MacOS – Repairing permissions twice gives the same result
disk-utilitymacospermission
If I repair permissions twice in a row, without launching any apps or processes while I do this, the results are almost the same:
Why is it that the second time around, the problems seem to be encountered again?
Best Answer
The errors with Safari are because -rwxr-xr-x should be lrwxr-xr-x where the l indicates symbolic link. I'm not sure how this is something to 'fix' from a permissions point of view as either something's a symbolic link or it's not. Repair Permissions has been removed in El Capitan so support for it with updated versions of Safari is likely to be overlooked.
The error about the InstalledPrinters.plist looks like a normal permissions discrepancy and I don't know why it wasn't repaired. The printer daemons may be resetting this.
It's normal for the ARDAgent error to be shown, as the error is included in this list by Apple of messages to ignore.
I believe this is normal behavior. Read access is granted to a wider group than the admin for many files. The more important thing is where write permission are given.
Many factors might come into mind. A process with root privileges is the main cause.
Think about an Application that you grant permissions to install using your Admin password. This Application might not have permissions set properly for certain folders that are installed in key OS location (i.e. /Library) would cause the permissions to change.
Think about a process in an Application that is granted a root privilege and does tamper with permissions in folders incorrectly.
The idea of locking the permissions is nice, but that would be implemented at this time with a no-write permission. Unless of course there is lock-permission-only flag is used; something I don't know if it exists.
Best Answer
The errors with Safari are because -rwxr-xr-x should be lrwxr-xr-x where the l indicates symbolic link. I'm not sure how this is something to 'fix' from a permissions point of view as either something's a symbolic link or it's not. Repair Permissions has been removed in El Capitan so support for it with updated versions of Safari is likely to be overlooked.
The error about the InstalledPrinters.plist looks like a normal permissions discrepancy and I don't know why it wasn't repaired. The printer daemons may be resetting this.
It's normal for the ARDAgent error to be shown, as the error is included in this list by Apple of messages to ignore.