Can't change Startup Items

[LinusR]

Hi friends ,

some weeks ago I had a problem with my Library folder. Safari and other apps could not access to it. I changed the permissions of the Library and all subfolders to "me, read and write" and "everyone" was neither allowed to read nor to write.
Then everything worked again, but now Finder doesn't work as he should. So I can't choose one app to open a custom file type in the information window of Finder and I can't change the startup items.

What can I do? Can anyone help?

Thanks for any help.

Have a nice day,

Linus

 

[smirk]

I just examined the permissions of my Library folder, under OS X 10.6.

drwx------+  52 me  staff      1768 Feb  8 01:25 Library

So it was correct to set on the rwx permissions of the owner. However, the contents of the Library folder are completely different from this:

drwxr-xr-x    8 me  staff    272 Sep  9  2008 Address Book Plug-Ins
drwx------+  78 me  staff   2652 Feb 11 14:18 Application Support
drwx------+   2 me  staff     68 Aug 18  2008 Assistants
drwxr-xr-x    7 me  staff    238 Feb 13 21:51 Keychains

Assuming my system is correct, it appears that you have changed the permissions of your Library items to values that they shouldn't have. I'm afraid I don't know how to recover from that. You could start by Repairing Permissions in the Disk Utility application, but I don't think it will fix everything, if anything. The only other thing I can think of is to create a new user account, launch all the apps you use to get them to create items inside that user's Library folder, and then compare those permissions with your own. Maybe someone else will have a better suggestion.

Good luck.

 

[GGJstudios]

Repair permissions: About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature

 

[smirk]

I always thought that permissions would only get repaired on files that the installer actually installed (those listed in the receipt file). But wouldn't many of the files in ~/Library be created on the fly once the program was already installed and running? Or does the receipt file also contain a list of what files will be created by the application, even though they were not actually installed by the installer?

 

[GGJstudios]

I always thought that permissions would only get repaired on files that the installer actually installed (those listed in the receipt file). But wouldn't many of the files in ~/Library be created on the fly once the program was already installed and running? Or does the receipt file also contain a list of what files will be created by the application, even though they were not actually installed by the installer?

From: Troubleshooting permissions issues in Mac OS X:

If you have modified the contents of the folder /Library/Receipts, the Repair Permissions feature won't work as expected. Repairing permissions requires receipts for Apple-installed software. Additionally, the utilities only repair Apple-installed software and folders (which does not include users' home folders).

Not knowing everything the OP changed, repairing permissions may fix some of the problems, but not necessarily all.

 

[LinusR]

Hi,

sorry because of my late answer.

I solved the problem now, thanks to all of you.
I added the user "Staff" to the library folder and set the permissions to "Read & write". Then I took this for every subfolder as well and now it works.

That was quite dangerous, I will pay more attention now...

Thanks to all of you for your help.

Have a nice day,

Linus