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Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper

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  Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper MC <copespaz@mapca.inter.net> - 2012-04-14 10:51 -0400
    Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2012-04-14 07:53 -0700
    Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> - 2012-04-14 11:44 -0400
      Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2012-04-14 08:55 -0700
        Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> - 2012-04-14 12:49 -0400
      Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper dorayme <dorayme@optusnet.com.au> - 2012-04-15 02:17 +1000
        Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> - 2012-04-14 12:49 -0400
          Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper dorayme <dorayme@optusnet.com.au> - 2012-04-15 03:14 +1000
    Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper me@home.spamsucks.ca (Király) - 2012-04-14 16:08 +0000
    Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper Doug Anderson <ethelthelogremovethis@gmail.com> - 2012-04-14 12:26 -0700
      Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper John McWilliams <jpmcw@comcast.net> - 2012-04-14 14:57 -0700
        Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper nospam@see.signature (Richard Maine) - 2012-04-14 17:09 -0700
          Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper MC <copespaz@mapca.inter.net> - 2012-04-14 21:14 -0400
          Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper Paul Sture <paul@sture.ch> - 2012-04-15 19:12 +0200
            Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper "Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm@mendelson.com> - 2012-04-15 17:34 +0000
        Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper Doug Anderson <ethelthelogremovethis@gmail.com> - 2012-04-14 17:24 -0700
          Re: Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper Lloyd <lloydparsons@me.com> - 2012-04-14 22:17 -0500

#23795 — Repair Disk Permissions - The Hidden Unknown Helper

The majority of my Mac user friends are not geeks. And they don't even 
know Repair Permissions exists, let alone where to find it and how to 
use it. 

It's proves its usefulness to me over and over... And I think it should 
be much easier to find and use than it is - the interface alone is 
enough to intimidate many. 

Is there any reason not to make it more evident, or have it run 
automatically in the background on a regular schedule?

-- 

"If you can, tell me something happy."
- Marybones

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#23797

In article <copespaz-729F14.10511714042012@news.eternal-september.org>,
 MC <copespaz@mapca.inter.net> wrote:

> The majority of my Mac user friends are not geeks. And they don't even 
> know Repair Permissions exists, let alone where to find it and how to 
> use it. 
> 
> It's proves its usefulness to me over and over... And I think it should 
> be much easier to find and use than it is - the interface alone is 
> enough to intimidate many. 
> 
> Is there any reason not to make it more evident, or have it run 
> automatically in the background on a regular schedule?

Disk Utility's Repair Permissions function isn't the magical tool most 
Mac users seem to assume it is. It's a tool that is meant to repair 
ownership and permissions of *specific sets of files*, and *only* those 
files listed in the receipts of specific software in the receipts 
folder, which is at /Library/Receipts in Mac OS X version prior to 10.6, 
and was moved to /private/var/db/receipts in version 10.6.

Repair Permissions reads the contents of the receipts folder to find out 
which files and folders it should examine. Receipts are created by 
software installers that use the Mac OS X built-in 
/Applications/Utilities/Installer program to install a software package. 
Receipts in this folder contain lists of each file and folder the 
software package installed along with the expected ownership and 
permissions the files and folders listed in that receipt should have, 
according to the install package.

Repair Permissions examines only those files listed by these receipts. 
This means the files in your home folder and the files in the local 
domain (/Library for instance) are *not* examined. 

The tool has a flaw: it does not know how to resolve the case where 
multiple receipts list the same file or folder with differing ownership 
and permissions. This actually happens fairly frequently, particularly 
when more than one software package installs and uses a shared library 
or other system resource that happens to be used by another software 
package. If there are multiple receipts that list a file or folder, and 
the expected ownership and permissions differ between those two 
receipts, the Repair Permissions function will encounter the first 
receipt, change the ownership and permissions to honor that receipt, 
then encounter the second receipt and change the ownership and 
permissions to honor the second receipt. This typically manifests itself 
in Disk Utility's Repair Permissions log as a file/folder that never 
seems to be actually repaired. 

As you can see, Repair Permissions is a much more brain-dead tool that 
is not half as useful or magical as a lot of people seem to believe. I 
wish more people understood this - we probably wouldn't see so many Mac 
users running Repair Permissions at the drop of the hat or on a regular 
schedule as we see so often.  ; )

If you are not experiencing problems with a specific piece of software 
listed in the receipts folder, there's no reason to run Repair 
Permissions.

