Repair permissions to resolve slow system issues

May 30, '03 09:21:00AM

Contributed by: hamish

Last night my big OS X partition became very slow to work. Today, I went to the smaller, barer one to use Disk Utility. Bad choice, it took 12 bounces to launch. Dead slow to run "Repair Disk Permissions." So I booted from the "Jaguar" Install Disk, and it worked about twice as fast and fixed the "Disk Permissions" on both partitions. Now it works much better.

Nearly all of the problems were on both partitions, and v10.2.6 was the last thing to touch them. Apple's updates do not seem to be the cleanest or friendliest, if you check the partition after installing. I'll now use Disk Utility and Drive 10 after each update.

[robg adds: As a general rule, running Repair Permissions once a month or so is a good idea. I occasionally lapse at this, and when I remember to do so, there are always a few glitches to be fixed. I won't necessarily blame the Apple updates, as I install and test a ton of software. Keep in mind that if you have special permissions established, such as for sendmail, they'll get wiped out by the Repair Permissions utility.

Also, if you're looking at things to help keep your machine in tip-top shape, run Console occasionally. Keep an eye on the console log (the one that opens by default), as well as the system log (in the Open Log dialog, enter /var/logs into the "Go To" line, then select system.log in that directory). These two logs can give you a very good glimpse at the overall health of your machine.]

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