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Permissions problem in displaypolicyd

I'm having a very strange problem with Yosemite 10.10 (14A389) on my MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009). Waking from sleep the monitor receives no signal.

The only problems I have come across is a few permission errors:

User differs on “private/var/db/displaypolicyd”; should be 0; user is 244.

Group differs on “private/var/db/displaypolicyd”; should be 0; group is 244.


sudo chown -R root /private/var/db/displaypolicyd && sudo chgrp -R wheel /private/var/db/displaypolicyd

or

sudo diskutil repairPermissions /


After repairing permissions problem reappears after a reboot.

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 23, 2014 2:39 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 24, 2014 4:41 AM

My temporary solution


1 - Create a shell script example: fixesPermissions.sh

sudo chown -R root /private/var/db/displaypolicyd && sudo chgrp -R wheel /private/var/db/displaypolicyd


2 - Path in my case

/etc


3 - Allow my user to run the script without root password

sudo nano /etc/sudoers


below the line

# Samples

# %users ALL=/sbin/mount /cdrom,/sbin/umount /cdrom

# %users localhost=/sbin/shutdown -h now


add line

myuser ALL=NOPASSWD: /etc/fixesPermissions.sh


key cmd + x

key y

key cmd + m


4 - Run the shell script when my user logs

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /etc/fixesPermissions.sh

99 replies

Apr 4, 2015 5:28 PM in response to brandonfisherman

Thanks for your comment I could resolve very quickly the same problem as you described it. I spent half an hour with the support of Apple and unco I could detect the problem was in private / var / db / displaypolicyd, never repaired mode repair permissions.


I found his comment did his footsteps and the solution was then instant restart. Thank You So Much!

Apr 4, 2015 10:20 PM in response to lplacencia

Use the Go To Folder feature in the finder to navigate to private/var/db/displaypolicyd. Delete the folder named displaypolicyd, which should be empty. It was empty on my computer. Go to your disk utility and verify the disk permissions. It should no longer pop up in the results. Reboot your computer and then run the verify disk permissions in the disk utility again just to make sure it is still not there. I did this last night and now my MacBook Pro wakes just fine from sleep mode, it restarts just fine, it shuts down just fine and hasn't randomly blacked out since last night. I'm running a Late 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Apr 5, 2015 8:21 AM in response to BAthompsonite

BAthompsonite wrote:


Use the Go To Folder feature in the finder to navigate to private/var/db/displaypolicyd. Delete the folder named displaypolicyd, which should be empty. It was empty on my computer. Go to your disk utility and verify the disk permissions. It should no longer pop up in the results. Reboot your computer and then run the verify disk permissions in the disk utility again just to make sure it is still not there. I did this last night and now my MacBook Pro wakes just fine from sleep mode, it restarts just fine, it shuts down just fine and hasn't randomly blacked out since last night. I'm running a Late 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro.

That did it for me but the folder cannot be found now: OS X did not recreate it. I hope that won't affect any stability. wait & see

Apr 5, 2015 8:43 AM in response to w4vz

I personally don't want OS X to recreate that folder. It appears to have been the root of all the evils that prevented me from consistently using my Macbook Pro for at least an entire month. I couldn't get anything done. I even bought an SSD when the problem first started (which I don't regret at all because my Macbook is fast as **** now) because I thought my hard drive was failing. As of right now I feel like the nightmare is over but we shall see.

Apr 20, 2015 3:32 AM in response to brandonfisherman

I had the same problem since now few days on my MacBook 15" Mid-2011 on Yosemite 10.10.3. I was able to get it to work again by repairing file permission and disk but then the problem was appearing again and I noticed that displaypolicyd file was always the one to be repaired. Searching using that term took to this discussion.


I have just tried the solution proposed by brandonfishreman and it works for the moment. Thanks Brandon.

Apr 23, 2015 5:04 AM in response to BAthompsonite

Just an FYI - tried this solution to resolve external monitor issues related to this thread. My folder had one file inside - displaypolicyd.cache. After restart, the 2015 MBP wouldn't recognize the monitor at all, even after restarts and reset of PRAM. So, restoring the file resolved that issue but overall issue remains. On to next possible solution.

Permissions problem in displaypolicyd

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