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UPDATED: Worried about permissions?
Edited by Joe Aimonetti
First prognosis from those in the know: you probably do not have to be. That's great news for most of us who depend on the error reporting in Disk Utility to determine if our systems are running the way they should be. Many people have noticed that their permissions checks via Disk Utility after updating to Mac OS X 10.5.8 or other updates from Apple have spit out a laundry list of suspect errors.Update: Back in March, shortly after the Mac OS 10.5.6 update, a number of users were experiencing a huge list of permissions that would show up when verifying permissions using Disk Utility. At the time we, and most forums, advised users that many of these permissions errors could be ignored. A similar issue with permissions is occurring with the Mac OS X 10.5.8 update. Apple has released a KB Article that lists errors that users can safely ignore. For more information on permissions errors with the OS X 10.5.8 update, see this article: http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20090806095905196
Original Article From a forum post by MacFixIt Forum moderator "joemikeb":
"This is a behavior that has recurred several times in OS X since the very beginning. There have been lots of explanations about what is actually going on but the solution in every case has been to wait until Apple fixes this in the next release and in the meantime don't worry about it. As far as I know, most of Apple's fixes have involved modifying either the GUI or the underlying Unix command to suppress reporting the particular "messages." In other words, the condition is still there and it is still meaningless and unimportant so we simply won't tell you about it anymore. In some cases it is a result of errors in the Receipt package for the particular application or update but to the best of my knowledge the major problem created by any or all of these has been the inevitable spate of anxious inquiries on this and other Apple oriented forums asking what to do."
Simply stated, "Don't worry about it." Apple strives to make a user-friendly experience at every turn. Most of their diagnostic tools are set up to tell you what you need to know as a user, not as a tech guru. However, as joemikeb so eloquently points out, sometimes the diagnostic tools Apple has in place are simply too forthcoming with information. This often leads to the myriad of blog and forum posts (including this one) that people frantically peruse to solve the apparent problem.
References
MacFixIt forum thread describing permissions issues.
MacFixIt forum describing similar permissions issues related to the iTunes 8.1 update.
A bit more technical explanation via macosxhints.com forum user biovizier.
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