12-10-2011, 07:54 AM

I've had a couple of years of ACL file issues on my G5. Now that the logic board went bad, I've switched to an older single processor G4 to access the data. I wiped the primary drive on which the issues persisted, reformatted it through a Leopard upgrade (from Tiger). Updated the firmware and most other program upgrades. Then, took the data from TimeMachine on an external backup drive (issues on drive 1 must have been copied too). The data went back nicely but some of the ACL file issues remain, albeit a much lesser percentage. It causes a much greater time when running file permissions and then I get the error messages on the attached log report afterwards. No matter if I run disk repair which comes up fine, the problem ALWAYS returns. How can I finally fix this problem. None of the recommendations in the past I've found worked. Is this caused by upgrades from Panther to Tiger to Leopard? I had some music downloads with viruses in the past. Could it be that? What to do? I can't have such issues with one processor and 4G ram! Please help! Dr. Joe

12-11-2011, 12:13 PM

First off… when repairing permissions, there are always going to be some messages like those. See Apple's support document:
Mac OS X: Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions messages that you can safely ignore

The question I have for you is.. are you actually having any issues? Ignore those "error" messages, which may not be real errors. Are you actually having any actual problems in using OS X? If so, then please elaborate. If you are having some specific issues, or want to be extra sure, then read on…

I rather doubt you got any "virus" for OS X from a music download. There were some serious issues with ACL in upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard, unless it was Tiger to Leopard. It's been some time… I forgot which it was. Anywho… part of the solution for me was to do a clean install of OS X. Make sure you have secure backups, then boot from your Leopard install disc, and use the Erase and Install option. You do NOT have to install any other version of OS X before installing Leopard. The upgrade-priced discs install exactly like any other.

Once done, migrate your user data back over. Now... I had some ACL issues that migrated over with my user data. And by issues, I mean real problems in reading/writing files that I should have had access to even in my own home folder. The final fix, which did not work before a clean install as above, was a nifty free tool… ACLFix. Download and use that to do a final fix up. If you like, you can simply try this before doing a complete reinstall. But be aware that no matter what you do, you will still see "errors" when repairing permissions, but as before, they are to be expected.