Gary Brandt

Q: Why does DS_Store prevent copying?

After installing ML this last week I can nolonger copy to another drive. It keeps saying DS_Store already exists. I have searched for these files and can't find them. What a PITA. What's going on with ML anyway?

Mac Pro Desk 8 core 2.93GHZ 16GB ram, Raid, PB 1.67, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 3 serial SCSI 15k spin drives, MOTU DP, RME IO's

Posted on Sep 8, 2012 5:49 AM

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Q: Why does DS_Store prevent copying?

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  • by Benway1,

    Benway1 Benway1 Oct 22, 2013 8:42 PM in response to Gary Brandt
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iCloud
    Oct 22, 2013 8:42 PM in response to Gary Brandt

    Please can somebody offer me some help with this.

     

    I started another thread about this issue a while ago, and still nobody has been able to offer an effective solution which does not involve a certain risk of me losing my data !

     

    https://discussions.apple.com/message/23470263/edit

  • by b_foote1,

    b_foote1 b_foote1 Oct 25, 2013 9:42 AM in response to Gary Brandt
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 25, 2013 9:42 AM in response to Gary Brandt

    This answer doesnt solve the issue for me. I have a Lacie rugged USB three drive im copying over to a 1TB Graid and i all i get is that the .DS_store file is busy message and the transfer cacels. extremely frustrating. Please help.

     

    The ignore ownership checkbox doesnt seem to solve the problem.

  • by Cableaddict,

    Cableaddict Cableaddict Nov 28, 2013 4:46 PM in response to b_foote1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Nov 28, 2013 4:46 PM in response to b_foote1

    Same here.

     

    I've always had various problems copying large amounts of date, but never this ".DS" thing until yesterday, just after upgrading to Mavericks.

     

     

    Lord, there must be a solution.  I literally can't work like this.

  • by Phil Hastings,

    Phil Hastings Phil Hastings Nov 30, 2013 12:23 PM in response to Cableaddict
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Nov 30, 2013 12:23 PM in response to Cableaddict

    Was running into this problem today. I had Ignore owenership checked, some options were still read only. I eventually reset everything on the drive to Read & Write but was still having problems until I clicked on the gear box at the bottom of the Sharing & Permissions panel and selected "Apply to  enclosed items" now things are moving just fine. (so far). Hope that helps someone.

    Phil

  • by Cableaddict,

    Cableaddict Cableaddict Dec 2, 2013 5:26 PM in response to Phil Hastings
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Dec 2, 2013 5:26 PM in response to Phil Hastings

    I also found a solution. It's working so far, but who knows if it will last.  Anyay:

     

     

    Download OnyX  (freeware)

     

    Open this app, and select the "maintenance" tab.  In THAT window, you will be going to the "rebuild" section, but first, de-select all checkmarks under "permissions" and "scripts."

     

    The under "rebuild, de-selct everything EXCEPT "appearance of folder's content."  Leave it set for "this folder and all sub-folders."  

     

    You can now naviagte to all of your hard drives, and delete ALL .DS files.  New, clean ones will be automatically and instantly generated. 

     

    Sadly, you cannot navigate to / clean an entire drive, it must be a folder.   What I did was create temporary "hold" folders on each of my drives, into which i dumped the entire contents, then cleaned THAT folder with OnyX.  I think you can also do everything at once by navigating to your master boot drive icon, then clicking on the "volumes" folder, (which oddly contains all drives connected to your Mac)  but I haven't tried this yet.

     

     

    Anyway, on my first two attempts at transferring huge collections of data, things went without a hitch,  which is a minor miracle for me.

  • by Cableaddict,

    Cableaddict Cableaddict Dec 13, 2013 12:53 AM in response to Cableaddict
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Dec 13, 2013 12:53 AM in response to Cableaddict

    Sadly, the OnyX solution only lasts for one transfer or so.  The very next time I try to transfer a large folder, the .DS problem comes back.

     

    This HAS to be a bug in Mavericks.    - For me Maverisks is nothing a lost finctunailty and huge frustration.   The list of things that no longer work properly is huge.

  • by thomas_r.,

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Dec 13, 2013 3:41 AM in response to Cableaddict
    Level 7 (30,889 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 13, 2013 3:41 AM in response to Cableaddict

    This HAS to be a bug in Mavericks.

     

    Since this topic began long before Mavericks existed, I'd say that claim is a stretch.

     

    The cause here has to be permissions issues. Why some people are seeing such an issue, and only with .DS_Store files, I don't know. My suspicion would be that some kind of third-party software, such as drive management software, a "cleaning" utility or anti-virus software, is likely to be the cause.

