repairing permissions on sierra

I had the same problem on my Macbook running macOS Sierra version 10.12.2

This is how I fixed it.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7838105?answerId=31300399022#31300399022

I accidentally changed the permissions on a disk so that one or more of the permissions were set to No Access, and I can't see the disk to change the permissions back. How do I fix this?

Follow the step below:

Restart with the Command and S keys held down, and enter the following commands:

mount -uw /
chown root /
chmod 1775 /
exit

--

After the last command "exit" your system should restart on its own and everything should appear the same as the time before you changed the Home folder permissions.

I keep a couple of folders on my desktop for various files I want easy access to and have never had the problem of not being able to add anything after an update. I've also not repaired permissions for eons.

Here are some reasonably good articles:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201560

http://www.imore.com/say-goodbye-repairing-file-permissions-el-capitan

"No, it was just of limited value, and now that the things that it would have repaired are protected from change by SIP, there is no need for it."

I disagree that it was of limited value. Repair permissions used to be THE go-to fix when a file didn't want to open, even when accessed by its parent application

David Fields wrote:

"No, it was just of limited value, and now that the things that it would have repaired are protected from change by SIP, there is no need for it."

I disagree that it was of limited value. Repair permissions used to be THE go-to fix when a file didn't want to open, even when accessed by its parent application

A file that was in its normal place, in the home folder, would never be affected by Repair Disk Permissions. If that fixed your problem with a file, it had nothing to do with the file.

Even if the file was not inside your home folder, it would not be affected by Repair Disk Permission as it would never have a BOM in the Receipts folder. There would be nothing about the file that would be repaired because the Repair Permissions routine would never know what permissions it should have.

I would argue that one with the simple fact that a folder I kept on my desktop for holding scanner images would become inaccessible after a named update (El Capitan to Sierra, for instance).

I could open it and view them, but I could not use Image Capture to place new scans into the folder despite being the default folder for the purpose. After each named upgrade, I had to create a new desktop folder for Image Capture to access. Once the new folder was in place and the data moved from the old folder to the new, I would be good until the next named update.

Saying you've never had the problem doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. I've had to do this multiple times and every time it happened, repairing permissions fixed the problem.

It's beginning to sound now like I'm going to be forced to simply clean-install Sierra on my wife's machine and force it to re-build ALL of the software connections.

The latest issue? Now Sierra can't access any of her previous backups; Time Machine says she has only one backup--made on Feb 18, 2017. This is on a 3-year-old iMac that has been backing up to the same Time Machine drive since we bought it.

There is an issue, whether YOU want to admit it or not.

If repair disk permissions fixed that problem, it was something corrupted in the support files for Image Capture or something related to saving the files. Repair Disk Permissions did nothing to the data files or folders in your home.

There may be something wrong with the Time Machine drive. Is it a direct-connected hard drive or is it a NAS? What you describe is common on a NAS as they use a third-party implementation of the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) and restoration commonly fails. Pondini's FAQ may have some solutions: http://pondini.org.

I'm pretty certain you have a problem; however, it has nothing to do with the lack of Repair Disk Permissions.

David Fields wrote:

Issue finally resolved but was forced to go folder-by-folder in the affected hierarchy to manually fix the permissions. Repair Disk Permissions would do this automatically.

Not in your home folder it wouldn't. I'm not sure why you keep trying to imbue it with capabilities it never had. Absolutely nothing in your home folder was affected by Repair Disk Permissions. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Au contraire. I regularly until recently when they seem finally to have stopped doing it, after every Firefox update I would have to go into the package and delete the US English dictionaries. I use UK English and having to choose in every text box is very tedious. The US files would get put back in with every update.

I even did it while Firefox was running, got back out and no problems.

So there.

The permissions that could be fixed by Repair Permissions can no longer be altered, so there is nothing to repair.

If you google, you can probably find a command line invocation of repair permissions, but I don't know if it still works in Sierra. I remember seeing people post it for El Capitan.

The command to repair permissions via the shell, is no longer there, i.e. in MacOS Sierra. According to the documentation relevant to 10.12, permissions are repaired during installations of updates or changes (the latter is somewhat cryptic). If you have a specific problem you may be better off starting a new thread in the appropriate forum.

hyphen wrote:

The command to repair permissions via the shell, is no longer there, i.e. in MacOS Sierra.

Thanks for that update as I don't wish to send anyone on a wild goose chase any more than they already are.

Posting a link to questionable sites is not a good idea. Neither is hacking your system or suggesting sites which promote illegal OS installs on non-Apple machines.

The way to deal with the kind of problem that repair permissions use to solve is to reinstall the misbehaving application.

I had a problem with Parallels Desktop 12 because the virtual machine is stored in user/documents/Parallels. If it is moved to iCloud/Documents/Parallels, Parallels cannot find it. I moved the virtual machine to user/Parallels but got the error indicated in the attached. The KB article said to repair the permissions. Alas, no way to do that. I uninstalled Parallels, including using MacKeeper to get rid of the residuals, and reinstalled and all is well.