Strange user names

[DanL]

I have an odd situation on my Mac Mini (10.11.6). When I do a Network connection to it, I am offered to connect to a folder "dan" or a folder "danfoster". When I connect to one of those, it appears to have the same contents as the other. My login name is "danfoster", so I don't have a clue where this folder "dan" comes from. When I go look at the Users, there is a "dan" user folder, and no "danfoster" folder. Huh?

So somehow, my user directory for login "danfoster" is named "dan", and I guess they are getting confused somewhere. Anyone know how to straighten this out? I guess I'd like my home folder to be "danfoster", like my username, instead of "dan". I don't want to be presented with an option to connect to "dan".

 

[honestone]

How long has this been going on? Seems like a strange issue, assuming you did not setup a "new"/another folder.

You had mentioned before that you use Onyx. Not sure if it has an option to try and rebuild the drive's directory. I know that Tech Tool Pro does (as also Disk Warrior has). But not sure if this will help.

I assume you are making a backup to an external drive. If you have the file "Install Mac OSX El Capitan" (or something like that), you could try a clean, fresh installation of OS 10.11.6, and then "migrate"/copy needed "stuff" from your backup. (You might be able to download that file from the App Store, as it might be in your "Purchased" items "bin" (it's in mine))". However, the backup will include your user folder (or ?folders?), so not sure what you would wind up with. (By the way, a backup made with either SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner will make this process a lot easier).

 

[DanL]

Thanks. Actually, I've never used OnyX on this particular machine. Worth a try. As to reinstalling El Cap, yes, that's a possibility, though I have to suspect that these particular oddities will be preserved, as permissions and ownerships are not part of the OS.

 

[honestone]

Again, I do not know if Onyx can help with this issue. Same with Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior, although they both can rebuild the hard drive's directory. But again, no guarantee that will help.

What happens when you click on the "Users" folder at the first "level" on your internal drive? That is, when you click on the icon for your internal drive (or partition, where all your apps and the OS are located), you should see folders for Applications, Documents, Library, System, and Users. Clicking on Users "should" reveal only one user, which should be "danfoster".

I guess the other thing you could try is to do a search of "dan". Not sure how restrictive you can make the search, so that you can cut down the number of "hits" via the search.

And yes, I agree that "migrating"/copying stuff back from the backup could contain the extra "stuff", ie, the mysterious User folder "dan". Also, even if you do the clean installation, I guess you could next setup "danfoster" on the "bare" OS, and then migrate/copy most of the "stuff" from the backup. But not sure how easy that would be for the folder "dan" to not be copied.

 

[honestone]

Oops! I just though of something else, and it bit me right away! Onyx has a "Permissions" repair feature, so maybe you could install the correct version of Onyx, and go through all its tasks. The first Maintenance Task is Permissions, so run that. Given that you (most likely) have never done it on the machine, you will probably need it to run a number of times, so that all the permissions that need repair are actually repaired.

 

[DanL]

Nope. When I click on my internal drive icon, and click on the User folder in it, what I see inside of it is the folder "dan" and, ha ha, that folder has R/W permissions for me, "danfoster". No R/W permissions for "dan".

So I'm wondering what will happen if I just change the name of that User folder to "danfoster". I can imagine that all kinds of awful stuff will transpire.

BTW, OnyX maintainance didn't help any.

I may just do a baqckup of the whole thing, remove the "danfoster" account on the internal disk, erase the "dan" user folder, and rebuild the "danfoster" account. One would like to believe that a user folder named "danfoster" would result. But it would be nice if there were an easier strategy for fixing things.

 

[honestone]

So you see only the User folder "dan", with the R/W permissions for "danfoster"? Strange, really strange. Also, sorry to hear that Onyx did not help.

When you ran Onyx, did you run the Permissions Repair feature? If you did (most likely needed to do it a few times), then I guess your rebuild idea of "danfoster" could work. Finally, you could first make another backup, then have Disk Utility Erase and Format your internal drive, and do a clean, fresh installation of El Capitan (OS 10.11.6).