Changed Permissions

Question

Changed Permissions

I accidentally and foolishly changed the permissions on al enclosed files of the Macintosh HD, and now most of the basic applications (such as pages or chess) won't open!

After going into the 'show info' I set all the users to ' Read & Write' and then clicked on 'apply to all enclosed parts' (I think it says that in English)....

Now I keep getting the error ' *application* stopped unexpectedly' immediately after trying to open the applications.

I have two accounts and one guest account. The info on the Macintosh HD file says:

Admin: Read & Write

System: Read & Write
Wheel : Read Only

Everyone: Read Only

I'm running OSX Yosemite 10.10.5 (14F27)

I tried permissions repair, but it didn't help.
I even reinstalled OSX Yosemite and it still didn't help. I called apple Genius and this guy basically told me to do exactly what I already did.

Is there someone who can actually help?

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Feb 22, 2016 3:27 PM

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Answer 1

a brody

Level 10

85,366 points

Feb 22, 2016 5:32 PM in response to RvanHeyningen

This is where having a clone backup can help set things right.

Now the up side is, if you haven't used anywhere near your half your hard disk storage, there is a trick, you can do to restore things back to normal without getting a migraine.

1. Clone backup your machine*:

http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

2. Dismount, and disconnect the clone.

3. If your Mac came out before Yosemite, you may be kind of stuck, because Apple no longer makes Yosemite available for new downloads. Calling AppleCare, you may be able to request it become available for your purposes on the Mac App Store (tell them you want it on your App Store for an erase and install). You do not want to upgrade to El Capitan, without taking a look at this:

http://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-8811

If you are able to get Yosemite available, the following steps apply:

4. Command-R boot to erase the internal hard drive, and reinstall Yosemite

5. Install the 10.10.5 combo update:10.10.5 Combo and the 2016-001 Security update

6. Repair permissions with Disk Utility.

7. Connect the clone backup and use the Migration Assistant to import back the data on there.

8. Repair permissions again.

9. Test the applications on the system.

If you are not able to get Yosemite available, and you are not ready for El Capitan, do not

4. Delete all malfunctioning applications.

5. Repair permissions with Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility

6. Run the 10.10.5 Combo and the 2016-001 Security update

7. Repair permissions with Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility

8. Reboot.

9. Run the migration Assistant on your clone backup.

10. Repair permissions with Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.

Hopefully by now the applications should work fine. If not, you may have a system maintenance tool that might be messing up your permissions even more. http://www.etrecheck.com/ can tell you what is installed, and if you have something in the background that shouldn't be there. Copy/paste its results to here, and we can help tell you if you don't want that tool.

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

685,293 points

Feb 23, 2016 10:21 AM in response to RvanHeyningen

User File Ownership - Reset see post by Linc Davis

You may need to rebuild permissions on your user account. To do this,boot to your Recovery partition (holding down the Command and R keys while booting) and open Terminal from the Utilities menu. In Terminal, type: ‘resetpassword’ (without the ’s), hit return, and select the admin user. You are not going to reset your password. Click on the icon for your Macs hard drive at the top. From the drop down below it select the user account which is having issues. At the bottom of the window, you'll see an area labeled Restore Home Directory Permissions and ACLs. Click the reset button there. The process takes a few minutes. When complete, restart.

Repair User Permissions

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