Repairing permissions......again

MacDoc · Apr 13th, 2006, 11:22 AM

from MacFixit

	Quote:
	Updated Thursday, April 13 2006 @ 08:00 AM PDT Today's Featured Article Late-Breakers Repair Permissions: A false panacea? There has been a growing debate on various forums and Mac Web sites over the worth of Disk Utility's "Repair Permissions" function as a troubleshooting procedure. In particular, some prominent users have claimed that repairing permissions is akin to incantation, and doing so before or after applying a Mac OS X update (as we've recommended a number of times on MacFixIt) is pointless. ......... The bottom line is that repairing permissions is an Apple-recommended, quick process (usually taking less than a minute) that can resolve some significant issues -- whether or not they are directly caused by a Mac OS X update installation.

as we were saying

Onyx et al IS worthwhile including the permissions repair aspect. It solves problems.

read the stuff in between the two statement here http://www.macfixit.com/

jfpoole · Apr 13th, 2006, 12:23 PM

From <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2006/04/repair_permissions_voodoo">http://daringfireball.net/2006/04/repair_permissions_voodoo</a>:<blockquote>If you are not experiencing any symptoms that would indicate permission-related problems, there is no reason to run Repair Permissions. Repair Permissions is not a periodic maintenance task or a preventive measure.</blockquote>I don't think anyone's ever claimed that Repair Permissions isn't useful, just that it's not something you have to do all of the time as preventative maintenance.

PosterBoy · Apr 13th, 2006, 01:15 PM

If repairing permissions were Apple recommended for every software update then it would say so in the kbase documents for every update.

Which, for the record, it does not.

MACSPECTRUM · Apr 13th, 2006, 01:15 PM

with many of my clients shutting down their macs at the end of the day, the periodic routines don't get run

OnyX is a great way to run these routines and then it shuts down your mac afterwards

also a must have is DiskWarrior AND a backup hard drive along with SuperDuper
ounce of prevention worth pound of cure

madgunde · Apr 13th, 2006, 01:18 PM

Well, seems to me fixing a permission issue before it exhibits any symptoms or problems would be better than waiting for the problems to occur before doing it. Given that a permission problem could cause a program to crash, taking unsaved work with it, or worse, an unbootable Mac after a system update goes bad, I think it's silly to not utilize this simple and effective maintenance technique.

I'm not trying to tell people they will have problems if they don't repair permissions, but I have encountered problems that wasted my time and productivity, then were fixed by repairing permissions. I have also never had a Mac OS X update cause any issues after installing, and I repair permissions beforehand. Yet I see lots of people on web forums claiming that some Apple software update messed up their Mac. Those same people never seem to mention that they repaired their permissions before installing the update.

If you'd rather take a care-free wait and see attitude, more power to you, but telling people not to bother repairing permissions is like telling someone to not bother wearing a seat belt.

PosterBoy · Apr 13th, 2006, 01:38 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by madgunde
	If you'd rather take a care-free wait and see attitude, more power to you, but telling people not to bother repairing permissions is like telling someone to not bother wearing a seat belt.

Actually, the two are nothing alike. Wearing a seatbelt makes sure you don't die if you get into an accident. Repairing permissions all the time is tilting at windmills.

To be clear, you can run repair permissions all the time if you want to. For the most part I'm sure it doesn't do any harm. You just need to bear in mind that running it all the time doesn't accomplish anything. It's not a preventative measure because if there is nothing to fix, then there is nothing to fix. Permissions don't just go bad over time, something has to change them.

Macaholic · Apr 13th, 2006, 01:40 PM

It's those CRON tasks that are important for regular runs. Onyx et al is great to do that stuff -- if you think to do it

And you can't trust OS X to do it itself if you put your mac to sleep at night.

