Permissions: “fetching…” the fix.

So you’ve checked your permission on a problematic file, and discovered that that first entry is for a user named “fetching…”

More than a little trouble, especially if you just migrated 1.2 million files from one machine to another.

You can’t move or delete almost anything at all without having to enter your password. Here’s the problem: permissions are read in order, and if the first one (fetching…) can not be found, things get wonky.

The are a number of extremely tedious fixed out there on the font-of-all-wisdom (the internet) but wouldn’t a simple quick fix be nice?

First, if the file is in fact a folder with a little red dot and minus sign on the icon, the fix is simple: do a command I (get info) and where it says “fecthing…” just hilight it, and click the – minus button. Done.

Here it is:
The files are trying to access a user who no longer exists on your machine. The user is recognized by his/her “UID” number.

The fix is simple: create a new user with the correct (missing) UID.

Here’s how to do that:

First, you need an example of an affected file with the corrupt preferences (where the top preference name is “fetching…”)

Open the terminal and enter

ls -le (drag affected file here)

You entry might then look similar to this

ls -le /Volumes/Data/wonkyfile.txt

Hit enter, and the resulting line will look similar to this:

-rw-r–r–@ 1 501 staff 11522 Apr 17 11:14 /Volumes/Data/wonkyfile.txt

where the 501 (or whatever number it is, let’s call it NNN) is the first listed permission and therefore IS the UID that is “fetching…”

You’re done in the terminal.

Visit system preferences/ users & groups

unlock the padlock, and click the + button to create a new admin user with password. Might name it FixFetch, for example.

When done, contol click on the new fixfetch user in the “other users” listing in the left-hand column, and select advanced options.

BINGO! There’s the UID assigned to “fixfetch”. Replace whatever the number is with NNN, that you found in the terminal.

You’re done. All those “fetching…” names in preferences will now be “fixfetch” and your problems have vanished.

Done.