How To Repair Disk Permissions Sierra

We used to exercise it frequently, and it could prepare the virtually intransigent of bug at times: repairing permissions. Amazingly, Apple is recommending it as a solution over again, only this time it's not the permissions in macOS, just those of your Abode binder. With details cached abroad in one of Apple's lesser-known back up notes, this also relies on an undocumented Last command.

Since Apple introduced its System Integrity Protection (SIP) in El Capitan, all macOS system files – including now all the bundled apps too – are protected from intentional and inadvertent tampering. The only means that they tin become inverse involve special Apple-signed installers, or Recovery mode. No app, no affair how badly behaved, tin alter permissions or annihilation else in those protected files. So that makes traditional repair of permissions superfluous, and information technology could only accept been performed in Recovery manner in any example.

At that place are nonetheless plenty of unprotected folders and files, including many of those in /Library, third-party apps in /Applications, and of class everything in your Home folder, particularly in ~/Library. Apple has recognised that changing their permissions tin result in a wide range of problems, few of which clearly point to information technology being a permissions problem.

How does this happen?

The question that Apple's support notation does not consider is how the permissions in, say, ~/Library might get inverse. The note refers to the user changing those permissions, but in my experience few users are e'er likely to do that deliberately, and it is nigh unlikely to be accidental.

What the support note does not say is that software might change those permissions for you. Indeed, one not infrequently-reported cause seems to exist enabling and using Near Lock, the relatively new feature which allows you to unlock your Mac using your iPhone over Bluetooth. I therefore wonder whether a bug in Near Lock might be a common cause of altered permissions in Habitation folders.

What issues result?

Apple provides a long list of problems which could consequence from wrong permissions in your Home folder. These include:

• changes to preference settings, especially those for Organisation Preferences, practise not 'stick';
• changes made to the Dock do not 'stick';
• y'all are asked to authenticate when trying to motion or alter some folders in your Home folder;
• when trying to save, you are told that the file is locked, or that you don't have permission;
• Preview, TextEdit, and App Store apps (which are sandboxed) may crash when opened;
• alerts warning that the startup disk has no more space available for app retentiveness;
• Safari or SafariDAVClient employ large amounts of resources (retention);
• your Mac runs very slowly;
• iTunes cannot sync a device;
• problems with Photos or iPhoto libraries, including inability to import into the library, or forgetting the library each time the app is opened.

Note that Apple tree does not list repeated prompts to unlock the keychain; your login keychain is stored in ~/Library/Keychains, though, and would be affected if local permissions were to be changed.

That'due south a long list, and it almost all makes sense too. However, there are likewise other causes of near of those problems which do not involve permissions: some preference settings files exercise appear to become corrupted, rather than just have incorrect permissions, and trashing them is a long-established manner of fixing that. If its permissions have somehow go incorrect, and so trashing that .plist file volition enable a fresh one to be created, this time with the correct permissions.

Repairing permissions, new version

You should be able to select your Home folder in the Finder, and apply the Get Info command in the File card (or Command-I) to open up the Get Info dialog, in which you tin can fix this. Right at the bottom, ensure the Sharing & Permissions section is open. In there, your name should appear in the pinnacle of the iii entries, and the privilege gear up should be Read & Write.

To change permissions and propagate the alter throughout your Home folder, click on the padlock tool and authenticate. Set that top particular, you every bit a user, to Read & Write, and then click on the cog tool and utilise the Apply to enclosed items… control in that popup bill of fare to propagate the permissions throughout your Dwelling house folder.

That should exist all that you lot demand to do, only Apple then recommends that you employ an undocumented command to complete the repair. This must exist performed in Terminal, where you enter:
diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u`

This apparently resets user permissions on the root book (/) to the electric current user ID. Information technology does not appear in man diskutil, nor when you lot just type diskutil, but its aid info is given if you type
diskutil resetUserPermissions
You are then told
Usage: diskutil resetUserPermissions MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode UID
Reset the permissions of a user abode directory.
Ownership of the affected disk is required.

But that is non nevertheless all. Apple'due south support note and so states that the command may fail with an error -69841, in which example you should type the post-obit into Terminal
chflags -R nouchg ~
then try the diskutil command once more.

This begs several questions. Commencement, what does diskutil resetUserPermissions do that propagating the correct permissions does non? Why is none of this incorporated into a tool like Deejay Utility? Which widely-used apps and features, including Nearly Lock, change permissions and cause the problem in the offset identify?

I'd love to hear from those who have tried this, and acquire whether it did fix your problems.

(I am very grateful to Neale Young for drawing my attention to this effect, and Apple's puzzling support note, in his comment on this web log.)

Source: https://eclecticlight.co/2017/06/15/something-odd-you-cant-fix-sierra-re-introduces-repairing-permissions/

Posted by: jonesmrse1992.blogspot.com

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