I install Anacron on my and Macs I'm working on for friends. It does all of the cron tasks whenever it can in the background. Great for people with limited experience in such things. No fuss. No muss.

krs · Apr 13th, 2006, 02:36 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by PosterBoy
	To be clear, you can run repair permissions all the time if you want to. For the most part I'm sure it doesn't do any harm. You just need to bear in mind that running it all the time doesn't accomplish anything. It's not a preventative measure because if there is nothing to fix, then there is nothing to fix. Permissions don't just go bad over time, something has to change them.

How can you say there is nothing to fix if in fact the Mac does fix permissions. I just ran mine (fix permissions) on one of the hard drives with the following results - are you saying these 'fixes' that are being reported are fake?

And could you elaborate what you think 'changes permissions'? Many of the permissions that are being fixed - according to my Mac anyway - are for features I don't even use.

As to some of the other comments in this thread - can someone explain why Apple would include the capability to either verify or repair permissions if this is all a hoax as some of you suggest.

	Quote:
	Repairing permissions for “Tiger OS 10.4” Determining correct file permissions. We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Dictionary.wdgt/Dictionary.js. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Dictionary.wdgt/Dictionary.widgetplugin/Contents/Info.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Dictionary.wdgt/Dictionary.widgetplugin/Contents/MacOS/Dictionary. New permissions are 33261 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Dictionary.wdgt/Dictionary.widgetplugin/Contents/version.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Dictionary.wdgt/Info.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Dictionary.wdgt/version.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Flight Tracker.wdgt/FlightTracker.js. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Flight Tracker.wdgt/FlightTrackerComboBoxPlugin.plugin/Contents/Info.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Flight Tracker.wdgt/FlightTrackerComboBoxPlugin.plugin/Contents/MacOS/FlightTrackerComboBoxPlugin. New permissions are 33261 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Flight Tracker.wdgt/FlightTrackerComboBoxPlugin.plugin/Contents/version.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Flight Tracker.wdgt/Info.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Flight Tracker.wdgt/parser.js. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Flight Tracker.wdgt/version.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Stickies.wdgt/Info.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Stickies.wdgt/Stickies.js. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Stickies.wdgt/version.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Unit Converter.wdgt/Info.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Unit Converter.wdgt/UnitConverter.js. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Unit Converter.wdgt/parser.js. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets/Unit Converter.wdgt/version.plist. New permissions are 33188 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets. New permissions are 16877 We are using a special gid for the file or directory ./System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock. New gid is 0 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock. New permissions are 33261 Permissions differ on ./private/var/log/secure.log, should be -rw------- , they are -rw-r----- Owner and group corrected on ./private/var/log/secure.log Permissions corrected on ./private/var/log/secure.log We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/Makefile.global. New permissions are 33060 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/acinclude.m4. New permissions are 33060 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/mkdep.awk. New permissions are 33060 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/phpize.m4. New permissions are 33060 We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/scan_makefile_in.awk. New permissions are 33060 Permissions repair complete The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume

PosterBoy · Apr 13th, 2006, 04:03 PM

Who ever said that repairing permissions is a hoax? I've already said it can be useful; it's just that running it all the time as a means of preventative maintenance, while not harmful, isn't really helpful.

Oh, and just a couple of minutes spent talking with the internet would lead you to find out that you can safely ignore any message that begins with "We are using special permissions for..." when they come up, because they are just status messages.

Even in cases where the permissions are "wrong," that doesn't mean that anything bad is going on. Permissions can be "wrong" without hindering how your computer is working. The truth of the matter is that most of the problems with OS X that caused permissions problems that were actually harmful were fixed by 10.2.

So again: run it all you want, it wont hurt anything. Most of the time though, it doesn't really help anything either.

Macaholic · Apr 13th, 2006, 04:13 PM

If we stop and think about it, there are millions of Mac users out there who don't hang out at ehMac (or any other online forum -- "normal people") who are completely unaware of repairing permissions. They also typically shut their computer down, rather than leaving it on all night. These two (quite common) generalities means that all of these people's Macs never get their cron tasks done or permissions repaired. I'll lay money on them not having any problems.

Doesn't that make sense, that MANY users of computers -- both Mac and PC -- won't be aware of their system's little fixits?