The home folder for user isn't located in the usual place......

....or can't be accessed.
Ok so I have trawled the internet and found this to be a known problem, however mine has an extra twist.
Ok, my Mac has a local admin account, lets call it Admin, but the account I use is a network account called PBN.
This network account does not create a home folder path to the server, as such it stores a user folder in Macintosh HD/Users/.
Since buying this mac this has been working fine, no issues, but today when I log onto the machine it gets the error "The home folder for <user> isn't located in the usual place or can't be accessed", whats more is that its created a new folder labelled "~".
Things I have tried:
1) repair permissions and repair disk while booted into SL DVD
2) Right clicking while in System Pref - Users to get to advanced options to check the home drive path (Can't do this because its a network account although the profile is stored locally)
3) xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo / on problematic machine
Couldn't do this on the PBN account as it has no permissions (although it is a domain admin)
attr file no found error the admin account
4) xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo /volumes/users/ while booted into another machine with broken machine in target disk mode.
So, I am at a major loss and would really preciate any help

The error messages regarding network homes really don't offer any specific clues as to what's wrong. The error message you're getting means one of several things - you've done something wrong setting up your server, you've done something wrong setting up your clients, your server has hardware/software issues, or your network infrastructure is bad. I'm honestly not trying to give you a bad time here, just going over possibilities.
DNS, which you mentioned, is a good place to start. You mentioned that forward/reverse lookups work, and that's a good sign. But just to be sure, have you run sudo changeip -checkhostname
If that reports back that the names match and there is nothing to change, then it's pretty certain that DNS is not the issue. Just to be sure, your clients are using your OS X Server, or whatever server is hosting DNS records for your setup?
The next step is to double-check permissions on the shares where user homes are located. The clients should also have accurate date&time settings.
The logs on the clients and server can also offer clues, however cryptic they may be, be sure to look at them if you haven't.
Also, has this setup worked before, if not, can you describe how you set everything up? I've been stymied by OS X Server myself, so I get where you're at, but the more details you provide, the better chance that Tony, Mr. Hoffman, or other folks here can offer a few more clues/suggestions.
hth
Jeff

Similar Messages

"The home folder...isn't located in the usual place or can't be accessed" after 10.9 AD bind.

Okay a little backstory here because I'm trying to eliminate or identify what I feel might be a bug in OS X Mountain Lion and Mavericks. Just FYI, I'm not our institution's AD admin, I just have rights to bind and query for this and that, but I can't make changes or really investigate our AD domain server/s:
So we're an educational institution with lots of adjuncts that come and go each year. Recently in August, I had about 5 cases where these adjuncts couldn't log in because of a cryptic "login failed" error. I have my macs setup to create mobile accounts without confirmation. I don't want ANY syncing going on just local user accounts created, but something in the profile creation process demands access to their network home folder. Well these 5 users were brand spanking new and somehow didn't have permissions to their own network home folders that everyone else hasn't had a problem with before. I had our admins fix the permissions, and they were able to login thereafter. Our admins are still looking for what might have caused this, but still don't know....
Recently I've been testing the same AD bind script I've always used on Mavericks. It's a simple bash "dsconfigad" customized for our institution. It seems to work successfully but on the login screen I get no usual "arrow" that allows me to back out and click "Other" and login to AD. I reseated the Ethernet cord and checked the AD configuration in Directory Utility - it was all set correctly as per the script parameters. When I clicked OK and exited out to the login screen, the Other option was working correctly. I was able to login with my own credentials just fine.
I needed to tweak my image a little so I wiped and reloaded the machine with the new image (nothing relevant to binding and users was changed). Got the same "no arrow" issue and tried the same steps, which again worked after some monkeying around. I tried to login with my credentials - failed. Now I get "The home folder for user 'my username' isn't located in the usual place or can't be located." I went into a local user admin account and tried to add my home folder manually, nogo. I logged onto a windows machine and tried to mount the same home folder in Windows - access denied - this is the SAME type of thing that ended up happening to my adjuncts. I don't know if they are related but it's certainly a strange coincidence.
How could testing AD binds change my home folder permissions, or possibly even corrupt the folder altogether? The network share/home folder that our macs smb communicate with as per the bind settings are on a windows server (to the best of my knowledge). My guess previously with the adjuncts error is that despite the fact that I don't need or want the profiles created to sync, the default options turns this on for mobile accounts even though it doesn't select any actual folders for syncing, but because it still tries some sort of "handshake" or something initially, first logins fail without network home folder permissions. Now it seems like something in the initial profile creation process might actually be corrupting the network home folder or changing its permissions.
I would post the bind script but I'm not sure it's relevant, as another mac admin in a different area ran into the same error with one of his new users and he bound manually, not with a script.
I'm kind of new to this sysadmin stuff, so does anyone have any ideas or suggestions to track down the cause of this and possibly fix it? The network share admin can fix my permissions, but if I could break it when it was working once, I foresee this happening again.

