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User profile for user: gustwera
gustwera Author
User level: Level 1
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Locked up MBP after "home folder permissions and ACL"-reset

Right now my MBP is locked by the icloud password connected to it. I changed my password through my older mbp and still no success.

I tried it using azerty and qwerty layout, thinking that maybe my laptop had reset itself to qwerty? I'm now quite desperate, looking for a solution…


Anyway, here's the full story. I hope I can resolve this, since I use this MBP professionally and need it back asap!


  • The MBP is a mid-2014 15" MBP retina(model: A1398, 2.5GHz Core i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD), bought it with osx mavericks on it. It was upgraded to OSX Yosemite, which is the current OS running (I don't know the exact version, but I think it is the last one).
  • In Yosemite I had the following issue: every time I tried cutting and pasting (cmd+c then cmd+opt+v) it would ask for my password, otherwise it would not work. I looked for a solution online and found that by going to my harddrive, looking at the info (cmd+i) and looking at permissions & sharing on the bottom, and then clicking on the gear icon and then hitting "Apply to enclosed items" I might be able to solve the problem. This is where it began:
    1. At first only these users where in the Sharing and Permissions tab":
      • system - read & write
      • wheel - read only
      • everyone - read only
    2. I clicked on the gear and then on "apply to enclosed items". Immediately after it was finished doing this I had a problem with Adobe Creative Cloud and Dropbox showing permission related errors…
    3. I rebooted, and then came the next problem: A continuous loop of error messages saying "OSX needs to repair your Library to run applications", asking for my username and password. Filling this out and running it made no difference, nor did cancelling it. The error message continued to popup every 2 seconds. Also, after rebooting, Adobe Creative Cloud would not start and Dropbox would drain my CPU quite heavy.
    4. Checking the Sharing & Permissions tab again, I noticed that I only had reading permissions and that the 'system' user was not present anymore. So I tried to add it again (by clicking on the "+" sign) but I could only add myself as a user. I did this, put my permissions on read & write and applied to enclosed items, rebooted and… nothing. Still the same loop of error messages.
    5. Looking into it, i found a thread here discussing the problem and tried a solution given there; resetting the home folder permissions and ACLs in recovery mode. Then I rebooted:
    6. Now I've been stuck on my login screen for quite some time. I tried logging in but my password gets rejected. I changed my icloud password from my older mbp, triple checking it but still no luck. Any password that I use and have used, tried them all but none of it worked…

So now I can't access my laptop to fix the problem, or even use my laptop at all. It's still a quite recent MBP (bought in december 2014, so I could just install a clean OSX on it, but there are files on there of which I don't have a copy so I can't do that… Any advice?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, iOS 8.3

Posted on Jun 19, 2015 9:53 AM

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User profile for user: Linc Davis
Linc Davis
User level: Level 10
209,547 points

Jun 19, 2015 10:41 AM in response to gustwera

If you want to preserve the data on the startup drive, and it's not already backed up, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data, you can skip this step.

There are several ways to back up a Mac that is not fully functional. You need an external hard drive or other storage device to hold the data.

1. Start up from the Recovery partition, from Internet Recovery, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later.

If you use FileVault 2, then you must first unlock the startup volume. Select its icon ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) It will be nested below another disk icon, usually with the same name. Click the Unlock button in the toolbar. Enter your login password when prompted.

2. If Method 1 fails because of disk errors, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.

3. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.

4. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

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Locked up MBP after "home folder permissions and ACL"-reset

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