Missing Home Folder in Users Folder

I have a very strange situation where my Home folder (short name "Peter") does not appear in my "Users" Folder. It appears on the Finder sidebar and if i do a search it is found by the finder in the "Users" folder. I can access it from either of these two methods but I can not go to the "Users" folder and find it (I only have one other folder in the "Users" folder and that is the folder "Shared")
I have repaired permissions several times and did a disk verify with disk utilities and nothing was found as a problem. I did not change the name of this user at any time and it shows up as a user in the Accounts preferences. I can create a new user and it shows up in the "Users" folder and is removed once I delete the new user.
This is very wierd. Any help!
Peter
Runing OX10.4.10 on a MacBook (2 GB 667 MHz)

Peter
It is possible that somehow or other the "invisible" bit has got set on your Home folder.
Take a look at Francine's article on invisible volumes/folders and see if that helps.

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Alias to user folder inside user folder?

For some reason I've found I now have an alias (symbolic link?) to my user folder inside my user folder. This seems odd. It was created last November, and I have no idea how or why.
I'm wondering if it can have anything to do with the many anomalies I seem to be experiencing in Mavericks 10.9.5 on an Intel iMac, e.g.:
• The horror of thousands of "com.apple.IconServicesAgent failed to write" messages suddenly starting to show up in Console, with com.apple.IconServicesAgent consuming huge amounts of CPU time and memory, and Finder windows not listing their contents, with a gear in the corner spinning endlessly
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It seems that my entire system has gotten extremely sluggish, and I have tried everything I know, going through countless threads in this forum, trying "fixes" that don't seem to fix anything about it. I'm desperate, and now am wondering if this odd alias has anything to do with my woes. It's very troubling.
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I do not think having an Alias to your home directory in your home directory will affect your performance issues.
I suggest you post the output from EtreCheck and let the forum analyze it.
<https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6174>
I suspect something more serious is going on. Adware perhaps.
With respect to a back pointing Alias, since anyone can create an Alias (or a similar, BUT different, Unix symbolic link), the operating system is prepared to deal with loops, and tends to notice when a request to access a file has an infinite loop Alias or symlink in the path that prevents it from actually getting there.
You just double clicking on an Alias, that takes you back up the directory tree, is not an automated process, so you can most likely do that all day long, until you get tired of playing that game.
An applications program that decides to walk a directory tree by opening one directory at a time and not keep track of its history, nor notice that it opened an Alias or symlink is an application program that has a bug in it. There are not many programs that actually do this, and the few that do, have already discovered they need to either NOT follow an Alias or symlink, or know enough to maintain state information that tells them when they have a loop.

Copying Library folder in User folder to external drive

In addition to my Time Machine backup, I have always kept an additional copy of the contents of my user folder on an external USB drive. Tried to do this for the first time since updating to Snow Leopard and copying fails when it gets to the Library folder with a message that I don't have permission to copy this folder. With Leopard this always worked, but not anymore, anyone know of a solution, also is there actually any purpose in backing up that particular folder?

Does your external drive have any ownership flags for the folder you are copying to?
Check out BATCHMOD try www.macupdate.com
Also do Get info on the external drive; on the folder you want to copy to, my guess is that 10.6 has changed something.
For synching a backup of user account(s) I would turn to a program, like SuperDuper, to keep current and let it handle these kind of issues, and great program for $29.
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After using time machine my users folder cannot be seen, but all information is still intact. Where did it go?

After using time machine my users folder cannot be seen, but all information is still intact. Where did it go?

This is a new feature or bug if you want to call it that in OS X 10.9.3
Until Apple fixes this, here is a temporary work around.
Copy and paste the following command in the Terminal and then hit Enter, followed by your password.
sudo ln -s /Users /Users\ Folder; ln -s /Users/Shared /Users/Shared\ Folder
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Creative cloud doesnt create a cloud folder on my Users Folder?

Hi normally when you install creative cloud make a new folder on Users folder on MAC. But installed 2 times and still I dont have a creative cloud folder on my Users folder?

Hi,
Please try the following workaround:
MAC
1. Quit the Creative Cloud desktop application.
2. In Terminal, copy and paste this command:
rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/CoreSync/options.tix
3. Launch the Creative Cloud desktop application and start syncing.
WINDOWS
1. Quit the Creative Cloud desktop application.
2. Open the Start menu, and type 'cmd' in the search box, then enter to start a command prompt.
3. Copy and paste this command at the command prompt:
del %APPDATA%\Adobe\CoreSync\options.tix
4. Launch the Creative Cloud desktop application and start syncing.