Here's the script I used previously that is not connecting to AD "completely" that causes the errors mentioned (I'm replacing institution info with "xxx"):
echo -n "This computer needs to be renamed and bound to Active Directory. Please enter the XXX Inventory Number from the affixed XXX label on the machine: "
    read userinput
    echo -n "Enter the XXXAdmin password (you will still be asked to enter this for system configuration changes): "
    read -s xxxpassword
    scutil --set ComputerName $userinput
    scutil --set LocalHostName $userinput
# Active Directory Bind Script For OS X Client
    # Modified by Wade Wei according to previous popular bind script
    # Adapted for xxx by xxx
    echo "Binding to Active Directory…"
    echo -n "Enter AD admin username: "
    read adusername
    echo -n "Enter AD admin password (please wait after password submitted, do not press any keys): "
    read -s adpassword
    #Basic parameters
    computerid=$userinput
    fqdn="ad.xxx.edu"
    username=$adusername
    password=$adpassword
    #Advanced parameters
    alldomains="enable"
    localhome="enable"
    protocol="smb"
    mobile="enable"
    mobileconfirm="disable"
    useuncpath="enable"
    user_shell="/bin/bash"
    admingroups="domain admins,enterprise admins,xxx,xxx"
    namespace="domain"
    packetsign="require"
    packetencrypt="require"
    localuser="XXXAdmin"
    localpassword=$xxxpassword
    # Bind to AD
    echo "Binding to AD - do not interrupt…"
    dsconfigad -add $fqdn -username $username -password "$password" -computer $computerid -force -packetencrypt $packetencrypt -localuser $localuser -localpassword $localpassword
    sleep 5
    #Configure advanced options
    echo "Configuring AD for Mac OS X…"
    dsconfigad -localuser $localuser -localpassword $localpassword -alldomains $alldomains -localhome $localhome -groups "$admingroups" -mobile $mobile -mobileconfirm $mobileconfirm -namespace $namespace -packetsign $packetsign -useuncpath $useuncpath -protocol $protocol -shell $user_shell -nopreferred
Can anyone tell me if I need to update the script for Mavericks, and how? Or should this be working and the bug is in Mavericks itself?

Portable home directory error "Home folder...is not located in the usual p"

I have a small handful of users with portable home directories. Of these, one is getting an error every time she logs onto the workstation: "The home folder for user ~ is not located in the usual place...". Her profile loads just fine, but I suspect it's only the local copy. Last week she didn't mention this mesasge, but did tell me about a problem with her mail; we ended up having to remove and re-create her imap account.
Her workstation is running OS X 10.5.8, as is the server. They're on the same subnet (and even the same switch). Once her profile loads, she can access everything just fine, including her folders and documents.
1. Is there any way to tell whether her local copy is synced with the server? (I'm worried that she's been doing this for several days and they're no longer in sync.)
2. How can I correct this for the future?
3. If the local and server copies are out-of-sync, how do I re-sync them (with the local copy overwriting the server copy)?
Thanks so much!
-Matthew

I encountered this issue recently. My solution was to configure a network home folder for the user, log in at the workstation with the network user account, then turn off and delete the user's home folder on the server.
Note: In my setup, our network users are configured as mobile user accounts so that a local home folder is created at login on the workstation.
Bryan Dulock
Apple Consultants Network
Houston, TX

"home folder for user "....." is not located in the usual... (help)

I accidentally ran Disk Utility (repair permissions and disk) from the panther disk that came with my computer instead of from my Tiger disk. Now things are really screwed up. I can't open any user accounts and no files seem available. Most Apps seem to be there. But i can't open or even locate any formerly existing documents.
The message i'm getting is: *Home Folder for user "me" is not located in the usual place and can not be accessed*
Does anyone have any idea what can be done?
I would appreciate any advice,
Syncsailor

You must repair the HD, your best bets are DiskWarrior from Alsoft...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
Data Rescue II...
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

Can I change the Home Folder of users with Group Policy (or in another centralized way)?

