How often do you "repair disk permissions"?

MisterMe said:

If anything, you have it backwards. Apple continually improves the "no fuss-no muss" nature of its OS. As for repairing permissions, it is a relatively simple process that would be difficult to improve upon between 2006 and now:

Within the Library folder, there is a folder called Receipts. Each installed software package has a .pkg bundle installed there. Each receipt serves two purposes:

1. It tells the OS that the software has been installed (and does not need to be reinstalled).
2. It mirrors the correct file structure and permissions of the installed package.

When you repair permissions, the OS resets the permissions to those of the receipt bundle. There is not much that can be done to improve permissions repair because not much can be done to improve an anvil.

Permissions repair is one of those things that people glommed onto in the early days of MacOS X because they had no better idea what to do to satisfy their placebo fix.

Since Apple added journaling to HFS+, permissions are rarely changed negatively. And by the way, permissions repair is one of the actions taken when the OS is updated or new applications installed.

Click to expand...

Mattie Num Nums said:

Repairing permissions can sometimes cause more problems then good.

Click to expand...

lotones said:

Thanks for the knowledge. I understand most of that, but I still prefer to think of it as "magic". Something goes wonky, I press the "repair permissions" button and 'poof'... it's fixed! Or not...

btw, I found this the other night as I was stumbling around the internet:

Want to really Repair Permissions on your Mac? Try this.

Apparently there’s another Repair Permissions tool hidden away in Lion that will actually repair the permission settings on folders and files in your Home folder. I don't know if this is a feature that used to be un-hidden in previous OS versions, or the "much improved" Repair Permissions tool I was told about. But it does appear things are changing/evolving in this area.

----------



How so? Not doubting, but I've heard this said before and I'm curious.

Click to expand...

lotones said:

...

Apparently there’s another Repair Permissions tool hidden away in Lion that will actually repair the permission settings on folders and files in your Home folder. I don't know if this is a feature that used to be un-hidden in previous OS versions, or the "much improved" Repair Permissions tool I was told about. But it does appear things are changing/evolving in this area....

Click to expand...

MisterMe said:

It never ceases to amaze me that people post links to things that they either don't read or don't understand if they do read. If you had read the reader responses that follow the article, then you would know that the home directory repair tool is not new. You would also know that it is an emergency tool for trained technicians. It is not a routine maintenance tool for untrained users.

Click to expand...

MisterMe said:

It never ceases to amaze me that people post links to things that they either don't read or don't understand if they do read. If you had read the reader responses that follow the article, then you would know that the home directory repair tool is not new. You would also know that it is an emergency tool for trained technicians. It is not a routine maintenance tool for untrained users.

Click to expand...

iFanboy said:

How so? I'd be interested in learning this as I have not found any information to suggest it has the potential to cause problems?

Click to expand...

Mattie Num Nums said:

Certain programs are not excluded from the "Repair Permissions" run so Apples intention of keeping its permissions clean could in fact change permissions that a third party program changed for a reason.

Click to expand...

Are all files affected by Repair Disk Permissions?
No. As you may have inferred from the above description, only those files installed using OS X’s Installer utility and whose installation packages leave behind a proper receipt in /Library/Receipts are affected by the Repair Disk Permissions function. This means that most of the files affected by the Repair Disk Permissions function are system-level files, application files, or system add-ons—not applications installed by drag-and-drop, and not your documents or other user-level files.

Click to expand...

Does Disk Utility check permissions on all files?

Files that aren't installed as part of an Apple-originated installer package are not listed in a receipt and therefore are not checked. For example, if you install an application using a non-Apple installer application, or by copying it from a disk image, network volume, or other disk instead of installing it via Installer, a receipt file isn't created. This is expected. Some applications are designed to be installed in one of those ways.

Also, certain files whose permissions can be changed during normal usage without affecting their function are intentionally not checked.

Click to expand...

Mattie Num Nums said:

Repairing permissions is one of the most overused thing in OSX. Repairing permissions can sometimes cause more problems then good.

Click to expand...

lotones said:

So I didn't "read or understand" the article because I didn't read all 27 responses in the comments section? It so happens I was looking for something else when I stumbled across that article. I read the article and moved on. Excuse me for passing on information. And I never claimed it was a "routine maintenance tool".

It never ceases to amaze me that people post snark based on lame assumptions and statements never made.

Click to expand...

MisterMe said:

You posted a link to a column on a newspaper's website. The author is a user--more conversant with Mac issues than you--but not more qualified to explain MacOS X than many of the members of this forum. He is not more qualified than the readers who responded to him. The difference between him and them--between him and us--is that he has a job with a newspaper but most of us do not.

Having said that, the readers clarified questions left unanswered by the column. Make no mistake. Nowhere do I say that you are responsible for what the author wrote. You are also not responsible for what the readers wrote. However, you are responsible for what you wrote. When you presented the column as an authority in support of your assertion that permissions repair is an evolving task, you doubled-down on the assertion. To your great regret, you were mistaken. Your regrets could have been avoided if you had taken the time to do additional research before posting.

Click to expand...

Joos24 said:

Absolutely, couldn't agree more. Why trust a tool that Apple designs for their own operating system that they design as well. Heavens no, the repair permissions tool just might cause the computer to explode.

Click to expand...

lotones said:

Apparently there’s another Repair Permissions tool hidden away in Lion that will actually repair the permission settings on folders and files in your Home folder.

Click to expand...

$ id | xargs -n 1 echo | egrep "^uid|^gid" | cut -d \( -f 2 | sed 's/)$//g' | xargs echo | sed 's/\ /:/g' | xargs -I{} echo sudo chown -R {} $HOME

Michaelgtrusa said:

Really? How's that?

Click to expand...

isoMorpheus said:

I do it every few days, to keep the list pristine. I have not one permission problem.

Click to expand...

Warning: SUID file “System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent” has been modified and will not be repaired.

Click to expand...

tkermit said:

Which would probably be the case even if you never repaired permissions (like I do) – No issues here, except for the usual warnings of course.

Click to expand...

GGJstudios said:

From the link I posted earlier:

And from: About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature:

Click to expand...