-- 
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.

JR

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#23798

On 2012-04-14 10:51 , MC wrote:
> The majority of my Mac user friends are not geeks. And they don't even
> know Repair Permissions exists, let alone where to find it and how to
> use it.
>
> It's proves its usefulness to me over and over... And I think it should
> be much easier to find and use than it is - the interface alone is
> enough to intimidate many.
>
> Is there any reason not to make it more evident, or have it run
> automatically in the background on a regular schedule?

Such a post will reliably result in JR posting why RP has very limited 
value.

I've only used it 2 or 3 times over the past 4 years+ on this, my first Mac.

It has never resolved a problem.  Disk Repair has only helped once 
without resorting to booting from a DVD and repairing from there.  Other 
times I had to reformat the drive and re-install the OS and recover my 
apps and data from backup.

-- 
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did.
  I said I didn't know."
                           -Samuel Clemens.

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#23803

In article <Fe-dnYG1VsPSBhTSnZ2dnUVZ_qqdnZ2d@giganews.com>,
 Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:

> On 2012-04-14 10:51 , MC wrote:
> > The majority of my Mac user friends are not geeks. And they don't even
> > know Repair Permissions exists, let alone where to find it and how to
> > use it.
> >
> > It's proves its usefulness to me over and over... And I think it should
> > be much easier to find and use than it is - the interface alone is
> > enough to intimidate many.
> >
> > Is there any reason not to make it more evident, or have it run
> > automatically in the background on a regular schedule?
> 
> Such a post will reliably result in JR posting why RP has very limited 
> value.

Guilty.  : )

-- 
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.

JR

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#23814

On 2012-04-14 11:55 , Jolly Roger wrote:
> In article<Fe-dnYG1VsPSBhTSnZ2dnUVZ_qqdnZ2d@giganews.com>,
>   Alan Browne<alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca>  wrote:
>
>> On 2012-04-14 10:51 , MC wrote:
>>> The majority of my Mac user friends are not geeks. And they don't even
>>> know Repair Permissions exists, let alone where to find it and how to
>>> use it.
>>>
>>> It's proves its usefulness to me over and over... And I think it should
>>> be much easier to find and use than it is - the interface alone is
>>> enough to intimidate many.
>>>
>>> Is there any reason not to make it more evident, or have it run
>>> automatically in the background on a regular schedule?
>>
>> Such a post will reliably result in JR posting why RP has very limited
>> value.
>
> Guilty.  : )

I always keep track of the usual suspects.


-- 
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did.
  I said I didn't know."
                           -Samuel Clemens.

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#23808

In article <Fe-dnYG1VsPSBhTSnZ2dnUVZ_qqdnZ2d@giganews.com>,
 Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:

> Disk Repair has only helped once 
> without resorting to booting from a DVD and repairing from there.

When you have used DR, I assume you started from a volume, including a 
DVD, other than than the startup volume.

-- 
dorayme

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#23813

On 2012-04-14 12:17 , dorayme wrote:
> In article<Fe-dnYG1VsPSBhTSnZ2dnUVZ_qqdnZ2d@giganews.com>,
>   Alan Browne<alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca>  wrote:
>
>> Disk Repair has only helped once
>> without resorting to booting from a DVD and repairing from there.
>
> When you have used DR, I assume you started from a volume, including a
> DVD, other than than the startup volume.

When you run DR and it finds problems on the system disk and for 
whatever reason cannot repair it, it advises to boot from another disk 
(including the OS distro) and run DR from that disk.  At that point DR 
usually works - but in 1 or 2 cases it did not (this was all part of/in 
the wake of) the HD issues I had in late 2010 that resulted in me 
replacing the HD.

-- 
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did.
  I said I didn't know."
                           -Samuel Clemens.

