It hides other information as well; was copying files from CD to our server from my Mac and it hid the files as well. This update has been a bit of a lemon.
On a practical note, why does anyone care anyway? Is this actually relatively unimportant? Which 'mission critical' functions would be affected by this?
The "fix" is temporary and will revert when you restart.
The fix isn't temporary because they instruct you to create an alias of your User folder which will not be hidden.
This "fix" is temporary.
sudo chflags nohidden /Users
This story puts the alias there for people not comfortable with terminal instead of saying hey, if you don't do this, it is not going to work after the restart.
Certainly more important than getting to the Library folder.
Can you propose a scenario that makes it more important than accessing one's /Library folder? I probably access my /Library folder for various reasons every week, which is why I used the chflag command to unhide it, but I can't recall the last time I needed to access the /Users folder that didn't involve having access to my ~/ folder within that folder which are all preset in Finder's Sidebar.
So, how many times were the OS beta versions vetted by the best minds in the developer, propellerheads & even open to the public to review the build before final release. It would seem:
A. They missed this.
B. Its a new feature added in, but no explanation provided as to its usefulness.
C. It was undetected in testing by not evaluating the interaction of the iTunes release with the OS release.
Was iTunes released as a beta for testing as well? If so, as a completelty separate function to test against the existing OS, or was it tested against the OS beta as well?
This story puts the alias there for people not comfortable with terminal instead of saying hey, if you don't do this, it is not going to work after the restart.
It's not temporary. You unhide it with either method and then create an alias. The alias will not disappear when you restart.
I cannot recall needing to get to the /Users folder before. What files do most people need to access here?
Most people do not have multiple user accounts set up on their computers, so they would NEVER need to access the /Users folder for anything other than getting to your Home folder, of which there are many other ways to open.
If you notice in your Home folder there is a "Public" folder. This is where you can place items to allow others to access. And a place where others on your system can leave you stuff, "Drop Box", which is a write-only folder.
Oops... there's a system wide "Shared" folder that lets you store items that all users on your system can access rather than dropping it into each user's drop box.
Most people do not have multiple user accounts set up on their computers, so they would NEVER need to access the /Users folder for anything other than getting to your Home folder, of which there are many other ways to open.
If you notice in your Home folder there is a "Public" folder. This is where you can place items to allow others to access. And a place where others on your system can leave you stuff, "Drop Box", which is a write-only folder.
It's good information to point that out to anyone curious, but personally I'm a long time Mac user. I've never found a need to access the /Users folder. Ever.
I am going to assume anyone that accesses /Users regularly should be able to easily navigate to it hidden or not. And everyone else wont notice the difference.
And I for the life of me can’t think of why a user would need to access the /Users folder on a regular basis.
And I for the life of me can’t think of why a user would need to access the /Users folder on a regular basis.
[@]mjtomlin[/@]'s answer is the only one I'm aware of but if you're doing that on a regular basis I'd think you would have created Desktop, Dock, or Sidebar items to navigate to these /Users/%username%/Public folders quickly instead of drilling down through the system,.
Yesterday I would have said this was intentional, like with /Library, but knowing that's it not affecting all those updating to 10.9.3 I'd say it has to be a bug at some level.
My /Users folder was still visible after the update to 10.9.3... until I repaired permissions. Then it was hidden. But more concerning are the reports that the /Users folder permissions have also changed from 775 to 777 which makes the folder modifiable by anyone. I agree, it must be a bug.
But more concerning are the reports that the /Users folder permissions have also changed from 775 to 777 which makes the folder modifiable by anyone. I agree, it must be a bug.
It's good information to point that out to anyone curious, but personally I'm a long time Mac user. I've never found a need to access the /Users folder. Ever.
As an example of how this functions...
I have a friend who uses my computer regularly, so I created his own account (rather than let him **** up my stuff). Sometimes he'll want a copy of a document from me or even a song I ripped or he'll ask me to download something for him.
To get that item to him there are many different ways, but the quickest is to just throw into his drop box where he'll have it the next time he logs in. His drop box is in his home folder, which itself is in the /Users folder. If the /Users folder is hidden I'm screwed (if I didn't know other ways to access it: from the terminal, just type, "open /users" and the Finder will open the folder in a window).
This sort of thing is left over from big unix systems that had many, many user accounts.
My /Users folder was still visible after the update to 10.9.3... until I repaired permissions. Then it was hidden. But more concerning are the reports that the /Users folder permissions have also changed from 775 to 777 which makes the folder modifiable by anyone. I agree, it must be a bug.
Those reports are correct and it is a security problem,
another thing... the "Shared" folder in the /Users folder has also been hidden.
"Update: Dave Hamilton at the Mac Observer seems to have sniffed out the root issue. As it turns out, this isn’t a problem caused by OS X 10.9.3, but rather some kind of interaction between iTunes 11.2 and Find My Mac. If you have the latest version of iTunes installed and, within the iCloud system preference, have Find My Mac enabled (even if you’re running 10.9.2), the Users folder will be hidden. Switch off Find My Mac, use the Terminal trick above to unhide the folder, and the Users folder will remain visible even after you restart.”
This story puts the alias there for people not comfortable with terminal instead of saying hey, if you don't do this, it is not going to work after the restart.
It's not temporary. You unhide it with either method and then create an alias. The alias will not disappear when you restart.
I get what your saying. You are correct. The article however does not say what you are saying. It calls the command line the "fix". It offers the Alias for those that don't want to do the command line. It doesn't say that you should do the alias so you can easily get to the folder after a restart. MacRummors has much more details and says that if you just do the command line, it will revert back on restart.
If this response doesn't get my point across, it is ok. I'm done as it isn't that big of a deal anyway. Cheers!