  • by Wilson Kuo,

    Wilson Kuo Wilson Kuo Dec 13, 2013 9:09 AM in response to Gary Brandt
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 13, 2013 9:09 AM in response to Gary Brandt

    My computer installs Parallels virtual machine, I shared the files between Mac and Windows, and I use Windows system to copy or delete files between Mac and other storage devices (such as external USB harddisk or network attached storage), this solved my problem for these .DS_Store files.

  • by Benway1,

    Benway1 Benway1 Dec 13, 2013 1:28 PM in response to Wilson Kuo
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iCloud
    Dec 13, 2013 1:28 PM in response to Wilson Kuo

    That sounds like a really good idea Wilson. I will try it. Thanks!
    How sad that we have to go to these lengths for the most basic functionality.

    This is quite a disappointing a fail from apple !

     

    I haven't backed up in quite a while because of this issue, because it got so frustrating,

    so I'm not even sure if an update to mountain lion has resolved the issue yet.

     

    I'll try a backup soon, and if it doesn't work, I'll use your method.

  • by Cableaddict,

    Cableaddict Cableaddict Dec 13, 2013 2:05 PM in response to thomas_r.
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Dec 13, 2013 2:05 PM in response to thomas_r.

    Fair enough.

     

    All I know is, it never hapened to my under Lion, and now it happens every time I xfer large amounts of data.

     

     

    Also, as previously mentioned, I'm not sure it's a "corrupted .DS file) problem,  just that this is the only prompt the Mac can "think" to display when it happens.  I say this (again) because I can always transfer the entire contents of a folder, as long as I do small chunks at a time.  It's only when I try to move the entire thing at once (whether selected manually or via "select all") that the problem occurs.

     

    - And the copying process always stops on exactly the same file, as if that file in particular has a problem. Yet, transferring that file BY ITSELF works just fine, as does copying that file along with the files just before & just after it, so there can't be a corrupted .ds file "in the space" just before it.

     

     

     

    Well, I assume Apple is working on this now, so ....

  • by rhone1,

    rhone1 rhone1 Dec 13, 2013 5:51 PM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 2 (175 points)
    Dec 13, 2013 5:51 PM in response to Barney-15E

    Doesn't seem to asnwer the question when putting alternate hypotheses in place.

    Why is this a problem under Mavericks, and never before?

  • by thomas_r.,

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Dec 13, 2013 6:34 PM in response to rhone1
    Level 7 (30,889 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 13, 2013 6:34 PM in response to rhone1

    As I said earlier today, this topic began long before Mavericks existed. Thus, blaming Mavericks doesn't make sense.

     

    To repeat my suggestion from earlier:

     

    The cause here has to be permissions issues. Why some people are seeing such an issue, and only with .DS_Store files, I don't know. My suspicion would be that some kind of third-party software, such as drive management software, a "cleaning" utility or anti-virus software, is likely to be the cause.

  • by Benway1,

    Benway1 Benway1 Dec 13, 2013 10:48 PM in response to rhone1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iCloud
    Dec 13, 2013 10:48 PM in response to rhone1

    rhone1 [ and cableaddict ]:

    You realize this thread was started by a man named Gary in the OS X MOUNTAIN LION FORUMS ?

     

    Sorry about the caps / bold / underline, but I'm just trying to make it clear, so you don't think it is "just a mavericks issue".

     

    Also, if you actually read through the thread, you will notice myself and 1 or 2 others, are all experiencing these problems in Mountain Lion.

    I think there is another couple of similar threads related to this problem in ML as well.

     

    ..............

  • by Benway1,

    Benway1 Benway1 Dec 13, 2013 10:52 PM in response to thomas_r.
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iCloud
    Dec 13, 2013 10:52 PM in response to thomas_r.

    Hi Thomas.

    Thank you for your suggestions.

    I'm having this trouble in ML.

     

    I don't have drive management or cleaning software , and I am running Sophos anti-virus only very occasionally [it is not active all the time]...

    so none of those things are going to be the problem for me.

     

    It could possibly be TotalFinder [a finder plugin that I run], but I've never had issues with it before.

     

    When I get home I will see if terminating that will make any difference.

     

    Any other ideas are appreciated, but otherwise, thanks anyway !

  • by thomas_r.,

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Dec 14, 2013 3:21 AM in response to Benway1
    Level 7 (30,889 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 14, 2013 3:21 AM in response to Benway1

    Yup, could be TotalFinder, or for that matter, it even could conceivably be Sophos. (Probably not, but you never know.) Software often runs just fine for months or years without any trouble, until it trips over a software update. Then, software that has been reliable can start causing problems.

     

    One sure-fire way to tell if it's third-party software or not would be to start up in safe mode. If a copy that always fails works just fine in safe mode, that's your answer... it's just a matter of figuring out what third-party software it is. If it fails in safe mode, then you can safely come back and tell me my theory is crap!

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