Time Machine permissions problem after clean install of ML

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Time Machine permissions problem after clean install of ML

Hello everyone, I hope you might help me with this one. As the title says, I'm having a few issues restoring my Music folder from Time Machine after doing a clean installation of Mountain Lion. To be precise, there are a few folders in Time Machine I cannot access because "[I] don’t have permission to see its contents". For example, if I try to restore the Music folder, first Finder prompts me to insert an admin password, and then when the folder is restored, the permissions are set on reading only in the folder and all its subfolders.

Here's a few details of my mess-up you might find useful.

- Today I replaced my 500gb hdd with a 240gb ssd on my late-2008 Macbook unibody with Mountain Lion.

- While doing this, I put the 500gb in a hd caddy, replacing the superdrive. After doing it without having any hardware problems whatsoever, I did a clean re-installation of Mountain Lion.

- Afterwards I used the Migration Assistant to restore my previous configuration and folders, except for two (the Music one and another one) which wouldn't fit in the ssd (I planned to put them in the 500gb drive).

- The migration was done, and I tried to restore those two folders in the second drive through Time Machine. That's when I found out about the permissions problem.

Also, here's what I get if I digit "ls -alOe /Volumes" and "id" in the terminal.

drwxrwxrwt@  8 root   admin  hidden  272 10 Aug 22:14 .
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,add_subdirectory,directory_inherit,only_inherit
drwxr-xr-x  38 root   wheel  -      1360 10 Aug 21:44 ..
drwxr-xr-x+  7 Privi  staff  -       544 10 Aug 17:57 DELOREAN II
 0: group:admin allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwxrwxr-x   8 root   admin  -       340 10 Aug 21:44 LABRADOR
drwxrwxrwx   0 root   wheel  -         0 10 Aug 22:26 MobileBackups
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root   admin  -         1 10 Aug 21:43 ONTARIO -> /
drwxrwxr-x   8 root   admin  -       340 10 Aug 21:44 QUEBEC
drwxrwxr-x@ 61 Privi  staff  -      2346 10 Aug 19:24 Tubo Catodico

uid=503(Privi) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),12(everyone),33(_appstore),61(localaccounts),79(_appserverusr),80(admin),81(_appserveradm),98(_lpadmin),100(_lpoperator),204(_developer),103(com.apple.access_screensharing-disabled),401(com.apple.access_screensharing)

How do I solve this?

Thanks in advance for your help, and sorry for the poor grammar (I'm not an English native speaker).

MacBook, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 10, 2012 2:00 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Aug 10, 2012 2:31 PM in response to Stumerabe

The procedure below will reset the permissions of a home folder in OS X 10.7.4 or later. If you're running an earlier version of 10.7, update to the latest version first. This procedure should not be used in OS X versions older than 10.7.4.

Back up all data before you begin.

Step 1

Click the Finder icon in the Dock. A Finder window will open.

Step 2

Press the following key combinations, in the order given:

Command-3
Shift-command-H
Command-I (The letter "I" as in "Info.")

The Info window of your home folder will open.

Step 3

Click the lock icon in the lower right corner and authenticate with the name and login password of an administrator on the system. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Step 4

In the Sharing & Permissions section of the window, verify that you have "Read & Write" privileges. If not, use the "+" and "-" buttons in the lower left corner to make the necessary changes.

Step 5

By default, the groups "staff" and "everyone" have "Read Only" privileges. With those settings, the files at the top level of your home folder will be readable by other local users. You can change the privileges to "No Access" if you wish, but then your Public and Drop Box folders will be inaccessible to others. Most likely, you don't need to change these settings.

Step 6

If there are entries in the Sharing & Permissions list for users or groups other than "me," "staff," and "everyone," delete them.

Step 7

Click the gear icon at the bottom of the Info window and select Apply to enclosed items... from the drop-down menu. Confirm. The operation may take several minutes to complete. When it does, close the Info window.

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Answer 2

Stumerabe Author

Level 1

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Aug 10, 2012 2:33 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you for the quick reply. Unfortunately, I'm running Mountain Lion right now. Is there any similar procedure for OSX 10.8?

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Aug 10, 2012 2:52 PM in response to Stumerabe

As I wrote above, the procedure works in 10.7.4 or later.

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Answer 4

Stumerabe Author

Level 1

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Aug 10, 2012 3:13 PM in response to Linc Davis

Whops, my bad! Well, I tried that, but Time Machine still gives me the same problems as before.

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Answer 5

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Aug 10, 2012 4:07 PM in response to Stumerabe

You haven't fixed the permissions of the backed-up files. You can't. What you can do, and have done, is to fix the permissions of the restored files in your home folder. If you restored again, you have to fix them again.

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Answer 6

FineWine

Level 1

48 points

Nov 21, 2012 10:57 PM in response to Linc Davis

God I wish I new this yesterday as I had the same problem after a complete erase and clean install without using Migration Assistant. I did it this way as my venerable iMac 7.1 (2007) has only every had upgrades since Leopard to Mountain Lion and I have installed and un-installed tons of programs since purchase and I was starting to see to many beach balls etc. But when it came to restoring my Documents Folder from TM plus three very important Application Support folders plus a Temp folder holding my Mail backup, (and these were the only Folders/Files I wanted of TM), I also discovered these permissions problems. I also had changed both my Full Name and Short Name and the name of the HD from their original retail presale shop setup. It took me a couple hours to figure out what you explained above.

I believe this is very poor design on Apples part. Peoples restoration scenarios are all different so why should all the permissions be locked/changed.

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