How do I fix permissions on Big Sur?
I think I am experiencing permission problems on my Mac. I am running an iMac with macOS Big Sur, recently updated to 11.4, though the problem has been around for a while.
There is one application which cannot save an existing file (though it can save a new one). As part of the trouble-shooting process, I logged in as an alternative user, and it seems to work properly. I conclude that it has something to do with who can do what.
I have also saved the file to an external USB flash storage, which is in ExFat format. This is from my normal account. Again this works perfectly, so I conclude that saving on a volume with no specific permissions is OK. I doesn’t work if I save to an external drive formatted with HFS+ or APFS.
This leads me to conclude that the problem is one of permissions, possibly on the ~/Library
directory. Comparing permissions on the Home directories, I get:
drwxr-xr-x+ 11 irving staff 352 27 May 14:32 irving/
drwxr-xr-x@ 97 mark staff 3104 26 May 09:54 mark/
drwxr-xr-x+ 13 something staff 416 26 May 09:57 something/
The mark
directory is for my normal account, and the only differences I can see are that final symbol (+
or @
).
When I run ls -l@d /Users/*
I get:
drwxr-xr-x+ 11 irving staff 352 27 May 15:02 /Users/irving/
drwxr-xr-x@ 97 mark staff 3104 26 May 09:54 /Users/mark/
com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot 50
com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot 50
drwxr-xr-x+ 13 something staff 416 26 May 09:57 /Users/something/
What are the correct permissions for a Home directory, and how can I ensure that they are all set correctly?
Output from ls -l@e /Users/mark*/Downloads/*.lbx
:
-rw-r--r--@ 1 mark staff 1156 21 Mar 09:50 /Users/mark/Downloads/Test Label.lbx
com.apple.lastuseddate#PS 16
com.apple.macl 72
com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags 42
com.apple.metadata:kMDLabel_mfabisnytttdleinsb4kkin77y 89
com.apple.quarantine 29
-rw-r--r--@ 1 mark staff 1641 13 Apr 17:42 /Users/mark/Downloads/Test2.lbx
com.apple.lastuseddate#PS 16
com.apple.macl 72
com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags 42
com.apple.metadata:kMDLabel_mfabisnytttdleinsb4kkin77y 89
-rw-r--r--@ 1 mark staff 1150 27 May 16:18 /Users/mark/Downloads/test.lbx
com.apple.lastuseddate#PS 16
com.apple.macl 72
com.apple.metadata:kMDLabel_mfabisnytttdleinsb4kkin77y 89tp
This appears to be the result of a poorly completed Time Machine restore
drwxr-xr-x@ 97 mark staff 3104 26 May 09:54 /Users/mark/
com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot 50
com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot 50
You can try this 2 commands for suppress this attributs :
xattr -rd com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot /Users/mark
and
xattr -rd com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot /Users/mark