Unable to run brew update on macOS 10.13 High Sierra

[weicool]

I'm trying to run brew update on macOS 10.13 High Sierra, but get

Error: /usr/local must be writable!

Running brew doctor gives me outdated instructions that no longer apply to 10.13. I followed the instructions in #3228, running sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)/*, but am still unable to run brew update.

[JCount]

@weicool What is the output of ls -ld /usr/local?

[weicool]

drwxr-xr-x 25 root wheel 800 Oct 15 10:57 /usr/local/

[JCount]

Ok, what's the output of ls -ld /usr/local/*?

[weicool]

-rw-r--r--    1 weicool  admin  3161 Jan 18  2016 /usr/local/CODEOFCONDUCT.md
drwxr-xr-x   18 weicool  admin   576 Oct  8 13:58 /usr/local/Cellar/
drwxr-xr-x    2 weicool  wheel    64 Oct 15 10:57 /usr/local/Frameworks/
-rw-r--r--    1 weicool  admin  1241 Jan 18  2016 /usr/local/LICENSE.txt
drwxr-xr-x@  12 weicool  admin   384 Oct  8 13:58 /usr/local/Library/
-rw-r--r--    1 weicool  admin  3940 Mar 26  2016 /usr/local/README.md
drwxrwxr-x@ 131 weicool  admin  4192 Oct  8 13:58 /usr/local/bin/
drwxr-xr-x@   4 weicool  admin   128 Oct  8 13:57 /usr/local/etc/
drwxrwxr-x@  18 weicool  admin   576 Oct  8 13:57 /usr/local/include/
drwxrwxr-x@  41 weicool  admin  1312 Oct  8 13:58 /usr/local/lib/
drwxr-xr-x@   3 weicool  wheel    96 Oct  8 13:55 /usr/local/libexec/
lrwxr-xr-x    1 weicool  wheel    27 Jan 18  2016 /usr/local/mysql@ -> mysql-5.7.10-osx10.9-x86_64
drwxr-xr-x   13 weicool  wheel   416 Oct  8 13:58 /usr/local/mysql-5.7.10-osx10.9-x86_64/
drwxr-xr-x@  18 weicool  admin   576 Oct  8 13:57 /usr/local/opt/
drwxr-xr-x    3 weicool  wheel    96 Oct  8 13:56 /usr/local/remotedesktop/
drwxrwxr-x@  15 weicool  admin   480 Oct  8 13:57 /usr/local/share/
drwxr-xr-x    3 weicool  admin    96 Oct  8 13:58 /usr/local/var/

[ilovezfs]

And what is the output of

ls -al /usr/local/

[MikeMcQuaid]

From the issue template:

Please note we will close your issue without comment if you delete, do not read or do not fill out the issue checklist below and provide ALL the requested information. If you do not read fill out the issue template repeatedly you will be blocked from every submitting issues to Homebrew again.

Please add your brew config and brew doctor output ASAP.

[ilovezfs]

@weicool Hmm ... I saw brew config and brew doctor output from you via email (and also CC'd to the relevant GitHub addresses) but not posted on this issue. Did you maybe delete the posts? Or maybe GitHub somehow dropped them? Please make sure to post or re-post them on this issue itself.

Also, I still haven't seen ls -al /usr/local/ output.

[jmsundar]

Reinstalling homebrew worked. Found that solution at #3285. My specific error came when running brew upgrade.

⇒  brew upgrade
==> Upgrading 2 outdated packages, with result:
gmp 6.1.2_1, speedtest-cli 1.0.7
==> Upgrading gmp 
Error: Permission denied @ unlink_internal - /usr/local/lib/libgmp.10.dylib

⇒ brew doctor
Please note that these warnings are just used to help the Homebrew maintainers
with debugging if you file an issue. If everything you use Homebrew for is
working fine: please don't worry and just ignore them. Thanks!

Warning: Unbrewed dylibs were found in /usr/local/lib.
If you didn't put them there on purpose they could cause problems when
building Homebrew formulae, and may need to be deleted.

Unexpected dylibs:
  #no unexpected dylibs here

Warning: Unbrewed header files were found in /usr/local/include.
If you didn't put them there on purpose they could cause problems when
building Homebrew formulae, and may need to be deleted.

Unexpected header files:
  /usr/local/include/python3.6m/greenlet/greenlet.h
  /usr/local/include/python2.7/greenlet/greenlet.h
  #no unexpected header files here

Warning: Unbrewed .pc files were found in /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig.
If you didn't put them there on purpose they could cause problems when
building Homebrew formulae, and may need to be deleted.

Unexpected .pc files:
  #no unexpected .pc files here
⇒  brew config 
HOMEBREW_VERSION: 1.3.5-67-g270b752
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: 270b752f5d9d218bfbed6fe85b6974fa653fb25f
Last commit: 25 minutes ago
Core tap ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core
Core tap HEAD: c78e42731a343b4370346157bacd55add6ce663e
Core tap last commit: 2 hours ago
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY: /usr/local/Homebrew
HOMEBREW_CELLAR: /usr/local/Cellar
HOMEBREW_BOTTLE_DOMAIN: https://homebrew.bintray.com
CPU: octa-core 64-bit haswell
Homebrew Ruby: 2.3.3 => /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/2.3.3/bin/ruby
Clang: 9.0 build 900
Git: 2.14.2 => /usr/local/bin/git
Perl: /usr/bin/perl
Python: /usr/local/opt/python/libexec/bin/python => /usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.14/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python2.7
Ruby: /usr/bin/ruby => /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.3/usr/bin/ruby
Java: 1.8.0_144
macOS: 10.13-x86_64
Xcode: 9.0
CLT: N/A
X11: N/A

[ilovezfs]

@jmsundar thanks for letting us know!

[skaraman]

had a similar problem with permission denials and unable to chown /usr/local, reinstalling homebrew fixed it

[chuim]

Just for the record: I had the same issue and re-running the install command fixed it as well.

[MikeMcQuaid]

@skaraman @chuim Please don't post stuff like that just for the record, thanks.