I know how to change the Home folder of users from AD Users & Computers -> their Properties -> Profile tab. But this is not very practical when one has users spread across many OUs, and with users being added and removed often.
So I am wondering whether there is a way to do the same with a GPO. The closest thing I found was Folder Redirection, with which I can change the location of particular profile folders for each user, but not the location of the whole profile.
Is there a way to redirect the entire location of users in a centralized way, using a GPO or some other mean?

I would recommend reading that about the management of roaming profiles: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc784961(v=ws.10).aspx
You can involve the use of Powershell scripts for the management of roaming profiles:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/12460.powershell-automate-roaming-profile-folder-permissions.aspx
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Check-if-an-AD-user-has-a-45ed5d1c
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.
Get Active Directory User Last Logon
Create an Active Directory test domain similar to the production one
Management of test accounts in an Active Directory production domain - Part I
Management of test accounts in an Active Directory production domain - Part II
Management of test accounts in an Active Directory production domain - Part III
Reset Active Directory user password

What is proper path syntax for home folder for users

I'm taking over for someone who has left the organization.
They have used two methods for setting up a home folder for each AD user. I think they did this because over time they learned some things and just changed the way they did things. I'm not sure, but I'm trying to understand which is best to use going forward.
We use 2003 - and 2008R2 environment for AD.
We have a folder on our server called D:\userfiles
In this folder we have each department with a folder eg.
D:\userfiles\hr
D:\userfiles\accting
D:\userfiles\department1
etc.
When we set up a User in AD we click on the Profile tab and then select H: as the "Home Folder" and then in the To box enter one of two paths.
My question is which path is best. They both seem to work.
The one with the $ at the end I think creates a share in the shared folder when you look at shared folders in the computer management on the server for that user.
Anyway I'm not really sure which to use or what the difference is. I would like to use one or other.
We also have a script that is run when people log on but I'm unclear if that is just a red herring in this discussion.
Thanks.

Hi stevwolf,
Based on my understanding, you would like to know what the mean of the dollar sign($) at the end of the share name. Right?
The share name which has the dollar sign($) at the end means it is a hiden share. Hidden shares are not listed when you look through the shares on a computer or use the
net view command. In your case, the folder joebleow$ will not be liated in the path
\\server1.
Regards,
Lany Zhang

Help with understanding the Home Folder plus User Accounts

I just got the IMac (replacing an ageing...that is an understatement...Grape iMac from long ago) and this is my first go at the OSX. My previous iMac had OS9.2
I am having a problem understanding the Home folder and the Users to a point. The concepts are fine, it is the changing of names that is the problem. When I first started the iMac and went through the set-up and finally looked at the file structure, there was the Home Folder with a name, which i guess was pre-entered during set-up since I did not enter it (lets call it JOE). There was also 1 User, JOE with all the iLife folders. Since I did not like the name, i went to the Systems Preferences, into Accounts and found that JOE is an Admin. So, I changed the name to, lets say BILL, who still is an Admin. I also changed some settings and made BILL the auto log account. OK so far I am happy. I go back to the HD and find that now there are 2 users (folders), BILL and JOE, and that the Home Folder is still named JOE butall the iLife files are now under BILL.
So I went and also renamed the Home Folder to BILL, so everything looks fine. But when I restarted the iMac latter it lost all the settings (mouse, etc.) This is really getting confusing.
Here is what I want to do (after some reasearch):
I want to change the Short Name (JOE) but so far I have read that you can not do that. Where did this name come from (basically my first initial and my last name) because I don't want my Home Folder to be named that. I found somewhere that the only way to do that is an Erase and Install. I am willing to do that since I have a backup of all the iLife files on an external disk anyways and I have not put anything new yet.
Can someone enlighten me as to what would be the best course of action....this Short Name thing is frustrating.
iMac 20" 2.33MHz Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Welcome To Discussions kapklo!
First you need to sort out the extra Home folder issue, that was created by changing the Short Names.
The info in one or more of the articles linked to below, will help you with that.
Return to Default Desktop, Apparent "Loss" of Home Directory
My home folder and desktop are different than before
Recover from renaming your Home folder, authored by Dr Smoke
Then you can change the Short Name using this Change Short Name The Easy Way.
Or you could do an Erase & Install, making sure you enter your preferred Short Name, during the setup process.
ali b

How do i assign the Home folder to a hard disc other than the boot disc?

