Mac Os Archive Utility Error Identifying A Writable Temporary Folder
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RegionPrivacy Terms Maps TermsStart a hangout Karthik NagarajKarthik NagarajShared publicly - 2011-11-20Sometimes Mac has weird issues. This morning I downloaded a zip file and wanted to unzip it using the Archive Utility and boom it fails with the following error: Archive Utility.app “Error identifying https://plus.google.com/+KarthikNagaraj/posts/8VP6Mhw7dfR a writable temporary folder”So Googling for the answer I bumped upon http://www.macworld.com/article/1166598/storage/beyond-zip-secrets-of-the-archive-utility.html some forums that had suggestions but only one worked for me but tagging it all in here for later search and retrieval. Solution or solutions:1. Launch the Terminal utility, then type this command: ls -l / | grep private(The letters "l" are lower-case mac os letters "L".)What do you see for private and tmp? On my system they look like this:drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root wheel 204 May 17 14:50 privatelrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root wheel 11 May 17 14:37 tmp -> private/tmpIf the values before the "@" signs and the two words between the numbers don't match, that might explain your problem.2. mac os archive Use the MV command to rename /private/tmp folder to tmp.oldCreate a new tmp & then give EVERYONE read/write access to this folder. This fixed my issue. I will do a permissions repair later & see if the problem comes back.3. Add admin group with recursive read and write access to '/private/var/folders' via folder information.4. cd /var/folders AND sudo rm -rf *Suggestion number 4 worked for me. Feel free to add comments on what worked for you.#macproblems13 commentsMuthu Kannan (Manki)+010 ReplyDuh. What creates the symlink though? Must be some stupid program with root access (which is kinda scary).Muthu Kannan (Manki)+010 ReplyIn step 4, you're missing files like /var/folders/.some_folder. sudo rm -rf /var/folders will delete all dot files AND /var/folders, if that's what you want.Karthik Nagaraj+010 ReplyDoing # 1 screws up my NX Session since the damn thing stores the X session socket information in a tmp folder. So I had to restore the /private/tmp folder and nx worked fine again.Add a comment...
Subscribe Resources Macs MacBooks Mac Desktops iPhones Blogs iPads Accessories Apps Audio Business Cameras Components Development software Displays E-readers Home Theater iOS iPhone Accessories iPad Accessories iPods OS X Printers Networking Productivity Software Smartwatches Storage Styluses Mac Desktops MacBooks Displays Networking Storage Working Mac Get more out of your Mac with productivity tips and tricks Follow @macworldbiz Home Storage Beyond .zip: Secrets of the Archive Utility Comments Kirk McElhearn | @mcelhearn Senior Contributor, Macworld May 1, 2012 6:00 AM If you’ve ever sent, or received, a big file via email, you’ve undoubtably encountered a zip file. Double-click one of these and it expands to show files hidden inside. A zip file, or archive, takes up less space than the original files, so that your documents, images and whatnot are easier to send or store. But what do you do if a file won’t expand or you come across a different type of archive? Here are answers to frequently asked questions about working with compressed files on Mac OS X. Q: How does compression work? A: File compression technology looks for repeated data and writes archives that eliminate these repetitions to save space. You’ll find some files shrink a lot—compressed text files can be half the size of the originals—and others not so much. If you try to compress a JPEG file, for instance, you won’t see much benefit, as the JPEG format already includes compression. Q: How do I make a zip file on my Mac? A: To compress a file, a folder, or a group of files in Mac OS X, select the item(s) in the Finder and then either choose File -> Compress Item Name, or right-click on the selected item(s) and choose Compress Item Name. If you compress a single file, the process wil