[kylef]

Verify permissions for “Snow Leopard”
Permissions differ on "usr/share/derby", should be drwxr-xr-x , they are lrwxr-xr-x .
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent" has been modified and will not be repaired.

Permissions verification complete

--

So, my mac's been running pretty slow lately. I fired up Onyx and it gave me a few permissions errors. According to some threads on Apple Discussions, the first problem is common and harmless. But I can't find much on the second one. Is this a) related to my mac running slower than usual and/or b) worthwhile re-installing Snow Leopard? (I have a TM backup)

Thanks

[Thorzdad]

The ARDAgent warning is also common and harmless. You may ignore it.

[ghporter]

My best understanding of the ARDAgent thing is that at one point Apple updated the app and failed to reflect that in the BOM or table of changes or whatever. So now DU has no clue that it is supposed to be different from what IS listed wherever, and thus it reports it. But it's an Apple app, so they should know about it...and fix this bug. But that's another discussion.

[CharlesS]

That message is a red herring that you can safely ignore (actually, you can pretty much always ignore status messages that show up during Repair Permissions).

[besson3c]

You are barking up the wrong tree if you expect to be able to improve performance by repairing permissions. There is no relationship here whatsoever.

When your Mac is performing poorly have you looked at your Activity Monitor/top to see whether you are running out of memory, and whether a process is consuming more resources than it should be? This is a far better starting place then fussing around with permissions.

In general, it is smart to learn about what is being done and what you should expect to be accomplished with utilities such as Onyx rather than just sort of blindly trusting that the blue shiny "Start" button will do good things. This will help prevent you from creating problems for yourself, as well as help suggest where to focus your troubleshooting energies.

In general, so-called maintenance utilities on OS X are pointless. Modern operating systems don't need tuning up like you do your car.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

That message is a red herring that you can safely ignore (actually, you can pretty much always ignore status messages that show up during Repair Permissions).

Warning: SUID file has been modified and will not be repaired.

Some "status" message that is.

[kylef]

Thanks for the info.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

You are barking up the wrong tree if you expect to be able to improve performance by repairing permissions. There is no relationship here whatsoever.

When your Mac is performing poorly have you looked at your Activity Monitor/top to see whether you are running out of memory, and whether a process is consuming more resources than it should be? This is a far better starting place then fussing around with permissions.

In general, it is smart to learn about what is being done and what you should expect to be accomplished with utilities such as Onyx rather than just sort of blindly trusting that the blue shiny "Start" button will do good things. This will help prevent you from creating problems for yourself, as well as help suggest where to focus your troubleshooting energies.

In general, so-called maintenance utilities on OS X are pointless. Modern operating systems don't need tuning up like you do your car.

I resorted to Onyx because there was nothing unusual in Activity Monitor. Safari and iTunes are my two biggest resources, but even at that - they have never run this slow. Opening a new tab can take in excess of 10 seconds occasionally. Here's my current activity monitor, and this is what it is usually:

[besson3c]

Kyle: have you tested your RAM and hard drive(s)? If you use an Intel Mac you can run memtest86 from its CD, which will do a comprehensive memory test. Smart monitoring tools will help you do an extended test of your hard drive.

Both can cause inexplicable performance problems. I have seen this recently with some areas of a stick of RAM going bad.

[Chuckit]

Slow system performance is caused by an overfull disk 90% of the time in my experience.

[besson3c]

True... There are many possible factors here. Heavy disk activity is another.

[kylef]

Yep, there are so many factors to consider. I'll start ruling out hardware ones at the weekend - running the likes of memtest. Thanks for the help.

(FYI there's 147GB of my 250GB drive free - external drives ftw)