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Finder display errors

I'm sorry if this question has been answered before - perhaps someone could point me at the previous answer(s) .... anyway, when I use finder I often experience the situation where the folders are overlapping each other, rather than the way I left (and prefer) them to look.


'Finder', then 'view', then 'arrange by kind', then 'arrange by name' sorts the problem out procedurally - however, is there a permanent fix (or setting that needs to be (re)set) that would avoid this procedure ?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Apr 9, 2013 5:20 AM

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23 replies

Apr 13, 2013 5:30 AM in response to aafromwokingham

Problems such as yours are sometimes caused by files that should belong to you but are locked or have wrong permissions. This procedure will check for such files. It makes no changes and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem.

First, empty the Trash.

Triple-click the line below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):

find ~ $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 -o -acl \) 2> /dev/null | wc -l

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.

Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.

The output of this command, on a line directly below what you entered, will be a number such as "41." Please post it in a reply.

Apr 23, 2013 2:16 AM in response to Linc Davis

I share your frustration - I'm not entirely convinced the problem is consistent.


Anyway, this morning (having previously set view, sort, snap to grid) I opened my documents and found several folders "stacked".


Doing view, arrange by kind, then view, arrange by name got back to the default(?) display I had before I installed OSX 10.8.3


Arrange by name was checked but seems to have been ignored.


'snap to grid' appears to be able to uncheck itself - just by navigating through a number of folders.


The same symptom can occur by logging off and back on again.

Finder display errors

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