As I was having problems with a British newspaper and its comments columns I decided to check out the permissions repairs option.

The first time I checked I found myself with a huge number of repairs (unusual in itself, usually there are less than one panel).

I went back to the newspaper I thought may have been the source, found the same problem and within two minutes went through the repairs system again. Many, but not all of the repairs featured again.

Then I immediately closed permissions repairs and repeated the operation having done nothing with the machine in the short intervening period.

And yet again there were numerous repairs, largely with systems/library/frameworks/Java etc.

Could some kind person who knows what may be going on tell me why something that is supposed to be repaired keeps re-appearing as needing repair.

Very much obliged.

Hi SeventyOne
Are you repairing permissions whilst booted from an alternative operating system (other than the one you are trying to repair)?
Cheers
Mat

Hello eatdirt,

Big 'thank you' for your interest. I have had the problem with the Daily Telegraph/Disqus comments for a few days being able to click on the articles but for some reason, then find
that extensions to that link (like comments) simply won't load.

Not being too bright with computers and with limited needs, I tend to use permission repairs as a form of housekeeping when things go awry. My iMac rarely does as it is never used for anything complex.

The activity today was exactly as I described … found I had a problem, clicked out of the browser (after trying both Firefox and Safari), then into permission repairs. As of now I no longer seem to have the problem but the question remains … why do items supposedly repaired keep reappearing even when no activity has taken place between one permissions repair and another straight afterwards.

It may be a silly question but for me it's all part of the learning curve.

Thank you again for reading this far. Any thoughts?

There can be several re-appearing repairs, depending on your exact OS, that be safely ignored. See this Apple Article.

i have found that the safari extension ad-block will prevent disqus comments from working correctly, if you have it installed, add the Daily Telegraph site to the excluded domains site and see if that works

Hi SeventyOne
I dont know if some of the others suggestions have helped resolve the problem, but I suggest doing a disk repair whilst booted from your system disk or another operating system. Make sure you have a backup.
http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=3810
I had a lost file on my mbp, and only after running a repair did my permissions settle down.
Hope this helps
Mat

Hello and thank you, Mat, Iggy and Greybeard. Excellent response.

Mat, I have learnt more since yesterday's post when Ryan, a very helpful guy, from the Disqus help centre advised me that problems tended to arise with the amount of obtrusive code in certain advertisements, which is what you, Iggy, picked up on. Ad block is loaded so I'll look at excluding the Telegraph as you suggest, but whether Firefox has a similar exclusion system I don't know.

Clearly, the permissions repair was unnecessary. For future incidents I'm advised, (a) clear the safari cache, (b) refresh the page, and advise Disqus if particular adverts are present when the problem next occurs.