Suddenly can't open my own files even though r/w is set, pop up says "the file xxx couldn't be opened...."

Question

Suddenly can't open my own files even though r/w is set, pop up says "the file xxx couldn't be opened...."

No one else uses my system so I'm as Admin as it gets yet suddenly I can't open some of my own files. The permissions are set to r/w for me and read everyone else yet I get the "you don't have permission to read this yadda yadda". I've tried to change them via Get Info lock and SuperGet Info but didn't work. I tried El Capitan Cache and it didn't work.

Apparently, El Capitan is supposed to handle that now and System Integrity is enabled so what gives? ????

Imac (Late 2012) 8GB RAM

10.11.6

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), 2.7 i5 iMac 8GB RAM, 1TB HD

Posted on Jan 2, 2017 7:17 AM

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Answer 1

cjrg

Level 1

8 points

Sep 3, 2017 5:24 PM in response to Barney-15E

Thank you so much! Your suggestion was very helpful.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

123,366 points

Jan 2, 2017 3:30 PM in response to Michael Eiseman

Just a guess at this point. Start up in Safe Mode and see if it works.

Restart to normal boot and see if it works.

Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Jan 2, 2017 7:47 AM in response to Michael Eiseman

I've just discovered that when I "print" a document and select "open in Preview" immediately the pop up appears restricting my access to the file with the same message. However, if I select "Save as pdf" I am able to open it in Preview with no problem.

This seems to only affect Preview documents and probably just the ones I created by selecting "Open in Preview" in the Print menu.

???

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Answer 4

Barney-15E

Level 10

123,366 points

Jan 2, 2017 7:54 AM in response to Michael Eiseman

There was recently another similar post and the suggestion was to delete the Preview container. That fixed it.

The Containers folder is in your User Library.

Close Preview if it is open.

To open the user Library, hold down the Option key and select Library from the Go menu in Finder.

Open the Containers folder and find com.apple.Preview folder and move it to the Trash.

Try opening your files.

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Answer 5

Jan 2, 2017 8:09 AM in response to Michael Eiseman

Okay, strike that "probably on documents I used open in preview.

It looks like every document I own is affected and for some documents it's just if I double click on it. jpeg's for example open fine from Firefox menu but won't open on double-click.

:-(

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Answer 6

Jan 2, 2017 8:19 AM in response to Barney-15E

I put the com.Apple.Preview in the Trash but it didn't appear to change anything. Still get the no permission error message when attempting to open any file with double-click and any Preview file with double-click or open file using Preview.

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