I have just installed Inkscape 0.91 on my Mac mini, running Mountain Lion (10.8.5). I have also installed XQuartz 112.7.7 in lieu of X11 and — as instructed — have logged out and in again. I can now open Inskscape, but initially a message appears:



If I click OK, Inkscape opens and is functional, but then I cannot save a created drawing. I am a complete beginner as far as Inkscape is concerned, and as far as the error message is concerned, I have no profile and am not on a network but a private individual.

Any advice will be gratefully received.

PS (re 'Cannot save' post): I have just tried again and, mysteriously, there is now no longer a problem with saving! But I should still be grateful for any information about the 'Cannot create profile directory' message. Does this in any way limit what I can do with Inkscape?

It will prevent that Inkscape's preferences will get saved - so each time you launch Inkscape, all settings changed in the last session will revert to default.

Apparently you denied yourself* (or are limited by some policy installed by whoever administrates that Mac) to create new directories in your own $HOME folder.

* or to the user under which Inkscape.app was launched.

Thanks for the explanation. But honestly — I do deny myself some things (I won't go into details!), but certainly not the ability to create directories (is that what Mac users call folders?) in my home folder. And, as I said in my first post, I am the only user of this computer and no other person has ever used it (except that my wife occasionally types the odd email on it). I have just tried to create a new folder in my home folder — no problem.

So what should the new directory (folder) be named?

Michael Graubart wrote:So what should the new directory (folder) be named?

The full path is displayed in the warning dialog, see the screenshot you attached in the initial posting.

Note that the name of the first directory (".config/") starts with a dot ("."), and thus this directory is hidden (not shown in the Finder). Apple does not allow the users of OS X to create such directories via GUI, so if you plan to create it yourself, you will need to use the Terminal.

Now that's really useful. Thank you once more. Could I ask for one more kindness? I am not very familiar with entering data into Terminal. Is there any chance that you could give me the full command so that I can just copy and paste it into Terminal? Thank you very much in anticipation.

Alternatively, should opening Inkscape not have automatically created the folder?

Michael Graubart wrote:Alternatively, should opening Inkscape not have automatically created the folder?

It should have, and it does normally. Again - Inkscape launched by you (presumably) was denied to create that directory, for whatever reasons.

Terminal command:

Thank you again. I'm afraid I don't know what to do with 'SELECT ALL', but just entering 'mkdir -p ~/.config/inkscape' produces 'Permission denied', so that appears to be the problem.

Michael Graubart wrote: I'm afraid I don't know what to do with 'SELECT ALL'

That's added by the forum for all text which is marked up as 'code' - you can ignore it (it is not part of the command for the Terminal).

Michael Graubart wrote:just entering 'mkdir -p ~/.config/inkscape' produces 'Permission denied', so that appears to be the problem.

If you didn't restrict the permissions for your Home folder, possibly the directory '~/.config' already exists but with a different owner, or is otherwise not accessible (did you migrate the account by chance (OS upgrade, or to a new Mac), or restore it from a TimeMachine version, or copy the user's home folder directly from a TimeMachine drive?).

Commands to find out more (though still basic information - I don't really know that much about system administration and details like OS X ACLs (Access Control Lists) either):

Those two new commands have, I think, perhaps given me a clue. This is what transpired:

Last login: Sun Feb 15 00:32:45 on console
Michaels-Mac-mini:~ MichaelGraubart$ ls -al ~ | grep config
drwxr-xr-x 3 root staff 102 28 Oct 22:01 .config
Michaels-Mac-mini:~ MichaelGraubart$ SELECT ALL
-bash: SELECT: command not found
Michaels-Mac-mini:~ MichaelGraubart$ ls -al ~/.config
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root staff 102 28 Oct 22:01 .
drwxrwxrwx+ 54 MichaelGraubart staff 1836 15 Feb 00:54 ..
drwxr-xr-x 3 root staff 102 28 Oct 22:01 SMART Technologies
Michaels-Mac-mini:~ MichaelGraubart$

I did indeed (presumably on 28 October) install some software: SMART Notebook and associated bits and pieces. Could that somehow have usurped the creation of a .config file? Should I look for it by searching invisible files?

Michael Graubart wrote:

Code: Select all

Michaels-Mac-mini:~ MichaelGraubart$ ls -al ~ | grep config
drwxr-xr-x   3 root            staff  102  28 Oct 22:01 .config

Michaels-Mac-mini:~ MichaelGraubart$ ls -al ~/.config
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   3 root            staff  102  28 Oct 22:01 .
drwxrwxrwx+ 54 MichaelGraubart staff 1836  15 Feb 00:54 ..
drwxr-xr-x   3 root            staff  102  28 Oct 22:01 SMART Technologies


It appears that whatever SMART Technologies installed on your computer, it was not really smart and created a folder owned by root in your home directory. You (or the user 'MichaelGraubart' does) have permissions to read and execute it (i.e. you can get a listing of its content), but not permissions to write in there. '~/.config' however is commonly used by many applications (mainly those ported from linux) to store user settings, so SMART Technologies should have created the folder with the current user as owner, and never with 'root'.

So if I uninstall the SMART software (using the SMART uninstaller) and, possibly, examine invisible folders and remove the objectionable one, should that do it? I don't in fact really use the not-so-SMART stuff.

You have been immensely helpful. Thank you very much — also in anticipation of one more reply, which (since it is now 1:34 am here) I shall read tomorrow.

Michael Graubart wrote:So if I uninstall the SMART software (using the SMART uninstaller) and, possibly, examine invisible folders and remove the objectionable one, should that do it?

I don't know whether the SMART uninstaller removes the user settings directory it created (user settings or preferences are often not touched i.e. removed by uninstallers, since

1. it might contain other sub-directories not related to the software the uninstaller is removing, or
2. the user might want to reuse settings stored there at a later point
   (e.g. to keep the same settings, while upgrading the program which uses them)

I'm quite sure though there are ways to change the owner of '~/.config' without uninstalling the SMART Technologies, but I'd have to inform me (usually via web search) about the details too (the command in the terminal for example is chown, that much I know, but I don't have a full command at hand which I could give you to copy&paste into the terminal which would fix the ownership (make it so that you, as user 'MichaelGraubart', own '~/.config' (instead of 'root').

That tells me what to search for and possibly get an answer to in the Apple Discussions forum. Thank you very much indeed.

Done it! The command is: <sudo chown -Rv myname filename>

I also tried <sudo chmod -Rv myname filename> in order to ensure that I had permissions for all the contents of the folder, but was told that 'michaelgraubart' was incorrect — perhaps because I already had the permissions.

At any rate — thanks to you and a little help from Google — Inkscape now opens without the preferences problem. I have not yet tried to see whether the SMART Notebook still works, but I don't mind about that much.