Permissions problems lead to faulty account behavior

Users may experience problems in which moving files to different locations requires authentication, with Mac OS X constantly prompting for passwords. This may occur not only in a multi-user environment, where individual user accounts apply different permissions to files, but also if users have migrated accounts and other information from a previous computer or account on the same computer. It also may occur for users who have performed an upgrade of their OS.

MacFixIt forums member Capodastra writes:

"When I installed 10.5 (not a clean install) all worked well but I kept getting 'authentication' problems when moving stuff around. I had to input my password to move from certain folders to other. I thought I would be smart so I did a command-i n my hard disk and changed to access privileges...but now I cannot copy and paste any links into Safari or [elsewhere]"

While manually altering and propagating permissions may be a tempting solution to inaccessibility problems, you can severely hinder your computer's functionality if you're not an expert at doing so. It is advisable to only set permissions on individual files and folders that you created, and not touch any for system files or other files. However, sometimes these problems are unavoidable if they're caused by updates or application installations.

Fixes

Run a permissions fix Attempt a permissions fix on the drive by using Disk Utility, or boot from the Leopard installation DVD and run a permissions fix from there (using Disk Utility in the "Utilities" menu).

Reset the home folder permissions Boot from the Leopard installation DVD and in the menubar select "Reset Password" from the "Utilities" menu. In the resulting window select your hard drive and then select "Reset" at the bottom where it says "Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs".

Workarounds

Create a new account If the problems still persist, create a new account and check for persistence of the issues. If the new account is fine, then either migrate to the new account or attempt to propagate permissions on the old account. For the user account folder, all files within it should have read and write permissions for the account username. To propagate user read/write permissions in the account folder only, right-click (ctrl-click) the home directory and at the bottom click the lock. Then in the "Sharing & Permissions" section ensure the username (should be the same name as the home folder) is set to "Read & Write"

Perform a clean install of the OS If the problems still persist despite resetting permissions and creating new accounts, performance of a clean OS install may be the easiest way to clear them up. This depends, however, on the extent of the permissions errors on the drive, and should only be used as a last resort. Be sure to have all files backed up before reinstalling. When the old files are copied back from the backup, their permissions will be reset (unless a copying utility is used that explicitly preserves permissions) and inherited from the parent folders on the drive. This is how permissions are initially set by default, and this behavior should function properly with a clean installation.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

Resources