Originally Posted by artie505
(I think "bash" changed to "zsh" after High Sierra.)
Yes the default shell was changed and the command to repair system permissions was completely removed in Catalina. I don't know when repairing user permissions was removed from diskutil but I suspect it was around then also. Maintaining the permissions has been placed completely in the control of SIP (System Integrity Protection).

Originally Posted by jaybass
What exactly is expected when you are asked 'Ownership is required'
You are logged on to an account that has administrative permissions, you have entered the correct password for that account in response to the sudo prompt (which is simply a blank line that appears after entering any terminal command beginning with sudo), if your computer has an Intel processor and a T2 chip you have previously disabled SIP, and you are running a macOS 10.10 or earlier. Theoretically SIP prevents permission problems but there is one guaranteed way to fix the system permission in any version of macOS which is to re-install the OS.

NOTE: the command you used
Code
diskutil resetUserPermissions / ~id -u~
only resets permissions in the logged on user's folder and does not change the system permissions. If your problem was caused by a permissions error, it is far more likely to have been in the Systems area.

As to the cause of the error, I concur with Artie it was most probably a temporary glitch in your system that was cured by the universal computer panacea — a reboot.


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honestly, and you'll find people who are eager to
fill your head with information"
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