Ideally, restarting your Mac should always be done gracefully - and I don’t mean with a pirouette! This means a clean shutdown or restart where your Mac was told to restart through the correct menu. If something had crashed and is slowing the Mac down or a particular function is having trouble working, most times a restart will fix it. Restarting your computer boots the operating system again. You’ve no doubt heard the infamous line “have you tried turning it off and on again?” It actually has merit and is the first thing any user should do at the first signs of trouble. In addition, I’ll be including links to Apple support documents when available for further reading. However, always make sure you have a backup of your computer, not only in case a fix that’s performed causes your Mac to become unresponsive, but it’s just a good idea in general! The Fix Listīefore we begin, all the fixes we’re showing you are perfectly safe as long as you enter them (or perform them) exactly as described. Many a time I’ve had worried users on the phone to report their Mac doesn’t connect to the Internet and it turned out that the Wi-Fi had just been switched off. We could spend a lot of time reinstalling software, booting into safe mode, trying to use recovery tools, etc.
Let’s take a look at an example of a quick fix and assume we have a MacBook Pro that isn’t able to open any web pages. “Other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one” - Ockham’s Razor
Since most common issues are reasonably simple to resolve (despite the symptoms) then trying a ten-second fix makes much more sense than spending hours on a convoluted troubleshooting process. The user has to experience downtime and the technician is usually performance-measured on time to fix. In tech support, time is a crucial factor for both technician and user. It’s exactly what it sounds like - it’s something that is very simple (usually a key combination or quick command) that is the first attempt by technicians to repair a problem quickly and simply. In this first of a two-part tutorial, we’ll detail five quick fixes to your Mac’s most common problems. However, that doesn’t mean that our Macs don’t misbehave from time to time. See Disk Utility shows a “No Valid Packages” alert.As Mac users we’re used to not having to frequently troubleshoot our computer problems. Tip: If you remove receipts from /Library/Receipts/, the files installed by those packages cannot be verified or repaired, which is why you shouldn’t delete things from /Library/Receipts/. Which files does repairing permissions affect?įiles not installed using a package installed (.pkg) are not checked because there will be no installation receipts for Disk Utility to refer back to. Files whose permissions are changed more often during normal usage are not checked. If the permissions differ, Disk Utility displays the differences and corrects them if the Repair feature was used. This record is used by Disk Utility to refer to which permissions should be on which files, to ensure there are no discrepancies with the original files.
Whenever apps are installed in Mac OS X, a record of the files installed for an app are kept. How does Disk Utility check and repair permissions?ĭisk Utility knows which permissions should be on which files. After the procedure has finished, it will display a “Permissions repair complete” message. When the procedure runs, you will see messages appear in the window:Ĥ. The speed of the drive will also affect how long the procedure takes. The process may take a while, depending on the disk size and the number of files to repair. On the “First Aid” tab, click the “Repair Disk Permissions” button. Select the disk from the left-hand sidebar.ģ.
This is found inside your /Applications/Utilities folder:Ģ. This procedure can be carried out on any drive, both internally and externally connected drives.ġ. This procedure will repair any discrepancies found in permissions of various files and folders on your Mac.
How to Repair Permissions with Disk Utility These are many misunderstandings when it comes to repairing permissions, so we have provided an overview here of what it does, how to run repair permissions, and why you should use it. It also won’t fix more serious problems or any hardware-related issues. Lots of people refer to repairing permissions as the holy grail of fixing any problem on a Mac - this isn’t true. However, it not a solution for everything. Repairing permissions is a very common solution to various problems. Learn how to repair permissions on your Mac by following our guide. It repairs the permissions of various files on your Mac. Repairing Permissions is a simple procedure that Mac users can complete using the Disk Utility app or through the command line.