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mrs1986

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 21, 2011
132
5
Uruguay
Hi, I need some help, just can't find the answer here or in the web...

I was trying to install and setup a web developing environment... MySQL apache and that stuffs... After finishing all the home.dev folder wasn't working, I got an error 403... Looking for the error I touch something that I shouldn't... Inside the information about the Macintosh HD I went down to the permissions, and I had the great idea of apply for al subfolders....
After that the laptop is running amazingly slow and almost every app is not working... I fixed the permissions from disk utility and it only fixed the terminal, but almost all the other apps don't work anymore...

Hope someone has some idea...

Thanks...
 

old-wiz

macrumors G3
Mar 26, 2008
8,331
228
West Suburban Boston Ma
Monkeying around with permissions, particularly if you apply to all subfolders, can easily result in a terrific mess that often requires a re-install of the OS to straighten things out.

Repair permissions doesn't always recover from such a mess.

You haven't given enough info about what you changed or what versions of the os you are running, so I can't give any other ideas.
 

mrs1986

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 21, 2011
132
5
Uruguay
Thanks for trying to help!

I'm using mavericks, I did just that, open the information GUI (command+I) and in the bottom there is something about permissions, I touched the little gear and put apply to all subfolders or like that...

I guess I will have to re install everything :/
 

old-wiz

macrumors G3
Mar 26, 2008
8,331
228
West Suburban Boston Ma
Next time make a bootable clone before making changes...

Changing permissions and apply to all is a general *NIX issue.

I remember years before I retired, we had a new CS Major who started working with us and said "You can make things work so much better if you just change the permissions like..." and lo and behold... it died..horribly...screaming...tossing disk platters out... Smart ass didn't really understand *NIX permissions, which go way way back to Multics.

Fortunately there was a full backup. The new person was much chastised.
 

mrs1986

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 21, 2011
132
5
Uruguay
But would it kill the disk :O

I guess I'm reinstalling tomorrow first thing in the morning... :/
 

old-wiz

macrumors G3
Mar 26, 2008
8,331
228
West Suburban Boston Ma
But would it kill the disk :O

I guess I'm reinstalling tomorrow first thing in the morning... :/

The bootable backup clone is excellent for this kind of situation..buy an external HDD equal or greater than the size of your boot disk and make a clone with either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Then if you boot disk goes wonky, you have a bootable backup and it is so easy to recover. I used it a couple of times when my wife accidentally erased her photos.

Not a fan of Time Machine; takes too long to recover.

but do get a backup!
 
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