Missing files, user folder, application folder and system folder

I am using a MacBook Pro 2011 model with OS X 10.9.4.
Since I bought the machine several years ago, I have had only a few small problems with it. Yesterday I wanted to reduce the size of a video, so I downloaded a video compressor/converter software, and left the computer on and the program compressing my video whilst I went off to work. When I returned home, the compressing program had a pop-up saying ''Could not complete compression, system full'' or something along those lines.... After trying to play the movie without success, I decided that I would restart my computer, as it had been on all day.
When the computer restarted, it came up with the grey loading bar, which usually comes up when I have done a software update. It disappeared quite soon and several minutes later, my user profile appeared. I logged in as normal, and then tried to open my browser. An error message popped up stating"Can't open user profile directory, because you lack sufficient privileges. You might want to contact the administrator of this machine". I then tried to open other programs and they all came up with similar messages and did not open. Skype stated "Can't create a lock file at Users/Lauren/Library...etc".
I then went to Finder to look at my applications and they were ALL GONE! Then I went to a folder I have with all my files called "My files", and although the primary folders were visible, "SCHOOL,WORK, HOLIDAYS PICS, etc", these folders were empty. I then checked my User folder, and my systems folder and these were empty too. However, the Desktop and Documents folders still contain the documents that were previously there, and my background images remained the same.
I tried to open Word, and although it is also missing from the applications folder, and it opened, also allowing me to open a document which I know is located within the 'empty' folders. I have a feeling that my documents and files are still on my computer, but I don't know how to access them!
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Let me know if you need any more ino or screen shots!
Kind regards,
Lauren

OS X- Gray progress bar appears under Apple logo during startup
You need to start by doing the following:
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Missing Users Folder

For some reason, my Users folder disappeared. I have no idea how it happened, but I did install a few updates today (QuickTime, a battery update, and a general update). The odd thing is, all the subfolders (my Home folder, Shared folder, etc.) are fully accessable. I just can't get to the Users folder. It's missing when I look in Macintosh HD. I tried Go to Folder, and it says "The folder cannot be found."
Does anyone know what the problem is? It's not really affecting me at all, since all the subfolders are there, but it is kinda annoying.
Thanks for any help.

Try entering this in a Terminal window and posting
the results here:
ls -la /
Here are the results:
total 19859
drwxr-xr-x 3 Bradley Bradley 102 Mar 29 17:37 $RECYCLE.BIN
drwxrwxr-t 35 root admin 1292 May 3 20:05 .
drwxrwxr-t 35 root admin 1292 May 3 20:05 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 15364 May 3 20:06 .DS_Store
drw------- 9 root Bradley 306 May 2 04:24 .Spotlight-V100
d-wx-wx-wt 2 root admin 68 Mar 10 02:53 .Trashes
-rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 59078 Apr 8 08:18 .VolumeIcon.icns
-rw-r--r-- 1 Bradley admin 59078 Apr 2 04:45 .VolumeIcon.icns.candybarbackup
-rwxr-xr-x 1 Bradley admin 82 Apr 30 01:02 ._Network
-rw------- 1 root wheel 786432 Nov 15 21:03 .hotfiles.btree
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 192 May 3 20:05 .vol
drwxrwxr-x 49 root admin 1666 May 2 00:40 Applications
drwxr-xr-x 10 Bradley admin 340 May 2 20:20 Classic Systems
-rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 16384 May 1 22:23 Desktop DB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 24562 May 1 04:06 Desktop DF
drwxrwxr-t 52 root admin 1768 Apr 2 05:18 Library
drwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 512 May 3 20:20 Network
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Apr 25 00:46 System
drwxr-xr-x 4 Bradley admin 136 Apr 30 01:05 TheVolumeSettingsFolder
drwxrwxr-t 11 root admin 374 May 3 00:26 Users
drwxrwxrwt 6 root admin 204 May 3 20:06 Volumes
drwxr-xr-x 4 root admin 136 Dec 26 22:15 automount
drwxr-xr-x 40 root wheel 1360 Mar 14 03:36 bin
drwxrwxr-t 2 root admin 68 Aug 19 2006 cores
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 May 3 20:05 dev
drwxrwxr-x 6 root admin 204 Mar 26 21:19 efi
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 11 Mar 10 02:09 etc -> private/etc
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 9 May 3 20:05 mach -> /mach.sym
-r--r--r-- 1 root admin 615584 May 3 20:05 mach.sym
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 8557728 Feb 22 23:58 mach_kernel
drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 238 May 3 20:05 private
drwxr-xr-x 66 root wheel 2244 Apr 25 00:43 sbin
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 11 Mar 10 02:48 tmp -> private/tmp
drwxr-xr-x 9 root wheel 306 Feb 25 22:56 usr
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 11 Mar 10 02:51 var -> private/var
 MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9) 15", 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 256MB VRAM

