Permissions errors on change of user account name [_unknown user]

[Hajaman]

Just changed the user account name on my Macbook Pro [OSX 10.6.8] yesterday, following these instructions, with no visible problems in the home directory.

Today, I noticed that any new application I install is listed as being owned by _unknown, in the permissions section. This can be fixed by adding my current username and giving me ownership, which automatically deletes _unknown from the list. Until I do this, there are errors I encounter with some software, as it is unable to read/write files in ~/library, where the same problem persists.

Is there any way I can prevent this from happening in the future? I already repaired a lot of the permissions using BatChmod.

 

[(KHC) Shadow]

I don't know the exact command, but you should be able to change the permissions for all files inside a folder recursively. Just looking up chmod documentation and it should probably have a recursive option somewhere. Basically, you use this command on your library folder and looks through all of the files in that folder, and within subfolders (it goes down the directory hiearchy) and changes all files to the specified permissions. That should do the trick.

 

[Hajaman]

Thanks, but, I can do that even via the finder [gear > apply to enclosed items].

My question is – how do I stop this from happening to apps I install in the future?

 

[Mal]

It's possible that an ACL was set on the Applications folder, and since those apply recursively to the files inside the folder, unless you override them, it would explain the behavior you're seeing. Try doing the following two commands, and tell us what it says for the Applications folder:

cd /
ls -al

The first line just changes the working directory to the root directory, the second should print a list of the files and folders there, with the full permissions listing. I don't know how familiar you are with them, feel free to copy and paste the results here, but the key is whether there is an @ or + symbol at the end of the permissions listing for the Applications folder.

jW