Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
If I try to add folders to the sidebar in the System Preferences > Desktop panel, only the last-viewed folder will stay when you close and reopen the panel. Here's what it looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qy01PS0aT0
Macbook 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.6.2)
Back up all data.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.
Step 1
If you have more than one user account, and the one in question is not an administrator account, then temporarily promote it to administrator status in the Users & Groups preference pane. You can demote it back to standard status when this step has been completed.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -R $UID:20 ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ 2> /dev/null
Be sure to select the whole line by triple-clicking anywhere in it. You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don't need to post the warning. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command.
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.
Step 2
Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select Utilities ▹ Terminal from the menu bar. A text window opens.
In the Terminal window, type this:
resetpassword
That's one word with no spaces. Then press return. A Reset Password window opens. You’re not going to reset a password.
Select your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select ▹ Restart from the menu bar.
The only other thing I thought of that could've messed this up was loading my old iPhoto library (09) from backup, installing iPhoto 11 and letting it run its upgrade. I made iPhoto rebuild the database though and I'm still getting the issue. I say that because the Desktop panel tries to load the iPhoto library after its defaults and before my custom options.
More background, this is a fresh install I did this past weekend after getting an SSD for my Macbook. I downloaded the Mountain Lion installer from the App Store and used the Lion Diskmaker App to put it on USB. It seemed to move to the USB OK except at the end when it was doing some scripting and I moved the mouse around, and it looked like it couldn't copy over the icon for the USB stick. Is there any way to validate that the OS X install I have on this machine isn't corrupted?
With regard to this its likely the copy included all necessary files, and since the installation happened without error its likely it went ok; however, you can try reinstallign the latest Combo updater to OS X to see if by replacing the files on the system with those contained in the installer it helps the problem. The Combo updater for OS X 10.8.2 is here:
Installed that update, I still have the problem.
I tried plugging in the other monitor, played with the settings, and checked it again.. it's still not retaining them, so it doesn't look like it has anything to do with that.
Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a test, not a solution. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Step 1
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account.
Enable guest logins* and log in as Guest. For instructions, launch the System Preferences application, select Help from the menu bar, and enter “Set up guest users” (without the quotes) in the search box. Don't use the Safari-only “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac.”
While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your personal files or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.
Test while logged in as Guest. Same problem?
After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.
*Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault, then you can’t enable the Guest account. The “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac” is not the same. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.
Step 2
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode* and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
*Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of steps 1 and 2.
Step 1 (guest account) and Step 2 (Safe Boot, my account) yielded the same results: Same as me logged in normally - after reopening System Preferences, the last viewed folder is the only remaining custom folder. 😟
If you carried out the same test in the guest account and got the same results, and also in your account in safe mode, that doesn't leave much besides system corruption to explain the problem. I don't like to give this advice because it usually doesn't work, but I don't have a better idea.
Back up all data.
Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at the startup chime. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with proxy servers, or with networks that require a certificate for authentication.
When the OS X Utilities screen appears, follow the prompts to reinstall the OS. You don't need to erase the boot volume, and you won't need your backup unless something goes wrong. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.
A final option before performing an OS reinstallation is to try clearing various system caches and other temporary items that could be the cause of this issue, as well as to check the hard drive for errors. First use Disk Utility to verify both the hard drive and the boot volume, and if any repairs to that show no changes or if there are no errors then download the utility OnyX (http://www.titanium.free.fr/downloadonyx.php) and use its "Cleaning" section to delete various caches on your computer (check the boxes and click the "Execute" button for each section of the program's "Cleaning" pane, and then restart when finished).
Hopefully this is all that's the problem, but you've pretty much exhausted most of the options I know regarding how to test for and address this problem. It's clearly related to the console entry you're seeing where it says the system preferences could not restore the selected folder and is adding *missing* instead; however, the root cause of this is a mystery.
If none of these help, then my only suggestion would be to boot to the OS X Recovery HD partition and use the tools there to reinstall OS X. This will not affect your user account and data, and will leave your applications and settings intact, but will replace the frameworks, core services, and other system files underneath everything (moreso than simply reinstalling the Combo updater as I mentioned above), and hopefully thereby fix the problem.
I tried Onyx at the start and none of the cleaning options seemed to help. I'm going to try reinstalling from the recovery tool. Thanks for your help though.
Did this and I'm still having the same problem. Should I just erase the hard drive and try again with different install media? Although if the install just touches system files and not user files does that mean the problem is in one or some series of preference files?
Frankly I have my doubts about the consistency of the information you've provided, but a clean reinstallation, though very rarely necessary, is about the only thing left to do, as far as I can tell.
If you'd like me to provide you with any information I'd be more than happy to supply it, even if it's running through any of the previous steps or running through use cases.
If you're sure all the information is accurate, go ahead with the clean installation. It will certainly fix the problem, but when you restore your data, the problem may be restored too. To make that less likely, be selective about what you restore. Restoring only documents should be safe.
I guess it's an unsolved mystery. A clean install did not fix it. After my user account was created I made two folders on the desktop, put images from Google searches in them, and tried to reproduce the issue and was able to.
I'm still getting the console log note that Topher found suspicious:
6:22:41 PM System Preferences: Could not restore selection, adding *missing* selected folder (/Users/hoffkm/Desktop/2)
/Users/hoffkm/Desktop/1 and /Users/hoffkm/Desktop/2 were the two folders I'd created and the "2" folder was the last one I selected before closing and reopening System Preferences.
What did you restore from backup after the clean installation?
Why won't System Preferences save my desktop background folders?
