Yesterday Apple released a point release OS update for OS X Mavericks (10.9.3) as well as updates to iTunes and some other Apps and services. this Mavericks update Improved support for 4K displays on some Macs, the addition of contact and calendar syncing between Mac and iOS devices via USB, an updated version of Safari (7.0.3), and improved reliability for VPN connections using IPsec. Of course the usual bug fixes and stability improvements also quote. There are security fixes for the update Not yet posted by Apple.
Apple released a patch for iTunes late Friday that fixes the hidden Users folder issue. While the iTunes 11.2.1 file description doesn’t mention the hidden Users folder issue, it has been confirmed to fix the issue. The update can be downloaded from the Mac App Store.
So for many other than those working with 4K displays, this hasn’t been seen as such a big update, especially when there’s been a lot of talk about Apple announcing major changes to OS X at WWDC next month. But an update is an update and they all come with the warning these days that the manufacturer recommends the update for all users.
As is more typical these days, interesting things happen when OS updates are delivered from any mobile OS mothership. Sometimes things don’t go as planned for every user and errors occur.
Some users are reporting a very interesting bug in the OS X 10.9.3 update. In some cases, the Users directory is now hidden after updating to this latest version of Mavericks. However, this does not apply to all Mac users. There are some reports that the Users directory is still viewable as always. Actually, the Users directory looks normal on my iMac. However, on my MacBook Pro the Users directory is missing when running. So, this doesn’t seem like Apple’s intentional behavior. My iMac is mid 2011 model and my MacBook Pro is late 2013 model.
For Mac users who don’t have multiple accounts on their device, this isn’t that big of an issue, but it can be a problem if you have multiple accounts.
To see if the issue is affecting you, open Finder and click Devices and select your Mac. Depending on what you choose to display in Finder Preferences, you should see the following:
Click on Macintosh HD which takes you to the root of your hard drive. If you are not affected by the error, you should see “Users” listed here.
If not, the good news is that it’s pretty easy to temporarily make the hidden Users directory viewable again. Here’s how:
Open a window. You can do this by typing “Terminal” in Spotlight or selecting Terminal from your Applications/Utilities folder.
Type the following command at the prompt:
You will then be asked for your administrator password. Go ahead and enter. Note that when you type your password, the characters will not appear in the Terminal window, but the information you enter is accepted. When you hit enter, the temporary fix kicks in.
To verify that the change worked, return to the Finder, select your Mac under Devices, and then select Macintosh HD. If you did it all correctly, the “Users” folder should appear.
All is well and good. until you restart your Mac. Then the changes you make don’t take hold and you’re back where you started. Yes, this is frustrating.
However, you can create an AppleScript that runs when you boot and will make the change permanent until Apple releases a fix. Thanks to Chris Breen from MacWorldhere’s what you need to do:
First launch it via Spotlight or by selecting it in Applications/Utilities. Then enter:
Replace your “password” with your administrator password. Then save Applescript as an app.
To ensure that your newly created Applescript starts every time you reboot, the next step is to launch System Preferences and then select Users & Groups. When this preference pane opens, select Input Items at the top of the pane. Then click on the plus (+) button that appears below the list of items that will open on login.
Navigate to the location where you saved your AppleScript application and select your newly created application and click Add.
From this point on, restart your Mac and Applescript will run automatically and your Users folder will always be visible to you.
Again, not all users are experiencing this error so check if you are affected before applying the fix.
Note that Apple recently opened the beta version of OS X Mavericks 10.9 prior to the release of this OS update. 3. This move surprised many. By opening the beta to regular users, Apple has increased the number of users testing the update and theoretically reporting bugs. It’s much more likely that this bug was discovered and reported during the extended beta period, but with the next version of OS X being announced soon at WWDC, it would be a little surprising to see an update released just to fix this issue.
It might be surprising, but see this post UPDATE above. Apple has released a fix.
