Keith Macpherson

Latest launcher version 598.

Permissions had to be changed with the chmod command again. Report was/is applicable to unreleased versions.

Interestingly, once the permissions were changed and the launcher loaded, my second son was offered the option of using the existing account (his younger brother's), or to add another account. Hmm! Surely, this other account shouldn't even be visible let alone offered as an option! Particularly, since it's an entirely separate USER PROFILE.

Once he logged in with his credentials, the credentials for his brother's account did disappear. In the school context mentioned by Baker, this might be of some concern.

Most recent launcher is now version 545.

And the permissions were screwed up again by the first user to update the launcher. I had to manually change them again to enable the other user accounts to start the launcher.

Anybody experiencing the same issue under limited accounts, give all users full access to the app folder in a terminal window with:

$ sudo chmod -R a+w /Applications/Minecraft.app

Run this in an administrative context. It's likely the issue will re-occur with future updates to the launcher.

When I first experienced the problem I had a feeling it has something to do with permissions. And the more I've delved into it, the more convinced I've become of that supposition.

When the installer is first run, it creates the /Applications/Minecraft.app folder under the user's userid with Read-Write permissions for the user and defaults the group and other users Read-Only permissions. Changing to another Mac user's profile presents the above error dialogue because the new user is a member of the 'EVERYONE' group, which only has READ access to the folder. Installing the application again under the new user's Id changes the ownership and consequently facilitates access to the application. However, it now denies access to the previous user. Hmm! Permissions!

Simply using the Get Info window to give read-write permissions to everyone only changes the permissions on the parent folder of the Minecraft.app folder. However, changing permissions to read-write on ALL items in the container enables all Mac users to run the application in their own user profiles.

This lends more credence to my suspicions the application is making changes to the /Application/Minecraft.app folder hierarchy after execution. Using a debugger to monitor file writes to the system would confirm this, I'm sure.

Adjusting the permissions to allow standard users, and those under parental control, to change files in a folder in the /Applications folder is a no, no. Particularly from a SECURITY perspective. If anything an elevation prompt should be given to the user especially those that have limited access.