"We are using special permissions" in Disk Utilities. What?

[motulist]

I repaired permissions in Disk utility and instead of reporting the normal 'all okay' it reports "We are using special permissions" even if I repeat the repair it still says the same thing. What is going on here? I don't like it when things change and I don't know what it means and I don't know what made it happen.

________________________________________

Repairing permissions for “mr.coffee”
Determining correct file permissions.
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays. New permissions are 16893
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/ColorSync/Profiles. New permissions are 16893
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./System/Library/Filesystems/cd9660.fs/cd9660.util. New permissions are 33261
We are using a special uid for the file or directory ./private/var/at/jobs. New uid is 1
We are using a special uid for the file or directory ./private/var/at/spool. New uid is 1
The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume

Permissions repair complete
________________________________________

 

[Blue Velvet]

It means nothing. Forget about it... seriously.

 

[motulist]

A little googling got me the answer straight from the horses mouth.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107298

Disk Utility reports some messages that you can ignore when checking permissions

You can safely ignore certain messages that Disk Utility reports when checking permissions. For example, you may safely ignore a message that contains "permissions are 33261". This article applies to Mac OS X 10.2.2 or later.

You can safely ignore any message that begins with "We are using special permissions for..." or "We are using a special uid for...". These are status messages and not a cause for concern. The message(s) will appear each time you check permissions.

Other messages that you can safelyignore when checking permissions

After running periodic monthly messages such as this may appear and can also be safely ignored: "Permissions differ on ./private/var/log/install.log, should be -rw-r--r-- , they are -rw-r----- Owner and group corrected on ./private/var/log/install.log Permissions corrected on ./private/var/log/install.log"

 

[diehldun]

It means nothing. Forget about it... seriously.

I honestly think that the "Repair Permissions" thing is really over-hyped; I do it only a few times a year, and that's about it.

 

[eva01]

I honestly think that the "Repair Permissions" thing is really over-hyped; I do it only a few times a year, and that's about it.

of course it is, like that one version of limewire that changed your Applications fold to Read only instead of Read and Write.

Very overrated feature......

 

[gman71882]

Permissions repair is really usefull when your having problems running software. If your not having any issues with anything then dont worry about it.
Depending on what you have on you system, you may ALWAYS get something listed under the Repaired permissions in Disk Utility.

 

[motulist]

Permissions repair is really usefull when your having problems running software. If your not having any issues with anything then dont worry about it.

Microsoft Word crashed on me twice in the span of a week, the auto-save hadn't been saving even though it is set to every 1 minute, and it lost all my hard work since my last manual save. So I tried repairing permissions to fix the problem. Then I did some research and I learned that MS Word is just a crash prone app and there's nothing I can do to change that.

After losing my hard work twice I made a vow to never use a Microsoft product again unless I had no other option. I just downloaded the word processor Mellel and I don't know why it took me so long to come to this realization. I can already tell that it's a MUCH better program and I'm never going to use MS Word again.

It really helped me understand the boat that Windows users are in. I always used MS Word simply because it is the standard word processor that everyone uses, so I never even questioned why I use it. Then after I tried the alternatives and they were indescribably better I couldn't believe how misled I'd been by just using what the masses use. Once again the point is proven; popular does not mean better.

The very fact that the auto-save "feature" exists should've made it obvious that Word is a terrible program. The program designers EXPECT that frequent crashes are going to happen, otherwise why put in an auto save? None of my apps that never crash have an auto save. Shame on Microsoft for releasing such a harmful product on unsuspecting consumers and shame on us as consumers for accepting it.

 

[mad jew]

motulist, are you running 10.4.6? This dialogue was meant to have been eliminated/hidden in the latest release of Tiger.

 

[motulist]

motulist, are you running 10.4.6? This dialogue was meant to have been eliminated/hidden in the latest release of Tiger.

No, I'm very happy with my black cat and I don't feel like I'm missing anything from 10.4 that's worth upgrading for. The only feature in 10.4 that really tempts me is the built in system wide dictionary, but it's not worth the time and hassle to upgrade just for that.