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User profile for user: WZZZ
WZZZ Author
User level: Level 6
13,232 points

What's com.apple.timemachine.supported doing on my G3 Tiger?

Just found this prior to doing a backup. It's located in / and its empty. It's not doing any harm. I'm just curious; I can't think of anything I might have done to get that file on the G3. According to what I find, it's been there for only a few weeks. Any possible scenarios for how it could have arrived? Is my Tiger a secret Leopard wannabe? Is it slowly, file by file, turning into Leopard?

iMac G3/400 OSX 10.4.11 "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking", iMac G5/1.6 OSX 10.5.8

Posted on Dec 11, 2009 2:25 PM

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User profile for user: WZZZ
WZZZ Author
User level: Level 6
13,232 points

Dec 11, 2009 3:11 PM in response to BDAqua

first thing OSX does is start writing that to the drive

What gets written to the drive? (you mean the G3 drive?) You mean the whole spotlight DB from the G5 gets written to the G3? That would be really crazy. Maybe I'm not understanding something here. It seemed only to copy that empty file; you mean it could have done more than that? Yikes!
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User profile for user: BDAqua
BDAqua
User level: Level 10
246,365 points

Dec 11, 2009 3:35 PM in response to WZZZ

You mean the whole spotlight DB from the G5 gets written to the G3? That


Spotlight keeps a separate database on each drive/partition, for that drive/partition. The folder is...

.Spotlight-V100

It writes other files & folders also, but can't remember what, or what OS even.
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User profile for user: WZZZ
WZZZ Author
User level: Level 6
13,232 points

Dec 11, 2009 3:54 PM in response to BDAqua

If the G3 Spotlight Directory now includes data from the G5 Leo, should I force the G3 to re-index everything? Would that head off any problems?

The external backup drive on the G3 keeps getting updated/cloned, so I suppose I wouldn't have to worry about connecting it again the the G5 to move some more files over. Yes?

Message was edited by: WZZZ
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User profile for user: BDAqua
BDAqua
User level: Level 10
246,365 points

Dec 11, 2009 4:08 PM in response to WZZZ

If the G3 Spotlight Directory now includes data from the G5 Leo, should I force the G3 to re-index everything?


To clarify, it only has the G3's Spotlight info on that drive, but written by Leo 10.5, which I'm not sure 10.4 can use or not, but I suspect re-index is the way to go.

And if it's just a Clone, I would not even Index it since it's just more wear & tear for a duplicate of the internal's drive DB.
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User profile for user: jsd2
jsd2
User level: Level 5
6,245 points

Dec 11, 2009 4:41 PM in response to WZZZ

Hi,

I have Spotlight completely turned off on my Leopard external volume. When I am booted from there, Leopard will not create a .Spotlight‐V100 directory onto a newly erased USB drive. However it still creates the zero-length, root level file, .com.apple.timemachine.supported.
All of my Tiger volumes that have ever been connected to a booted Leopard system now have that file.

From this article, [Mac OX 10 Directory Structure|http://www.r512.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=108: mac-ox-10-directory-structure&catid=36:mac-os-10&Itemid=56]:

--------
/.com.apple.timemachine.supported - Indicates that a drive can be used by Time Machine as a backup target
-----------------

It is apparently just a zero-length flag for potential use by Time Machine, not Spotlight. I would ignore it.
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User profile for user: WZZZ
WZZZ Author
User level: Level 6
13,232 points

Dec 11, 2009 5:10 PM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua "Not sure, but I use this method..."


http://macosx.com/forums/howto-faqs/52253-how-re-index-spotlight.html


That looks easy.


Jjsd2 "All of my Tiger volumes that have ever been connected to a booted Leopard system now have that file." "It is apparently just a zero-length flag for potential use by Time Machine, not Spotlight. I would ignore it."


That looks pretty easy too. I like to ignore things when I can.

Thanks much both 🙂
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User profile for user: WZZZ
WZZZ Author
User level: Level 6
13,232 points

Dec 11, 2009 6:41 PM in response to WZZZ

That jogged my memory. It's foggy, but I think I may remember being asked--maybe it was when I connected the G3 in TDM, but could have been when the external was connected (or both times)--by some pop up, whether I wanted to employ Time Machine. Something like, "Do you want to use this volume for Time Machine? Don't remember the exact wording. Maybe it was at this moment the file in question got created.
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What's com.apple.timemachine.supported doing on my G3 Tiger?

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