I have found similar questions here, but the answers provided to those questions do not resolve my problem.
If I do:
sudo chown <username> main.m
I get an operation not permitted error.
The general solution to prior errors was:
sudo chflags nouchg main.m
to clear a lock flag. However, after doing this, I still cannot chown the file. I have also tried:
chflags noschg main.m
in single user mode without any luck – I get an operation not permitted error.
If anyone has any thoughts, I would be interested.
Best Answer
Mac files can be protected in
fourthree different ways that I'm aware of:ls -l
and fix withchown(1)
andchmod(1)
.uchg
andschg
that you see withls -lO
and fix withchflags(1)
.The old Finder metadata "Lock bit" that you see withNever mind, this is mapped to theGetFileInfo filename
. You can also see the presence of the Finder metadata, but not its meaning, withls -l@
. You can fix it withSetFile(1)
.uchg
flag now.ls -le
and fix with the ACL-related arguments tochmod(1)
.So let's see what's up with your file by combining all those flags to
ls
:It sounds like you already know how to deal with #1 and #2.
If you see an ACL (#4), you can fix it with the ACL-related arguments to
chmod(1)
.If you're still stumped, update your Answer with the output from that combined
ls
command I suggested above, so we can see what's going on.