MOTUnation.com

I realize I am wandering into a mine field here, but I just ran across this
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203538
and confusion seems to reign again. I just thought I'd throw this out there for some feedback.

You are File Permissions, aka User Privileges. Those never went away. Those are changed in Get Info if the OS will let you — if sandboxed by SIP, you can't. Getting those right, especially on remote drives means the difference between having access to a file and not. Get Info is how you access and fix them.


The old Disk Permissions corrected apps with receipts in a Library/Receipts folder that should no longer exist (mine's still there with Office 2008 receipts that I am leaving alone since Office checks those for updates). In El Cap, those could only be run in Terminal, In Sierra, this functionality was removed. Except...

There are receipts in System/Library/Receipts and User/Library/Receipts. If you know how, these can be checked and even repaired. Mostly these affect CUSP print drivers but if you updated to the latest version of Safari in El Cap, you will see some that will never go away. Many hang around because to touch them means disabling SIP.

This drives some users nuts who somehow believe that their problems are somehow related. They aren't but that doesn't stop them from insisting on the Apple support boards that they are. After all, they checked it in Onyx...

Since El Cap, repairing Disk Permissions is a non-solution to a non-problem that affects no one and fixes nothing.

Don't get me wrong, I love Onyx — it lets people totally screw up their systems. I charge $65hr including travel time + mileage to fix 'em.

Thanks for chiming in, Mike. I guess I'm still confused as to what the Terminal command listed in the article actually does. Are you saying that "Reset Permissions" and "Repair Permissions" are different processes?

You pointed to File Permissions and asked about Disk Permissions.

They have absolutely nothing to do with each other and they never have.

diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u`

You can go ahead and run that command. It will be interesting if anything ever shows up—never has for me. The tools I use reveal lines that one doesn't after I run it.

Apple removed these commands from Disk Utility because they accomplish nothing. Even the ones I use don't fix anything. No doubt there will be more such commands for OS 10.13. We'll see.