OSX Snow Leopard - permissions can't be repaired

My Dad's imac runs Snow Leopard which I installed over Leopard a while back. Today I ran disk utility 'verify permissions' (as usual when visiting him) and a list of 20 permissions needing repair was produced - most about java. I did 'repair' and all but one were noted as repaired. One of the errors could not be repaired by the repair function:

Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent" has been modified and will not be repaired.

As usual I ran verify again, and all of the same faulty permissions appeared. I did 'repair' again and they were all shown as repaired except the same one. Did verify again and they all came up again etc. Is this normal?

I'm wondering if I should run Onyx and see what that does, or whether there might be something wrong with Snow Leopard. A clean install maybe?


Thanks

It is normal - all permissions that are not repaired should be ignored.
Over time, you may well see around 100 of them.

System updates (& other) will modify the original permissions.
Why Apple does not modify the permission repair utility at the same time to eliminate these messages - after 6+ years using a Mac, is still a mystery to me.

After a clean install, with the very first update, the ARDAgent will reappear in that list.

edit:
A list of some of the other messages to ignore
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448

Good to know - thanks.

sago48 said:

I'm wondering if I should run Onyx and see what that does, or whether there might be something wrong with Snow Leopard. A clean install maybe?

Click to expand...

Agree with bobtomay...sometimes there are a some files that don't cooperate when doing a permissions repair.

Onyx does much more than repair permissions. So I would recommend running Onyx periodically for general maintenance.

- Nick