"Users" folder missing on Macintosh HD

Hello.
I've just updated my MacBook Pro to Mavericks 10.9.3 and iTunes to 11.2. Now my "users" folder is missing when I open my Macintosh HD. I need this folder for some Apps, so I created a temporary folder on my Macintosh HD to recieve some files and then I move them to the right folder. But I want "users" folder back again. I saw an old post about this issue, but it's too old and it's not working for me.
Can someone help me?
Thanks.

it's not only a bug (or someting the like) appearing in 10.9.3
in my case it began in 10.9.2, I tried to correct this updatong to 10.9.3, but no help
and neither correcting it with [sudo chflags nohidden /Users] nor starting a session as root lets the bug definitively be corrected.... with next restart /Users returns to invisibility
curiously the home folder is accesible thru command or the finder preferences of window's side bar
but the 'Guest' or 'Shared' folders are also not accesible if /Users is invisible (sauf with the trick of accesing home folder and then command arrow up)
I really think it's a bug, and will be corrected (but when?)
Emilio

Home folder not visible in users folder

My home folder appears to have gone missing from the Users folder in finder. See screenshot - I can see the test account I created and the shared folder but not my home folder.
I can still access my home folder via the sidebar but this causes problems with some software not being able to see my home folder in their browsers (Nikon Capture NX2 being an example).
Anyone got any ideas?

Check the View Options in the Home folder to make sure the library is selected to be visible:
NOTE: In Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks the Home/Library folder is now invisible. To make it permanently visible enter the following in the Terminal application window: chflags nohidden ~/Library and press the Return key - 10.7: Un-hide the User Library folder.
For Mavericks, 10.9, go to your Home folder and use the View ➙ Show View Options menu to bring the this window:

Home folder got nested, how to move up a level within Users folder

So I went to change my short name from scott1n to scott using https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3872 and let's say it didn't go well. At first when I logged into the account it opened up as if it were a new account. I went back and tried to reverse it but that didn't work. Long story short, some how my User folder got nested into a new user folder that I guess I made during this process. I had to use the Advanced Options in the Users & Groups to point the home folder to the nested folder. This now works and I can get to all my data and such but I don't like how it is nested. It is currently: Users/scott/scott1n. Is there a way to move that up one level without copying everything? Once I do that, I assume I can just point to it again like I did before in the User & Groups setting? Thanks!

So I went to change my short name from scott1n to scott using https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3872 and let's say it didn't go well. At first when I logged into the account it opened up as if it were a new account. I went back and tried to reverse it but that didn't work. Long story short, some how my User folder got nested into a new user folder that I guess I made during this process. I had to use the Advanced Options in the Users & Groups to point the home folder to the nested folder. This now works and I can get to all my data and such but I don't like how it is nested. It is currently: Users/scott/scott1n. Is there a way to move that up one level without copying everything? Once I do that, I assume I can just point to it again like I did before in the User & Groups setting? Thanks!

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

Missing user folder from Workspace and FR studio

Hi All,
Recently we upgraded the workspace and applications... Initially there were all the folders, but i noticed that user folder from workspace and FR studio was missing... If anyone have come across this issue please let me know how to solve it.
Awaiting for response, Thanks in advance

Just to make sure I understand. When you double click the hard drive icon either in the sidebar or on your desktop (if you have it shown there) there is no users folder shown? If that is the case then it must somehow have become invisible. If there was in actuality no user folder at all your Mac would not boot.
If that is the case then you may have to use the terminal to get it back. I can't help you with that though, sorry. Another possibility is that there is some sort of corruption in a cache file. You could use a tool such as YASU or others to do a light cache cleaning which may solve the problem.

Library missing, holding down option/go/library opens my user folder. Now what?, Library missing, holding down option/go/library opens my user folder. Now what?

Library missing, holding down option/go/library opens my user folder. Any ideas?

It should open the Library within the User's folder. What does it say at the top of the resulting pane?

"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.
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Missing Home Folder in Users Folder

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