I just installed a new 1TB disc drive. My original 500GB boot drive is full of all my operating system files and folders as well as all my data. A person in the MacPro community suggested that I separate the Home folder from my other boot folders and place it on the 1TB drive and keep all my operating system files on the original 500GB drives.
Does Apple support this approach? If so, is there a defined methodology to effect this outcome?
Jim Simpson

Go into
 > System Preferences... > Users & Groups
Click the padlock at the bottom and enter your password to open it.
Hold 'control' and click your account name. Choose 'Advanced Options...'
In the dialogue that opens, you can tell the OS where to look for your home folder.

How do I set the Home Page for a newly open tab using the File Tab Menu??

When I open a new tab, is there a way to set the home page the new tab will use when it is opened, or will new tabs always be opened as blank pages?

I have new windows opening when I click on a link. Or when I click on the FF-Icon. New windows are the default setting.
When a new window opens, I get a Google home page and can instantly type in a search phrase.
With the above in mind, sometimes I want to keep search classes in the same window. In a sense I'm using the Window with no tabs, to generate a tab by using the File Tab option.
When a Tab is selected where new windows will launch a new page, and not a new tab, the process of forcing a new tab onto the window will produce a tab page that is Blank, and the new tab label description displayed in the tab area shows the words "New Tab". That tab's URL address bar is blank. Zip - nothing displayed.
When a blank page tab appears, I click on the HOME button you helped me remodel, and the "New Tab" description in the tab label area changes from "New Tab" to "Google".
My question was to ask, if there was a way I could do something to make FF4 do that Home page assignment on its own. In the early FF days I found you could sometimes go into the bowels of FF, find some form of INI or SETTINGS type file, look for a Keyword reference that would tell FF to do something different, and Viola, emotional issue resolved. In this case, I'm trying to "Gild the Lilly" by asking if you, or someone else might have a rabbit they can pull out of their hat, just like you did when you helped me move my Home button, and have that rabbit show me how to do something that default FF-Options section doesn't support.
Did I do a better job of explaining the issue this time?
Thanks again for the response.
When I

I have 2 iphones and 1 ipod touch. how do i use the same itunes on the home computer for each? all we use the home computer for is one big music database.

i have 2 iphones and 1 ipod touch. i want to use the same itunes music database for each device. we did this before with our older ipods, by just sycing what was checked. does this work the same way with the new devices?

Have a read here...
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18409815?ac_cid=ha
And See Here...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1495

Will changing the partition of the Home Folder automatically move files from old location?

I want to change the home folder for my users. Currently they are saving to the C: drive and using up the space on the root drive. There is a D: partition that has 774 GB free, so I would like to move use directories over to a new Home
Folder on the D: drive.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816313
What I am unsure of is whether or not I will have to manually move their files once I change the home directory. Will it or do I need to take an extra step to move files in order to provide a seemless experience to the users?
I am working with Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials.

Hi,
Did you use the group policy to set the user home folder?
As Ahmed MALEK mentioned, a user account is moved from one location to another in AD the users home drive setting is not automatically updated as its a static configuration on the users account. You need to manually move the file to the new location.
Maybe you could consider the folder redirection, more detail information, please refer to:
How to “Set users home folder” via group policy in Windows 8
Regards.
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected]

How do I restore the user to the home folder permissions?

I just got an iMac from a friend and had changed the username and password for the administrator user. Then I was going to change the home folder name. I was looking at the info on the home folder (which at this point is still tied to the old user). I inadvertantly removed the user from the permissions before adding the new username or even allowing all users to access the home folder. Now I cannot access the home folder at all. How do I restore the permissions to the home folder or add the user back to the allowed users with access to the home folder?

dalefromdallas,
First you should do a clean install of the computer, while your friend may have included apps, they do not belong to you unless your friend gave y ou the install media and license codes. Considering the machine is also running 10.9.2. this machine will be forever tied to his AppleID which exposes him financially. You should get the 10.6.X DVD from your friend (I'm assuming he upgrade from 10.6.x at some point) and do an erase and install, then update it to 10.6.8 then upgrade yourself to 10.9.2 Mavericks. Then you will have a clean system, otherwise you will be working with a pretty kludged system that will probably be trouble.