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#23816

In article <GvudnQhtF-YRNxTSnZ2dnUVZ_rOdnZ2d@giganews.com>,
 Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:

> On 2012-04-14 12:17 , dorayme wrote:
> > In article<Fe-dnYG1VsPSBhTSnZ2dnUVZ_qqdnZ2d@giganews.com>,
> >   Alan Browne<alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca>  wrote:
> >
> >> Disk Repair has only helped once
> >> without resorting to booting from a DVD and repairing from there.
> >
> > When you have used DR, I assume you started from a volume, including a
> > DVD, other than than the startup volume.
> 
> When you run DR and it finds problems on the system disk and for 
> whatever reason cannot repair it, it advises to boot from another disk 
> (including the OS distro) and run DR from that disk.  At that point DR 
> usually works - but in 1 or 2 cases it did not (this was all part of/in 
> the wake of) the HD issues I had in late 2010 that resulted in me 
> replacing the HD.

Is this DR a Lion thing? On SL, there is Disk Utility and in this, 
there is First Aid. And you can't - full stop can't - run the Repair 
Disk function on the startup. On SL, it does not depend on whether it 
can repair anything, it straight out refuses without even wanting to 
know about it. I have always thought it a bit mean and precious about 
this! If it really, really tried, it could repair a few things. But it 
simply will not. It's a bloody prima donna! <g>

-- 
dorayme

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#23805

MC <copespaz@mapca.inter.net> wrote:
> The majority of my Mac user friends are not geeks. And they don't even 
> know Repair Permissions exists, let alone where to find it and how to 
> use it. 

Which is not a problem at all.

> It's proves its usefulness to me over and over

Seriously? What did it fix for you?

> And I think it should be much easier to find and use than it is - the 
> interface alone is enough to intimidate many. 
> 
> Is there any reason not to make it more evident, or have it run 
> automatically in the background on a regular schedule?

The reason not to do that is that there is no point to it.

-- 
K.

Lang may your lum reek.

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#23818

MC <copespaz@mapca.inter.net> writes:

> The majority of my Mac user friends are not geeks. And they don't even 
> know Repair Permissions exists, let alone where to find it and how to 
> use it. 
> 
> It's proves its usefulness to me over and over... And I think it should 
> be much easier to find and use than it is - the interface alone is 
> enough to intimidate many. 
> 
> Is there any reason not to make it more evident, or have it run 
> automatically in the background on a regular schedule?

Yes.  I would like it if Apple would supply a special Voodoo menu.
Among the options could be

Repair Disk Permissions
Sacrifice Chickens
Pray to Monotheistic Deity of your Choice
Contemplate Navel
Reset PRAM
Rest PMU
Ingest Vitamin C Supplement
Take Homeopathic Remedy

No doubt everything on this list has worked for at least one person
in at least one circumstance.

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#23829

On 4/14/12   PDT 12:26 PM, Doug Anderson wrote:

> Yes.  I would like it if Apple would supply a special Voodoo menu.
> Among the options could be
>
> Repair Disk Permissions
> Sacrifice Chickens
> Pray to Monotheistic Deity of your Choice
> Contemplate Navel
> Reset PRAM
> Rest PMU
> Ingest Vitamin C Supplement
> Take Homeopathic Remedy
>
> No doubt everything on this list has worked for at least one person
> in at least one circumstance.

You left out turning on, and/or turning off, VM!
And rebuilding the Desktop.....!

Most of the above, ex. PRAM an PM reset, do something because the 
computer is almost invariably restarted after these cane and arcane 
procedures.....

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#23832

John McWilliams <jpmcw@comcast.net> wrote:

> On 4/14/12   PDT 12:26 PM, Doug Anderson wrote:
> 
> > Yes.  I would like it if Apple would supply a special Voodoo menu.
> > Among the options could be
> >
> > Repair Disk Permissions
> > Sacrifice Chickens
> > Pray to Monotheistic Deity of your Choice
> > Contemplate Navel
> > Reset PRAM
> > Rest PMU
> > Ingest Vitamin C Supplement
> > Take Homeopathic Remedy
> >
> > No doubt everything on this list has worked for at least one person
> > in at least one circumstance.
> 
> You left out turning on, and/or turning off, VM!
> And rebuilding the Desktop.....!
> 
> Most of the above, ex. PRAM an PM reset, do something because the 
> computer is almost invariably restarted after these cane and arcane 
> procedures.....

