Wrong Access Rights, unable to repair

Question

Wrong Access Rights, unable to repair

Since a larger update (Lion 10.7.5 on my Mac-Mini) including parts of OS X itself and iTunes 10.7 I think I have access problems.

I observe the following behavior:

* iTunes:

Every time I start iTunes I have to accept the license agreement again.

* Mail:

When I open the preferences page and then press the red “close” button an error window pops up that states something like “Error storing preferences” (I have a german language OS), probably wrong access rights in ~/Library/Preferences“.

* When moving files from one folder to the other (using the finder) in my home directory tree the systems copies instead of moving ( unix mv ).

* I cannot install the “adblock plus” add-on in Firefox (also because of wrong access rights in the profile folder).

* StandBy does not work any more.

I tried already the following remedies all without success:

* I repaired the access rights using disk-utility. But I think that changes nothing, cause it seems to repair the same errors each time I start it.

* I also reset the access rights of my home folder using “resetpassword” after restart also without any change in the wrong behavior.

* I used applejack.

I'm stuck!

Mac mini (Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Oct 13, 2012 7:53 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Oct 13, 2012 4:29 PM in response to Achim Schroeer

Step one is to create a new admin user account, log into it, and see if the problem persists.

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Answer 2

Oct 14, 2012 3:46 AM in response to baltwo

Hello,

thanks for the hint. It did not solve my problem, but it gave me an idea of the cause.

I think, user "system" or "admin" was missing to have rw-access in the home dir, in detail:

The newly created user, although of being an admin, had no rights. He could not start mail and system preferences. So I looked at the access rights in his home directory and realized that "system" has read/write access.

The existing user with my access rights problem had no user "system".

I tried to add "system" but failed. So I added the user "administrators/admin" to the list of users having read/write access in the home directory.

This solved the problem.

Someone (maybe me) must have deleted it before.

Thanks again.

Achim

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