Stumped the apple geniuses with leopard install

[heyp]

He can try it, but it sounds like it is one of two things, a USB problem with the computer, or a hardware problem with the iPod.

I'm almost certain it's not a USB problem as I can successfully connect my camera and external hard drive.

Is there anyway to wipe the ipod so it's as if I just bought it? I mean so that itunes looks at it as it would a brand new ipod. I've done the restore in itunes a few times but it's not the same as when you first get an ipod and have to register it, is it?

 

[Frisco]

I'm almost certain it's not a USB problem as I can successfully connect my camera and external hard drive.

Is there anyway to wipe the ipod so it's as if I just bought it? I mean so that itunes looks at it as it would a brand new ipod. I've done the restore in itunes a few times but it's not the same as when you first get an ipod and have to register it, is it?

Yeah that's what a restore does.

 

[heyp]

You should be aware that the Repair Permissions facility in Disk Utility will not affect folders and files within your own home directory. Repair Permissions pulls all of its information from Installer receipt files, and if something isn't in a receipt its permission will not be modified.

You can use the terminal to manually set permissions on your Music folder (and all items within) to be absolutely sure that you have read/write access.

This may take a long time, depending on how many music files you have.

The relevant commands to type in the terminal are:

cd ~ --just to make sure you are in the home directory!
sudo chmod -R -N ./Music --strip ALL ACL entries from all files and folders
sudo chmod -R 0777 ./Music --make it so everyone can read/write/execute. No reason to run into permissions errors with this

This will make it so that the Music folder has full read/write/execute permissions for anybody. Obviously, not the ideal long-term solution but this will rule out a permissions problem with your Music folder.

If you can get things working after this, I can show you how to correctly set the permissions such that only your account has read/write access, and all others have read-only access.

hey i gave this a shot... it didn't solve the problem unfortunately... i appreciate your help though... how do i get my music folder back to the correct permissions?

 

[heyp]

Did you try creating a new user account?

i created a new admin account and added a song to itunes... the problem is still there... i'm pretty much out of ideas now... anybody want a 8GB black ipod nano? it works great with any computer but mine

 

[Frisco]

i created a new admin account and added a song to itunes... the problem is still there... i'm pretty much out of ideas now... anybody want a 8GB black ipod nano? it works great with any computer but mine

Sounds like one which would leave even the brightest Apple Engineers puzzled.

 

[benpatient]

well, i had some serious permissions problems with my second Leopard install, and the solution was to install Tiger. I think ACL is broken in Leopard.

I tried erase/install of Leopard and the permissions problems kept coming back almost like a virus. I had music files on an external drive that got wonky permissions from the boot drive (the "custom access" bug you may have read about), and when I connected the external drive to a Tiger machine it was like there no problems. So I wiped the Leopard drive and did a completely fresh install. New account and everything. Zeroed out the drive, even. Well, everything was fine until I attached that external drive again, and then the boot drive permissions went awry again. I ended up copying all of the files from the external drive to a Tiger machine, formatting the external drive and then putting the files back on from the Tiger install. I read a little bit about ACLs in Leopard, and I'm pretty sure they started the problem. Tiger ignores that stuff, which is why things were fine with Tiger.

Now I don't ever click anything that says "permissions" in Leopard so as to avoid the sticky ACL "custom access" bugs. Not even the drop-down triangle in "get info" boxes!

 

[ElectricSheep]

Tiger supported ACLs, they were just disabled by default. In Leopard, they are enabled by default but the tool to disable them still exists. The command

fsaclctl -p / -d

will disable ACLs for your boot volume.

As for the OPs problem, when I needed to restore my iPod to a factory fresh condition (this was a 3rd gen), I used Disk Utility to reformat the iPod as if it were a disk, and then zero it out. After that was complete, I used to the iPod utility (now integrated in iTunes) to restore the iPod.

If there are songs or movies on the iPod you wish to keep, you can also use disk utility to create a device image of it before erasing.

 

[heyp]

well, i had some serious permissions problems with my second Leopard install, and the solution was to install Tiger. I think ACL is broken in Leopard.

I tried erase/install of Leopard and the permissions problems kept coming back almost like a virus. I had music files on an external drive that got wonky permissions from the boot drive (the "custom access" bug you may have read about), and when I connected the external drive to a Tiger machine it was like there no problems. So I wiped the Leopard drive and did a completely fresh install. New account and everything. Zeroed out the drive, even. Well, everything was fine until I attached that external drive again, and then the boot drive permissions went awry again. I ended up copying all of the files from the external drive to a Tiger machine, formatting the external drive and then putting the files back on from the Tiger install. I read a little bit about ACLs in Leopard, and I'm pretty sure they started the problem. Tiger ignores that stuff, which is why things were fine with Tiger.

Now I don't ever click anything that says "permissions" in Leopard so as to avoid the sticky ACL "custom access" bugs. Not even the drop-down triangle in "get info" boxes!

yeah, i have seen the "custom access" on some of my files... i suppose i could try going back to tiger, but i like leopard apart from this problem

 

[heyp]

Tiger supported ACLs, they were just disabled by default. In Leopard, they are enabled by default but the tool to disable them still exists. The command

fsaclctl -p / -d

will disable ACLs for your boot volume.

As for the OPs problem, when I needed to restore my iPod to a factory fresh condition (this was a 3rd gen), I used Disk Utility to reformat the iPod as if it were a disk, and then zero it out. After that was complete, I used to the iPod utility (now integrated in iTunes) to restore the iPod.

If there are songs or movies on the iPod you wish to keep, you can also use disk utility to create a device image of it before erasing.

yeah i tried using disk utility on it last night and it said it could not unmount the device...

 

[krye]

Are both user names that asme from both installs? If they are not, you won't be able to sync. You can import the music from one installation to the other. Just let iTunes import all the music over.

 

[benpatient]

yeah, i have seen the "custom access" on some of my files... i suppose i could try going back to tiger, but i like leopard apart from this problem

If you're in "custom access" land then this problem may just be a warning sign that you need to do something before a bigger fish gets fried.

If something important gets "custom access"-ed, then you may not be able to boot. The final straw for me was when I tried to do the 10.5.3 update and the installer failed halfway through because I did not have "permission to perform that operation" all of the sudden. It locked up and sat there for 3 hours before I rebooted it with the power button. I was greeted with a kernel panic on startup and a boot drive that would not mount when I ran disk utility from the installer dvd.

 

[heyp]

Are both user names that asme from both installs? If they are not, you won't be able to sync. You can import the music from one installation to the other. Just let iTunes import all the music over.

yes the user names were the same

 

[heyp]

so i had an idea... what if i did a clean install of tiger and put all my files (including my music) from my external back on my computer, then wiped my external drive clean and put all these files back on the external... i assume this would clear up any permissions issues leopard might have caused... then do an erase and install of leopard on my computer and put all the files back on my computer... does anyone think this might work?

UPDATE: it didn't work