How do I change the name of the Home folder OSX 10.9

Hi there,
I am trying to change the name of the Home folder on my Macbook Pro running OSX 10.9 I had a clean install of 10.9, and used migration assistant to restore my settings from a Time Machine Backup.
The problem is that the Home folder for my user is now named "Cody 1" when it used to be "Cody". This seems like a minor issue, but all the programs that reference data in the old location, are forcing me to go and find the data manually. Everything from iPhoto to VirtualBox, all files have to be found manually.
I have tried the instructions set forth in this article, http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1428, but the dialog that should, according to the article, allow me to redirect the account to the existing folder, returns an error saying that the user name is already in use. There is no option to use the existing folder. I have tried re-naming the folder to something different, to no avail.
Ideas?
Thanks in advance.
-Cody

The Apple Support document you referenced is cumbersome, outdated, buggy, and too likely to result in the sort of problems you described.
It may be too late now but see the following:
Niel's post here: How to change name of home folder
and:
Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini found an astonishingly simple way to accomplish what you seek. etresoft distilled that information into the following User Tip:
Changing user account short name
Note that he writes it has been tested on Mountain Lion but the procedure appears sound and should work equally well with Mavericks.
Back up your system before doing either one.
To fix what happened might be possible in Single user mode. I don't have specific instructions but you should be able to find and delete user accounts in the /Users directory.
Type carefully and don't proceed without knowing the risks.

Endpoint Protection error: The source folder for content does not exist.

I have a single SCCM 2012 SP1 CU4 server running on Windows Server 2012.
I have been using this for a little more than a month for Endpoint Protection and Windows Updates.
I just recently started seeing that my Endpoint Deployment Package has Failed. I click on "Content Status" and select the Endpoint package (which again shows Failed). I click on "View Status" and I get this
message in the "Error" tab:
The source folder for content does not exist.
The Asset Details point to the exact location that does not exist:
The source directory "\\<server>\updates\endpoint\6bd81fde-3a3f-4aa9-bf70-ba007891ca68" for package "<package>" does not exist.
I didn't change anything related to this, and that directory path (\\server\updates\endpoint) is
shared and is populated with a lot of other folders.
Is this possibly just a bad update file? Should I manually create that sub-folder that it says is missing?
Any help would be great! Thanks!

Thanks for the quick reply, Torsten. (I often forget which logs to check for certain things).
There are six lines (3 errors -- in italics below) in the log around the same time frame. They read:
The source directory \\sccm-corp\updates\endpoint\6bd81fde-3a3f-4aa9-bf70-ba007891ca68 doesn't exist or the SMS service cannot access it, Win32 last error = 2   SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER   5/27/2014 11:54:46 AM
5920 (0x1720)
STATMSG: ID=2306 SEV=E LEV=M SOURCE="SMS Server" COMP="SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER" SYS=SCCM-Corp.pdcarea.lcl SITE=PDC PID=6008 TID=5920 GMTDATE=Tue May 27 16:54:46.962 2014 ISTR0="\\sccm-corp\updates\endpoint\6bd81fde-3a3f-4aa9-bf70-ba007891ca68" ISTR1="PDC00063"
ISTR2="" ISTR3="" ISTR4="" ISTR5="" ISTR6="" ISTR7="" ISTR8="" ISTR9="" NUMATTRS=1 AID0=400 AVAL0="PDC00063"   SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER   5/27/2014 11:54:46 AM   5920 (0x1720)
Failed to take snapshot of one or more contents in package PDC00063   SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER   5/27/2014 11:54:46 AM   5920 (0x1720)
CDistributionSrcSQL::UpdateAvailableVersion PackageID=PDC00063, Version=10, Status=2302   SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER   5/27/2014 11:54:46 AM   5920 (0x1720)
STATMSG: ID=2302 SEV=E LEV=M SOURCE="SMS Server" COMP="SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER" SYS=SCCM-Corp.pdcarea.lcl SITE=PDC PID=6008 TID=5920 GMTDATE=Tue May 27 16:54:46.990 2014 ISTR0="Endpoint Protection Definition Updates" ISTR1="PDC00063" ISTR2="" ISTR3=""
ISTR4="" ISTR5="" ISTR6="" ISTR7="" ISTR8="" ISTR9="" NUMATTRS=1 AID0=400 AVAL0="PDC00063"   SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER   5/27/2014 11:54:46 AM   5920 (0x1720)
Failed to process package PDC00063 after 33 retries, will retry 67 more times   SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER   5/27/2014 11:54:47 AM   5920 (0x1720)

Custom home folder for BC FTP accounts?

Does anyone know if you can customize the home folder for FTP account/login to BC like you can with other hosting providers? I know you can manage access with account roles, but I don't think it goes as specific as what folder on the server can be accessed by a specific account. Right now all FTP accounts login straight to the root folder.

Hi Steve,
Unfortunately you cannot control or customize this further via BC FTP. The system will always open in the root. All you can do via FTP is create/delete new folders as well as upload/remove files.
Kind regards,
-Sidney

The home folder for user isn't located in the usual place......

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for