Comments
Now that sounds like a more pressing issue.
Does the Show All command reveal them?
Pressing the option key while accessing the 'GO' menu works.
Shortcut Shift+Command+h key also works.
i'm okay with this.
Certainly more important than getting to the Library folder.
Certainly more important than getting to the Library folder.
I cannot recall needing to get to the /Users folder before. What files do most people need to access here?
The "fix" is temporary and will revert when you restart.
The fix isn't temporary because they instruct you to create an alias of your User folder which will not be hidden.
This "fix" is temporary.
This story puts the alias there for people not comfortable with terminal instead of saying hey, if you don't do this, it is not going to work after the restart.
Can you propose a scenario that makes it more important than accessing one's /Library folder? I probably access my /Library folder for various reasons every week, which is why I used the chflag command to unhide it, but I can't recall the last time I needed to access the /Users folder that didn't involve having access to my ~/ folder within that folder which are all preset in Finder's Sidebar.
So, how many times were the OS beta versions vetted by the best minds in the developer, propellerheads & even open to the public to review the build before final release. It would seem:
A. They missed this.
B. Its a new feature added in, but no explanation provided as to its usefulness.
C. It was undetected in testing by not evaluating the interaction of the iTunes release with the OS release.
Was iTunes released as a beta for testing as well? If so, as a completelty separate function to test against the existing OS, or was it tested against the OS beta as well?
It's not temporary. You unhide it with either method and then create an alias. The alias will not disappear when you restart.
I cannot recall needing to get to the /Users folder before. What files do most people need to access here?
Most people do not have multiple user accounts set up on their computers, so they would NEVER need to access the /Users folder for anything other than getting to your Home folder, of which there are many other ways to open.
If you notice in your Home folder there is a "Public" folder. This is where you can place items to allow others to access. And a place where others on your system can leave you stuff, "Drop Box", which is a write-only folder.
Oops... there's a system wide "Shared" folder that lets you store items that all users on your system can access rather than dropping it into each user's drop box.
Most people do not have multiple user accounts set up on their computers, so they would NEVER need to access the /Users folder for anything other than getting to your Home folder, of which there are many other ways to open.
If you notice in your Home folder there is a "Public" folder. This is where you can place items to allow others to access. And a place where others on your system can leave you stuff, "Drop Box", which is a write-only folder.
It's good information to point that out to anyone curious, but personally I'm a long time Mac user. I've never found a need to access the /Users folder. Ever.
I am going to assume anyone that accesses /Users regularly should be able to easily navigate to it hidden or not. And everyone else wont notice the difference.
And I for the life of me can’t think of why a user would need to access the /Users folder on a regular basis.
[@]mjtomlin[/@]'s answer is the only one I'm aware of but if you're doing that on a regular basis I'd think you would have created Desktop, Dock, or Sidebar items to navigate to these /Users/%username%/Public folders quickly instead of drilling down through the system,.
Yesterday I would have said this was intentional, like with /Library, but knowing that's it not affecting all those updating to 10.9.3 I'd say it has to be a bug at some level.
My /Users folder was still visible after the update to 10.9.3... until I repaired permissions. Then it was hidden. But more concerning are the reports that the /Users folder permissions have also changed from 775 to 777 which makes the folder modifiable by anyone. I agree, it must be a bug.
Now security is something to be concerned with.
It's good information to point that out to anyone curious, but personally I'm a long time Mac user. I've never found a need to access the /Users folder. Ever.
As an example of how this functions...
I have a friend who uses my computer regularly, so I created his own account (rather than let him **** up my stuff). Sometimes he'll want a copy of a document from me or even a song I ripped or he'll ask me to download something for him.
To get that item to him there are many different ways, but the quickest is to just throw into his drop box where he'll have it the next time he logs in. His drop box is in his home folder, which itself is in the /Users folder. If the /Users folder is hidden I'm screwed (if I didn't know other ways to access it: from the terminal, just type, "open /users" and the Finder will open the folder in a window).
This sort of thing is left over from big unix systems that had many, many user accounts.
My /Users folder was still visible after the update to 10.9.3... until I repaired permissions. Then it was hidden. But more concerning are the reports that the /Users folder permissions have also changed from 775 to 777 which makes the folder modifiable by anyone. I agree, it must be a bug.
Those reports are correct and it is a security problem,
another thing... the "Shared" folder in the /Users folder has also been hidden.
Mine is in the same place, and visible as it always has been.
.
.
Now security is something to be concerned with.
This from MacWorld...
"Update: Dave Hamilton at the Mac Observer seems to have sniffed out the root issue. As it turns out, this isn’t a problem caused by OS X 10.9.3, but rather some kind of interaction between iTunes 11.2 and Find My Mac. If you have the latest version of iTunes installed and, within the iCloud system preference, have Find My Mac enabled (even if you’re running 10.9.2), the Users folder will be hidden. Switch off Find My Mac, use the Terminal trick above to unhide the folder, and the Users folder will remain visible even after you restart.”
This "fix" is temporary.
sudo chflags nohidden /Users
This story puts the alias there for people not comfortable with terminal instead of saying hey, if you don't do this, it is not going to work after the restart.
It's not temporary. You unhide it with either method and then create an alias. The alias will not disappear when you restart.
I get what your saying. You are correct. The article however does not say what you are saying.
It calls the command line the "fix". It offers the Alias for those that don't want to do the command line. It doesn't say that you should do the alias so you can easily get to the folder after a restart. MacRummors has much more details and says that if you just do the command line, it will revert back on restart.
If this response doesn't get my point across, it is ok. I'm done as it isn't that big of a deal anyway. Cheers!