[Dougmc]

I've noticed over time that everytime that I run Disk Utility to repair permissions, there's always a lengthy list of items that are being fixed. Regardless if I re-run Disk Utility immediately again, the same items are being "fixed".

So my question is two parts: Should I be able to run Disk Utility and not have any items fixed? And, how do I remedy this lengthy list of items that is having the permissions fixed on?

Just FYI, this isn't occurring on only one machine. Similar results are happening on at least two machines.

Doug

[JKT]

If you notice, it doesn't state that the permissions on those items are being fixed, it states that "We are using special permissions for..." The list of items with "Special Permissions" are set up that way for security reasons. So, e.g. your Widgets all have "Special Permissions".

In other words, no you will never see nothing listed when fixing permissions.

[CharlesS]

If Repair Permissions ever shows any messages, it means your computer is about to explode, killing everything within a 20 mile radius. Run for the hills.

(yes, that was sarcasm)

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by JKT

If you notice, it doesn't state that the permissions on those items are being fixed, it states that
"We are using special permissions for..." The list of items with "Special Permissions" are set up
that way for security reasons. So, e.g. your Widgets all have "Special Permissions".

In other words, no you will never see nothing listed when fixing permissions.

Just want to post my standard rant (not aimed directly at you JKT).

If you want to see every special item that could (potentially) be reported, paste this (one line) in Terminal:

defaults read /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskManagement.framework/Versions/A/Resources/HintFile specificFileSettings

Piping that to wc, it seems that -- as of today (OSX 10.4.5) -- there are some 181 special items... including such **crucial** tidbits like .png and .js files stored inside of various widgets. If I run repair perms in Disk Utility now (v10.5.3), I see that my PowerBook G4 is honored with viewing 144 of those possible 181 lines of highly valuable output.

Okay, enough sarcasm. As I've stated elsewhere, when I launch a utility and click on a button labeled 'REPAIR'... anything the utility reports immediately after that should -- I'd expect -- be some sort of feedback concerning a "repair".

Back when all this started, we saw maybe 5 or 6 lines about special items. Now that we are fast approaching the 200 mark, the term "special" has long since lost its meaning. PLUS... when we want to see what (if any) *actual* repairs were made, we're now forced to scroll through literally hundreds of non-repair statements to hunt and gather whatever useful info we are interested in reading.

I've even seen reports where a user has deleted every widget on their computer... only to have those same messages about special widget component permissions still appear in the Disk Utility window. I think the whole thing is quite ridiculous. Not to mention all the bandwidth consumed by confused users posting (unnecessary) pleas for help. [But I blame it on Apple, really].

Plus, Charles and I had a nice exchange about those permission numbers a while back. My conclusion was that: it is rather insane for those values to be reported to us in decimal (like "33188"), something for which a human has no use until converted to an octal (or symbolic) string.

a  n  y   w  a  y  .  .  . 

I have a standard solution which can be run in Terminal, either from a compiled script (run via Script Menu)... or -- even easier -- saved as a .term file (double-clickable in Finder or launched from the Dock):

diskutil repairPermissions / | grep -Fv special

That filters out all the noise nicely.

[Dougmc]

Hal "Yeah I Ate the Onions" Itosis, your observation is exactly what I was questioning. When the general user runs Disk Utility to Repair Permissions, they could care less about the "Special Permissions" and all of the codes. Simply, show us what was broken and confirm that it's been fixed.

Macintosh needs to keep in touch with the user-friendly environment from which it came.

CharlesS: I'm having one problem that you might help me with. When I move further away from my soon-to-explode machine, my Bluetooth keyboard drops its connection—right around the 19-mile mark in fact! ;-)

Thanks for the input folks. Understanding the difference between what is being "fixed" and what is simply useless information was where my confusion lies.

ab absurdo,
Doug

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Dougmc

Hal "Yeah I Ate the Onions" Itosis, your observation is exactly what I was questioning. When the general user runs Disk Utility to Repair Permissions, they could care less about the "Special Permissions" and all of the codes. Simply, show us what was broken and confirm that it's been fixed.

Macintosh needs to keep in touch with the user-friendly environment from which it came.

I think it was probably coded somewhat hastily because the designers didn't really expect it to be something that would be run all the time by end users. It certainly isn't as important a troubleshooting feature as some make it out to be.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

I think it was probably coded somewhat hastily because the designers didn't really expect it to be something that would be run all the time by end users. It certainly isn't as important a troubleshooting feature as some make it out to be.

I realize that's the current wisdom, and --in a perfect world -- it would also be the whole truth.

OSX 10.0 - 10.1.4 didn't even provide a way for us to simply repair a bunch of permissions.
When 10.1.5 introduced the "Repair Privileges Utility" it was probably because end users were
having access problems (or general misbehaviors) due to poorly written 3rd-party installers.

That was 2002.

But I can recount an episode from as recent as <last year> when I wanted to try out a program,
...so I ran its installer. It borked a bunch of permissions in a bunch of places. I later examined
the package (using a great utility called "Pacifist"), and I could plainly see all the wrong UIDs.

I can't say why it happens so often, but I know from hanging out at MacFixIt that -- whether I'm
lurking or helping -- about 25% of the time, if the user repairs their permissions... things start
working again. I don't say it's a magic cure-all for anything. But... if someone is having a 'weird'
problem -- and they haven't tried repairing permissions yet (a quick 2-minute process), then...
they really need to at least try that.

And, Apple could do a few things on their end to make it less messy too. ("special" my @$$).