Yeah. I was thinking of mentioing that. Unless someone can cite exactly
what permission was fixed to solve their problem, and why that
permission was related to their problem, I'd be *HIGHLY* suspicious that
a random report of repair disk permisions "solving their problem" really
meant that after doing a repair pernissions and a reboot, the problem
went away.... quite possibly having nothing to do with the permissions
repair. Users that aren't pretty expert in such matters are quite likely
to misidentify what actually fixed their machine.

Oh, and add to the list "kick damn machine". Not too awfully far from
that one, there have been cases of manufacturer recommended repair
procedures that included deliberately dropping a malfunctioing disk
drive. Yes, there were real reasons for it. That could break loose a
sticking bearing that some hard drives were prone to. The manufacturer
gave a particular height to drop the drive from. Not very high,
admitedly. If I recall correctly (and I might not), it was about 4
inches.

-- 
Richard Maine                    | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment.
domain: summertriangle           |  -- Mark Twain

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#23834

In article <1kijwi2.vs9en815pkgsN%nospam@see.signature>,
 nospam@see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote:

> John McWilliams <jpmcw@comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> > On 4/14/12   PDT 12:26 PM, Doug Anderson wrote:
> > 
> > > Yes.  I would like it if Apple would supply a special Voodoo menu.
> > > Among the options could be
> > >
> > > Repair Disk Permissions
> > > Sacrifice Chickens
> > > Pray to Monotheistic Deity of your Choice
> > > Contemplate Navel
> > > Reset PRAM
> > > Rest PMU
> > > Ingest Vitamin C Supplement
> > > Take Homeopathic Remedy
> > >
> > > No doubt everything on this list has worked for at least one person
> > > in at least one circumstance.
> > 
> > You left out turning on, and/or turning off, VM!
> > And rebuilding the Desktop.....!
> > 
> > Most of the above, ex. PRAM an PM reset, do something because the 
> > computer is almost invariably restarted after these cane and arcane 
> > procedures.....
> 
> Yeah. I was thinking of mentioing that. Unless someone can cite exactly
> what permission was fixed to solve their problem, and why that
> permission was related to their problem, I'd be *HIGHLY* suspicious that
> a random report of repair disk permisions "solving their problem" really
> meant that after doing a repair pernissions and a reboot, the problem
> went away.... quite possibly having nothing to do with the permissions
> repair. Users that aren't pretty expert in such matters are quite likely
> to misidentify what actually fixed their machine.
> 
> Oh, and add to the list "kick damn machine". Not too awfully far from
> that one, there have been cases of manufacturer recommended repair
> procedures that included deliberately dropping a malfunctioing disk
> drive. Yes, there were real reasons for it. That could break loose a
> sticking bearing that some hard drives were prone to. The manufacturer
> gave a particular height to drop the drive from. Not very high,
> admitedly. If I recall correctly (and I might not), it was about 4
> inches.

Thanks all. I've learned a lot.

-- 

"If you can, tell me something happy."
- Marybones

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#23849

On Sat, 14 Apr 2012 17:09:22 -0700, Richard Maine wrote:

> John McWilliams <jpmcw@comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>> On 4/14/12   PDT 12:26 PM, Doug Anderson wrote:
>> 
>> > Yes.  I would like it if Apple would supply a special Voodoo menu.
>> > Among the options could be
>> >
>> > Repair Disk Permissions
>> > Sacrifice Chickens
>> > Pray to Monotheistic Deity of your Choice Contemplate Navel
>> > Reset PRAM
>> > Rest PMU
>> > Ingest Vitamin C Supplement
>> > Take Homeopathic Remedy
>> >
>> > No doubt everything on this list has worked for at least one person
>> > in at least one circumstance.
>> 
>> You left out turning on, and/or turning off, VM! And rebuilding the
>> Desktop.....!
>> 
>> Most of the above, ex. PRAM an PM reset, do something because the
>> computer is almost invariably restarted after these cane and arcane
>> procedures.....
> 
> Yeah. I was thinking of mentioing that. Unless someone can cite exactly
> what permission was fixed to solve their problem, and why that
> permission was related to their problem, I'd be *HIGHLY* suspicious that
> a random report of repair disk permisions "solving their problem" really
> meant that after doing a repair pernissions and a reboot, the problem
> went away.... quite possibly having nothing to do with the permissions
> repair. Users that aren't pretty expert in such matters are quite likely
> to misidentify what actually fixed their machine.

