It's been at least two years since I've seen "created" and "modified" dates in command-I/Get Info panes; I can see them only in column view.

Is there a setting somewhere that I"ve inadvertently toggled?

Thanks.

In the Get Info window, "created" and "modified" appear under the "General" tab, i.e. when the triangle is pointed down.

Not mine.

Check System Preferences > Language & Regions > Advanced > Dates and see what settings you have for the Long date format.

This is what I've got; what should I have?

Thanks.

I went through all my resources looking to see if there were some command that would make the date fields either blank or non-visible but came up completely empty. So I thought perhaps the full date field might have been set to blank, but what you have appears to be completely standard.

On the off chance that there is a bit stuck somewhere you might try changing the Long Date settings and then restarting Finder.

The Usual Questions:

• Do the dates show up if you do a Get Info when booted from a test account?
• Do the dates show up if you do a Get Info when you do a Safe Boot?

Heck, I get created and modified dates when I "Get Info" the Desktop!

Trash the Finder preferences?

No luck in my test account; no luck with a safe boot; no luck clearing the long date followed by restarting, resetting, and restarting again.

I also uninstalled my Finder plugin, XtraFinder, and restarted with no joy.

And I"ve now trashed com.apple.finder.plist, and still no joy.

Run OnyX?

Reset PRAM?

Reinstall latest OS combo update?

Well, I'll be damned!

I'd never have thought of zapping PRAM, and I totally pooh-poohed the idea when you suggested it, but I couldn't pooh-pooh your suggestion, and...IT WORKED!

The little I know about PRAM/NVRAM suggests that the issue had something to do with date and/or time, but I haven't got a clue why it manifested itself in Get Info windows but not in Finder windows.

I can't thank you enough!!!

Update: Well, I'll be double-damned!

I restarted, and the problem's back.

I can't be zapping PRAM every time I restart, so unless someone's got a better idea, I'll just live with things as they stand.

If th problem exists in your test account then it is system related and would not be effected by any preferences, etc. in your user account. The safe boot eliminates most extensions, plugins, LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons as causal agents.


Those have already been eliminated. I can only think of one more possibility, a top level .DS_Store file. You might try deleting the .DS-Store files and see if that changes your results.

I trashed the .DS_Store files at /HD, /Users/artie, and another location that sounded possibly pertinent, and the only thing that changed is the positions of a couple of windows.

I don't understand why this issue affects Get Info windows but not Finder windows, nor do I understand what NVRAM has got to do with it.

This has even survived the complete wipe of my SSD and clean installation of Mojave that I did last week. :shrug:

My thinking goes:

• The fact it has survived a nuke and pave of Mojave is weird but that would seem to imply it is likely something that was restored after the nuke and pave.
• Since it occurs in a test account, it has to be something at the system level which leaves drivers, LaunchAgents, LaunchDaemons, and some kernel extensions.
• Since it occurs with a safe boot that would appear to eliminate all but essential kernel extensions.
• Since kernel extensions interact with hardware and firmware, resetting the NVRAM might change the behavior.

If my logic is sound that would point the finger at a third party kernel extension (If it were an Apple kernel extension a lot more people would be effected by the problem). The only troubleshooting technique I know of in such a case would be starting with a clean install of the bare OS and then adding third party kernel extensions one at a time until the problem re-appears (and I would not be surprised if it never re-appeared — that happened to me once).

However, with the imminent release of Catalina (rumors has it the Golden Master is in beta) and the fact there are a whole lot of under the hood changes, I would wait to see if the problem exists in MacOS 10.15 before doing any more lengthy troubleshooting.

Thanks for your thoughts; they're so much more coherent than mine, they almost make troubleshooting fun.

EtreCheck tells me this about 3rd party kernel extensions:

Kernel Extensions: ⓘ
/System/Library/Extensions
[loaded] com.protech.NoSleep (1.3.0 - SDK 10.7) [Lookup]
[loaded] org.dungeon.driver.SATSMARTDriver (0.8.1 - SDK 10.6) [Lookup]

No Sleep predates the problem by close to 5 years (and under any circumstances, it's more important than correcing the problem), and the problem predates SATSMARTDriver by close to 2 years, so I didn't experiment with either.

But, on a lark, I repaired home folder permissions and then reset NVRAM again, and the problem appears to have been solved: created and modified dates appear in Get Info panes in both my boot volume and my test user account, and that has survived a restart.

It almost had to be something apparently unrelated like that. But I'm glad it is fixed and I am adding this to my personal Knowledge Base.

How did you repair home folder permissions?

I hope it's really fixed; it appears to be so, but I'll keep my heart in my mouth for a few restarts.

As I said in my iPhone post, I"m laughing at the thought that I posted three issues, and all three seem to have been corrected by our old pie-in-the-sky standby...repairing permissions.

Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder (Apple)

Thanks, Artie.

Thanks for finding and posting that. It has been so long since I attempted to repair permissions I had forgotten to old technique and was totally unaware of the new.

My bad for not having posted that link at the outset; I didn't realize that the idea of repairing permissions had faded away into obscurity.

Actually, the linked procedure is an updated one: when repairing home folder permissions was introduced, we had to boot into Recovery to accomplish it.

Also, the Terminal command that could be used to repair full disk permissions after the option disappeared from Disk Utility seems to have gone by the boards. (Every upgrade and, I believe, update repairs full disk permissions as part of its installation process.)

I was just exploring TechTool Pro's Tools menu, and it includes the ability to repair home folder permissions.

The new carrot at the end of the stick is "RELEVANCE."

The problem arose anew - Nope! No idea. - and the fix worked again.

I had my fingers crossed that the first time wasn't a flukey coincidence.