"Documents" can't be opened because the original item can't be found.

Question

"Documents" can't be opened because the original item can't be found.

Clicking sidebar in finder received the subject error:

I have move a lot of stuff around recently due to a NAS that went down. Lots of backups, transfers etc.

Just like to get things back to normal.

Have all of my files backed up.

If I go to Users/#username"/Documents I get the following:

The folder “Documents” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.

cmd-I doesn't show permissions panel at all, just says I have unknown access.

Lastly, the fold icon has a small blue arrow in a white circle in the lower right corner.

I am the only user, and admin.

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4), Server

Posted on Apr 7, 2016 8:10 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 7, 2016 9:49 PM in response to Linc Davis

Yes, I did install Dropbox and iCloud Drive. I went to the server storage controls and tried propagating all permissions from the home directory, but that didn't help. Also tried the finder and sidebar plist deletion. No help.

You can see the little blue arrow, the cmd-i just fetches forever.

You can see here that there is content in the server storage. I am really surprised that I couldn't propagate down....

ug.

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Answer 2

Apr 7, 2016 10:11 PM in response to Linc Davis

No change. Here are the folders permissions....

I used Activity Monitor to force the Dropbox runtime to quit.

I just thought of something, I moved a folder to iCloud drive into a folder in iCloud Drive called Documents. I thought I created the Documents folder in iCloud Drive anew, but now I am not so sure......??!!

But the real Documents has much more content that shown above.

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Answer 3

Apr 8, 2016 12:56 PM in response to Linc Davis

I looked at the permissions again in File Sharing on the server. I added that folder and looked at it and saw a Spotlight user with custom rights (unchangeable), so.. I deleted the user and the arrow went away and all is back to normal. I did a lot of amateur things when the NAS went down and backups were manually done all around. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

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Answer 4

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,673 points

Apr 8, 2016 12:08 PM in response to carlfrompoway

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.

Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

ls -@BOaen Doc* | pbcopy

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any one 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 and start typing the name.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.

The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.

The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

If any personal information appears in the output, anonymize before posting, but don’t remove the context.

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