestion. Copy the command and paste it into the Terminal.app ->

sudo chown -RP `id -un`:`id -gn` /Volumes/My\ Book

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Answer 13

Aug 9, 2012 7:48 AM in response to Mark Jalbert

I am watching it go through a bunch of things... noting that the end for each line (which looks to me like each file? on the frive) says "operation not permitted" but it still isn't finished...

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Answer 14

Aug 9, 2012 7:59 AM in response to KarateTiggerGirl

OK, let it finish. There's a or multiple fileflags (locks) set on the hard drive. I'm off to a meeting for a few hours.

When it finishes use the following command and post back the results. Someone else may pop in with an answer.

sudo ls -alnO /Volumes/My\ Book

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Answer 15

Aug 9, 2012 11:19 AM in response to Mark Jalbert

I admit, all these hours later, that I am a little worried that is is still running, and therefore I have not had the chance to try the latest suggestion. I will either wait for it to finish, or will have to shut it down (can I just close the terminal window?) if I hit the end of the work day, since I have to take the machine home with me...

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