Permissions, Passwords & User Accounts.

[KettyKrueger]

Hi All,

I recently formatted my Mac and then imported my user account from a back-up using the Migration Assistant.

Since then, a few things have bugged me. First of all, I couldn't replace an application in in 'Applications' folder with a newer version, I got an error saying I didn't have sufficient privileges. Today, I've tried deleting a few documents from the 'Documents' folder and I keep getting asked for my passport, not a major problem, but annoying.

Finally, just now, I tried replacing the 'Mail' icon by pasting over the current one in 'Get Info' window. It wouldn't work, I have to change the privileges so 'everyone' has 'read & write access', which is not ideal.

Has anyone got idea how to correct all these issues? Is creating a new new account the answer and transferring all my files over? Reformat?

Any help appreciated!

Thanks

 

[sammich]

Maybe repairing permissions would help. Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility -> select your drive, repair permissions.

 

[KettyKrueger]

Maybe repairing permissions would help. Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility -> select your drive, repair permissions.

Cheers for the fast reply. I've already tried that, which didn't work.

Thanks though

 

[misterredman]

Open terminal and do this:

cd /Applications
ls -l

Copy and paste the output please.

It is possible that the files are owned by your previous user. Setting the username to the same one you had before may not be enough. The user id may be different so basically the os sees the owner as a different user and hence ask for password.

 

[KettyKrueger]

Open terminal and do this:

cd /Applications
ls -l

Copy and paste the output please.

It is possible that the files are owned by your previous user. Setting the username to the same one you had before may not be enough. The user id may be different so basically the os sees the owner as a different user and hence ask for password.

Hey, thanks for the reply. Same thing just happened when I tried to change my 'Documents' icons. Had to enable privs for 'everyone'. Anyways, here's the output:

total 0
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 25 Jul 06:36 Address Book.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 502 admin 102 20 Aug 21:19 Air Mouse Server.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 Home admin 102 19 Aug 2008 AppCleaner.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 11 Jul 08:09 Automator.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 6 Jul 07:17 Calculator.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 19 May 07:09 Chess.app
drwxrwxr-x@ 4 502 admin 136 24 Oct 2008 CoverScout.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 14 Jul 10:05 DVD Player.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 31 Jul 08:18 Dashboard.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 11 Jun 03:32 Dictionary.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 Home staff 102 11 Sep 08:48 Dock Library.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 Home admin 102 9 Dec 2007 ExifRenamer.app
drwxrwxr-x@ 3 Home admin 102 24 Aug 19:14 Firefox.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 5 May 19:04 Font Book.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 31 Jul 08:18 Front Row.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 Home staff 102 1 Oct 04:15 Get Lyrical.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 20 Jun 07:56 Image Capture.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 Home staff 102 17 Sep 12:45 InsomniaX.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 Home admin 102 16 Feb 2008 LiteIcon.app
drwxrwxrwx@ 4 root wheel 136 17 Oct 00:37 Mail.app
drwxr-xr-x 3 Home staff 102 16 Oct 22:38 Mailplane.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 6 Jul 08:13 Photo Booth.app
drwxrwxr-x@ 4 Home staff 136 17 Oct 01:55 Picasa.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 502 staff 102 29 Sep 20:35 Picasa.app.backup
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 15 Jul 06:51 Preview.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 20 May 23:10 QuickTime Player.app
drwxrwxrwx@ 4 root wheel 136 17 Oct 01:51 Safari.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 Home admin 102 2 Apr 2007 Seashore.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 502 admin 102 19 Aug 09:37 Spotify.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 19 May 06:28 Stickies.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 Home staff 102 13 Oct 16:03 SuperDuper!.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 27 Jun 07:09 System Preferences.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 27 Jun 07:06 TextEdit.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 31 Jul 08:18 Time Machine.app
drwxrwxr-x 28 root admin 952 14 Oct 12:57 Utilities
drwxrwxr-x@ 3 502 admin 102 10 Mar 2009 You Control Tunes.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 Home staff 102 19 Apr 2009 coconutBattery.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 16 Jul 08:42 iCal.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 29 Jul 06:28 iChat.app
drwxr-xr-x 3 Home admin 102 20 Jul 19:05 iConiCal.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 15 Sep 20:45 iMovie.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 15 Sep 20:45 iPhoto.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 19 May 09:29 iSync.app
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 23 Sep 17:11 iTunes.app

 

[misterredman]

I see!

It seems the problem is that the old user with ID 502 is the owner of many apps and probably the same is true for your documents.

You should change the owner of the files currently owned by user with ID 502 to your current username. Here is the command you should run:

cd /Applications
sudo find . -user 502  -exec chown YourUserName {} \;

Of course you need to change "YourUserName" with your current username. The command will search for all the files owned by user ID 502 and change the owner to YourUserName.

It will only work on the directory you will be working in so you will need to rerun the command on the home directory too. You can just open a new terminal window or use "cd ~" and then:

sudo find . -user 502  -exec chown YourUserName {} \;

You can then check with "ls -l" to see if the owner was changed.

 

[KettyKrueger]

I see!

It seems the problem is that the old user with ID 502 is the owner of many apps and probably the same is true for your documents.

You should change the owner of the files currently owned by user with ID 502 to your current username. Here is the command you should run:

cd /Applications
sudo find . -user 502  -exec chown YourUserName {} \;

Of course you need to change "YourUserName" with your current username. The command will search for all the files owned by user ID 502 and change the owner to YourUserName.

It will only work on the directory you will be working in so you will need to rerun the command on the home directory too. You can just open a new terminal window or use "cd ~" and then:

sudo find . -user 502  -exec chown YourUserName {} \;

You can then check with "ls -l" to see if the owner was changed.

That appears to have worked! Dude, you're a life-saver, you just saved me 6-7 hours in reformatting and manual data migration.

Thanks a lot.