"Fix permissions using the Disk Utility"
I bet people will continue to give this suggestion as an attempted fix to random problems long after all memory of what it was actually for will be lost (i.e. classic environment screwing with HFS+ extensions introduced by OS X).
To be fair, munged permissions are a real problem; Just the other day, Parallels released an advisory document[1] about an issue their users had been seeing related directly to filesystem permissions.
I believe that "fix permissions" scans the installed package receipts and corrects the file permissions where necessary. In a world where any errant package install can mangle modes and ownership, fix permissions will not go derelict.
What it's actually for is the fixing of mangled permissions.
Re:Mac OS X 10.8.1 is out.
by robterrell on Thursday August 23, 2012 @02:32PM
(#4424061)
I still hear "did you reset your PRAM?" from people occasionally. Good times.
I decided to try something I shouldn't have had to and bought an Airport Extreme.
No more issues. I've since sold the Cisco N router -- that had worked perfectly with every other wifi device in the house, including this same computer before Lion.