Archive Utility.app "Error identifying a writable temporary folder"

I had to restore my Mac today from a Time Machine backup. Everything went swimmingly, except for now I can't seem to unzip files using Archive Utility.app. Wherever I try to unzip files on my 'Macintosh HD' volume I always get the error:

Error identifying a writable temporary folder. Try moving the archive to another volume.

However, if I move the archive to one of my Firewire external drives and unzip it from there, it works.

I've tried the standard Repair Disk Permissions from Disk Utility, using the diskutil repairpermissions / command and booting into my install disk and trying both of the previous from there. Unfortunatly it didn't solved the problem.

Any more suggestions would be ace as I can't seem to find anybody with the same issue via Google. Thanks in advance!

user19687

Posted 2010-09-22T21:22:26.387

Reputation:

What do you mean by "on my 'Macintosh HD'"? The root path /? Or also in your home folder /Users/username/? Has your user account administrative privileges, is FileVault activated and what are the permissions of the folder where the archive is located? – Daniel Beck – 2010-09-23T05:53:28.297

By Macintosh HD I am referring to any folder under the root path /. I've tried moving the zip file around to other folders and unzipping it from there, but I get the same error message. Could this be an issue with my /private/tmp and /private/var folders? Those folders both have the permissions drwxrwxr-x. – None – 2010-09-23T07:16:27.497

Answers

I managed to fix my problem by sticking in my Snow Leopard install disk and reinstalling Snow Leopard. It kept all my files and applications but seems to have fixed my permissions issues.

user19687

Posted 2010-09-22T21:22:26.387

Reputation:

You could mark your own answer as correct so that it's recognizable as solved! ;) – BloodPhilia – 2010-09-23T13:36:56.807

I tried to already but it won't let me do that until tomorrow :( – None – 2010-09-23T18:08:38.303

I saw this on macOS 10.15 (19A583) Catalina when I tried to expand a ZIP file in my Downloads folder.

One way to fix or work around the problem is to give Full Disk Access to Archive Utility in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Full Disk Access.

Matt McClure

Posted 2010-09-22T21:22:26.387

Reputation: 283

An answer on discussions.apple.com that worked for me:

cd /var/folders
sudo rm -rf *

Chris Calo

Posted 2010-09-22T21:22:26.387

Reputation: 135

This worked for me. I don't have access to the install disk since this is my work laptop. This worked like a charm. – Patrick – 2012-10-22T15:59:47.700

I've just had this same problem. After poking around a bit, it turned out that something had created a root-owned directory in my temp folder, Cleanup At Startup. Changing the ownership of everything in my temp folder allowed archive utility to work as normal.

From the terminal, do:

$ sudo chown -R $USER $(dirname $(mktemp -t foo))

And try opening an archive from the finder again.

Dominic Mitchell

Posted 2010-09-22T21:22:26.387

Reputation: 111