admin on OS X Finder Sidebar Favourites Missing or Permission Issue
I’ve been dealing with this issue for a good while now and there are countless articles online that talk about this but there hasn’t been a solid fix yet. In most cases users are playing with the Finder and Sidebar preferences but without luck. This is one of the only steps that seems to gets messed up with permissions errors or bad links when you use a default profile script. Everything else seems to work but starting with OS X 10.10 this has been broken.
Broken Finder Sidebar
Permissions Error Message
Working Finder Sidebar
Today with a suggestion from @harryn over at EduGeet.net http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/72443-how-create-os-x-default-profile-template-bind-ad-10-5-10-8-a-3.html#post1432366 I simply removed/deleted the user I use to build the profile then had a new user log into the computer and there it was, all the Sidebar Shortcuts with proper links and permissions. This now means I can customize the sidebar with the users Desktop, Download, Documents folders etc. and they will properly work when a user selects a location.
The cons to this route is that fact that you need to remove/delete the user you build your default profile from but if you are really only building your image to deploy this really isn’t a big deal. If you need to go back and make adjustments to the profile just create that same user again, make your needed adjustments run the default user profile script then remove the user again.
It is an extra step but it’s a step that makes a lot of people happy. We have tons of students and faculty that will love to have these links back in the finder again.
For future “Default User Profile” scripts I think I’ll go back to creating an alternate user from “Administrator” and start using a user called “default”. This way I can keep the local “Administrator” in place and just use the “Default” user for creating a custom user.
Hope this helps!