macOS needs to repair your library to run applications - sudo chown -R _www:_www ./

Joined
Mar 20, 2018
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Hi guys

I was messing around with Wordpress/ftp/xampp related stuff.

For some reason I followed someone's advice and typed in the following in the Terminal:

sudo chown -R _www:_www ./
And verified with:
ls -lart

That had some real unpleasant consequences.

I constantly get the message "macOS needs to repair your library to run applications" and I cannot reach any of my documents and files.

Anyone perhaps knows how to fix this?

Many thanks in advance!

Cheers
 

Raz0rEdge

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 17, 2009
Messages
15,745
Reaction score
2,071
Points
113
Location
MA
Your Mac's Specs
2022 Mac Studio M1 Max, 2023 M2 MBA
Where exactly were you when you typed that particular command? If you were in your home directory, that would explain the issue. If you were really in the specific folder you listed, then it shouldn't matter.

Either way, you need to run Disk Utility to first repair the permissions so that you are back to a sane state and then we can figure out what you want to do and how to do it.

Third, NEVER, NEVER, and again NEVER run any command on the terminal without understanding what it does. This is a fairly innocuous command that can be reversed, but others might not be.
 
Joined
Nov 28, 2007
Messages
25,564
Reaction score
486
Points
83
Location
Blue Mountains NSW Australia
Your Mac's Specs
Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
Very sound advice Ashwin on Terminal.

Thomas some folk post malicious Terminal commands just to make trouble, similar to virus hijackers etc.
 
OP
T
Joined
Mar 20, 2018
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I put everything back to its original by running disk utility (thanks Razoregde!). Everything seems to be working well.

I will now chastise myself for my reckless behavior.
 

Raz0rEdge

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 17, 2009
Messages
15,745
Reaction score
2,071
Points
113
Location
MA
Your Mac's Specs
2022 Mac Studio M1 Max, 2023 M2 MBA
Glad you're back to a sane place.

Is there a reason you were trying to change ownership of that directory, which looks very weird BTW? If you were looking to upload files into Wordpress, that would go into the Uploads folder and rather than change ownership of everything, you're better of just changing the permissions of that one folder.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top