Circa 2005 there was a real flurry of advice on this newsgroup about 
Repair Permissions.  I don't recall exactly when, but within the last 
year someone suggested it as a joke.

> Oh, and add to the list "kick damn machine". Not too awfully far from
> that one, there have been cases of manufacturer recommended repair
> procedures that included deliberately dropping a malfunctioing disk
> drive. Yes, there were real reasons for it. That could break loose a
> sticking bearing that some hard drives were prone to. The manufacturer
> gave a particular height to drop the drive from. Not very high,
> admitedly. If I recall correctly (and I might not), it was about 4
> inches.

I was advised to try a rubber hammer on a DOA disk.  It didn't work 
though.  SCSI was a different matter.  A decade or so ago I had a disk 
which gave all the symptoms of dying over a period of several weeks.  It 
turned out I had left a long SCSI cable plugged in to the system after 
attaching an external disk and subsequently removing it.  Why it took so 
long to render that internal system disk unbootable remains a mystery.  
Disconnecting the cable fixed the problem, and that disk still works 
today.

"SCSI is not magic. There are fundamental technical reasons why it is 
necessary to sacrifice a young goat to your SCSI chain now and then.
 
--John Woods (1960 to ?)"

And we should never forget that neither S in SCSI means "standard".

-- 
Paul Sture

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#23852

Paul Sture wrote:

> And we should never forget that neither S in SCSI means "standard".

The interface was originaly called SASI for Shugart Associates System 
Interface. 

It was generalized into SCSI (Small Computer System Interface), and 
standardized BUT Apple adopted it before the standard was accepted and
there are (or were) differences between Apple SCSI and standard SCSI.

I still have an MacOS6 boot disk with Silverlining around for the
case where someone needs to put a non Apple SCSI disk (or should I say 
a standard SCSI disk) in a 680x0 Apple computer.

Geoff.


-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson,  N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379
In 1969 the US could put a man on the moon, now teenagers just howl at it. :-(

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#23833

John McWilliams <jpmcw@comcast.net> writes:

> On 4/14/12   PDT 12:26 PM, Doug Anderson wrote:
> 
> > Yes.  I would like it if Apple would supply a special Voodoo menu.
> > Among the options could be
> >
> > Repair Disk Permissions
> > Sacrifice Chickens
> > Pray to Monotheistic Deity of your Choice
> > Contemplate Navel
> > Reset PRAM
> > Rest PMU
> > Ingest Vitamin C Supplement
> > Take Homeopathic Remedy
> >
> > No doubt everything on this list has worked for at least one person
> > in at least one circumstance.
> 
> You left out turning on, and/or turning off, VM!
> And rebuilding the Desktop.....!
> 
> Most of the above, ex. PRAM an PM reset, do something because the
> computer is almost invariably restarted after these cane and arcane
> procedures.....

Right - I forgot about rebuilding the desktop.  Turning on and off I
left off on purpose since that isn't real voodoo.

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#23840

In article <1h7gxh9712.fsf@ethel.the.log>,
 Doug Anderson <ethelthelogremovethis@gmail.com> wrote:

> John McWilliams <jpmcw@comcast.net> writes:
> 
> > On 4/14/12   PDT 12:26 PM, Doug Anderson wrote:
> > 
> > > Yes.  I would like it if Apple would supply a special Voodoo menu.
> > > Among the options could be
> > >
> > > Repair Disk Permissions
> > > Sacrifice Chickens
> > > Pray to Monotheistic Deity of your Choice
> > > Contemplate Navel
> > > Reset PRAM
> > > Rest PMU
> > > Ingest Vitamin C Supplement
> > > Take Homeopathic Remedy
> > >
> > > No doubt everything on this list has worked for at least one person
> > > in at least one circumstance.
> > 
> > You left out turning on, and/or turning off, VM!
> > And rebuilding the Desktop.....!
> > 
> > Most of the above, ex. PRAM an PM reset, do something because the
> > computer is almost invariably restarted after these cane and arcane
> > procedures.....
> 
> Right - I forgot about rebuilding the desktop.  Turning on and off I
> left off on purpose since that isn't real voodoo.

Odd, in all the years I've had an intel Mac of any flavor I've never 
done any of those things.

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