Root User Missing Folders in Home Directory

[JoeInMilwaukee]

I bought a refurbished 2018 Mac mini from the Apple Store a couple of weeks ago, reformatted the internal storage, and installed the latest version of Catalina (10.15.6). (It shipped with 10.15.4, so I figured I might as well start fresh.)

One of my backup methods is to burn a DVD of my home directory from the root user account. However, with the 2018 Mac mini, the blank DVD would not display on the Desktop when inserted in my external disc burner ("error code -8058"). The root user "CDs & DVDs" System Preferences options are set to "Open Finder" upon insertion of blank CDs and DVDs. A DVD with data already burned to it mounted properly on the Desktop.

However, my 2012 Mac mini, which was upgraded to 10.15.6 Catalina from High Sierra, properly displayed blank DVDs on the Desktop (using the same external optical drive as above) when logged in as root user.

After many, many hours of frustration, I found the cause of the problem to be a missing Desktop folder in the root user's Home directory! In fact, the following three folders are absent:

Desktop
Documents
Public


I created a Desktop folder in the root user's Home directory with the appropriate permissions and sure enough, blank DVDs are now displayed properly on the Desktop.

Are these folders supposed to be missing for the root user?

 

[seek3r]

Are these folders supposed to be missing for the root user?

If by the root user you literally mean root and by home directory you mean /var/root then yes, Apple doesnt really support logging in directly as root, they'd rather you use methods like sudo for escalating to root access (to be honest I havent even tried to log into the GUI as root in so long that I can't remember when the last time was).

 

[Taz Mangus]

After many, many hours of frustration, I found the cause of the problem to be a missing Desktop folder in the root user's Home directory! In fact, the following three folders are absent:

Desktop
Documents
Public

I created a Desktop folder in the root user's Home directory with the appropriate permissions and sure enough, blank DVDs are now displayed properly on the Desktop.

Are these folders supposed to be missing for the root user?

I just checked and the root user does not have the Desktop, Documents and Public folders. I think the idea is that you use the root user to access data but not really store any data. That is probably why those folders don't exist for the root user.

 

[JoeInMilwaukee]

I believe that's the root user to which I'm referring. I used Directory Utility and selected "Enable Root User" from the Edit menu, then entered a password and confirmed it.

To access the root user's home folder, I'm simply typing Command-H.

The only reason I need root access is for burning DVDs of my home directory. If I burn it from my user account, I end up with a coaster (failed verification of the disc) because the Library directory changes during the burn.

 

[JoeInMilwaukee]

I just checked and the root user does not have the Desktop, Documents and Public folders. I think the idea is that you use the root user to access data but not really store any data. That is probably why those folders don't exist for the root user.

My thought is that these folders existed at one time, because a clean install of Catalina did not create them, but they are there from an upgrade to Catalina from an earlier macOS (High Sierra, although I may have done incremental upgrades all the way back to Mountain Lion).

 

[Taz Mangus]

I believe that's the root user to which I'm referring. I used Directory Utility and selected "Enable Root User" from the Edit menu, then entered a password and confirmed it.

To access the root user's home folder, I'm simply typing Command-H.

The only reason I need root access is for burning DVDs of my home directory. If I burn it from my user account, I end up with a coaster (failed verification of the disc) because the Library directory changes during the burn.

I think you meant Shift-Command-D to access the Desktop folder. Command-H to hide the windows of the front app.

 

[JoeInMilwaukee]

I think you meant Shift-Command-D to access the Desktop folder. Command-H to hide the windows of the front app.

Oops, sorry about that, I was going from memory (I'm typing this on a Windows laptop). It's Shift-Command-H that I use to access the Home folder; then inside there are the various folders (Desktop, Documents, etc.).

 

[JoeInMilwaukee]

I created the three missing folders (Desktop, Documents, and Public) in the root user's home directory:

Blank DVDs are now displayed in the Finder properly and I successfully burned my home directory to a blank DVD-R.

Makes me wonder if the omission of these folders is a new Apple security feature.