How to fix greyed out files post updating to Sonoma

Why did i update? Now having the exact same issue. 40% of files missing from I all my ableton live 11 projects! This happened a few years back and i never got the files back! I hope to god there is away to reverse this update without losing files. I’ve over 3years of unreleased music literally thousands of hours spent! Never mind the hours I’ll need to spend to figure this out! Nice one Apple

Ye! Thanks for that very helpful information and pointing out my weakness on my back up strategy. Cheers for adding some more full the fire.just what I needed this morning. not my point however. The point is that a major OS release should never have been released with such adverse affects on highly important files. Deleting files from Mac home drive and moving them to the cloud? Risky to say the least no? especially when Ableton Live project files can save to various folders on the local drive. I didnt delete them the OS update did. I pay for extra iCloud storage, and happy that I have 2tb of cloud storage! But why move (delete) some files from Mac HD, but not all! “Documents” and desktop” only. Fragmenting the files for Ableton live project is literally the worst thing that can happen.

I would be happy if it took a carbon copy of my ableton project files in their entirety and worst case I could launch the project file from iCloud. But even when I do that im

missing data / files with in project. Only way to fix this is in each Ableton file to manually search for each missing file route and manually load them onto each live project. And even at that it’s a lengthy and inconsistent process. I assume allot of user will suffer the exact same in the coming days.

I do regularly back up! But not in the last 4 weeks. So restoring to a 4 week old backup will loose tracks I’ve been working on the last few weeks. Which are the most important to me.

any way I’m not going to fix this by giving out of this forum. I do appreciate your support but it’s been Uber frustrating dealing with this.

Tonelaw wrote:

Ye! Thanks for that very helpful information and pointing out my weakness on my back up strategy. Cheers for adding some more full the fire.just what I needed this morning. not my point however. The point is that a major OS release should never have been released with such adverse affects on highly important files.

Well, it doesn’t do that. What happened to you we do t know.

Deleting files from Mac home drive and moving them to the cloud? Risky to say the least no?

Not risky at all because it doesn’t delete anything. When you enable Desktop & Documents syncing, hard links are created. Nothing is moved or deleted.

especially when Ableton Live project files can save to various folders on the local drive. I didnt delete them the OS update did. I pay for extra iCloud storage, and happy that I have 2tb of cloud storage! But why move (delete) some files from Mac HD, but not all! “Documents” and desktop” only. Fragmenting the files for Ableton live project is literally the worst thing that can happen.

I would be happy if it took a carbon copy of my ableton project files in their entirety and worst case I could launch the project file from iCloud. But even when I do that im

m

issing data / files with in project. Only way to fix this is in each Ableton file to manually search for each missing file route and manually load them onto each live project. And even at that it’s a lengthy and inconsistent process. I assume allot of user will suffer the exact same in the coming days.

I do regularly back up! But not in the last 4 weeks. So restoring to a 4 week old backup will loose tracks I’ve been working on the last few weeks. Which are the most important to me.

any way I’m not going to fix this by giving out of this forum. I do appreciate your support but it’s been Uber frustrating dealing with this.

That sounds like a problem with Ableton

Within the Finder press Shift + Command + Period to toggle hidden files on & off. I recall a thread on these forums where some files became hidden after the upgrade to Sonoma. IIRC, it may have been related to iCloud.

I am sorry if I upset you and I certainly understand your frustration. It is important for people to realize there are ways to minimize things like this occurring.

I thought my files were missing in icon view but somehow they had shifted miles down the screen so i had to scroll down to see them but we're visible in list view when I checked.

Hope this helps someone as I just had a massive panic attack thinking they'd all disappeared.

Sharing my experience trying to retrieve my lost files, upset and frustration to describe this latest Apple mess, how can they release a product of such quality, it's beyond me.

Anyway in my case, I lost all my Safari Bookmarks and could not find them anywhere, even going thru the bookmarks.plist in the Library folder.

Contacted Apple Support, initially they got me login to the iCloud, there is a restore function in the iCloud, it seems that Apple knows of this problem, I could see that for whatever reason, Sonoma unilateraly deleted all my Safari Bookmarks without warnings, it indicated that it was deleted a couple of hours after I upgraded to Sonoma (big regret - another story).

The normal Apple Support was unable to help, they got a more senior guy to call me back, and helped me do a Restore from my TimeMachine backups that was (in my case) 4 days earlier. Oh by the way, he got me to disable the iCloud sync for Safari before restoring, however every time you turn it on, Safari will revert back to the one copy of Bookmarks in the iCloud. Somehow the iCloud Bookmarks takes and replaces whatever bookmarks I have on my Mac, **** frustrating. So finally I have to disable the Safari Sync on iCloud then I can have all my previous Bookmarks, as soon as you turn it on, the bookmarks will change to some random bookmarks on my Safari, and what is strange is that those are only bits of my own bookmarks the rest I am not sure where they came from, I guess could be the Safari default bookmarks.

My files are now in a folder that is my name -> iCloud Drive (Archive) -> Documents. I did not ask for this and I never sync'ed my files to iCloud ever before. I did not ask for this feature as part of an OS update. I really find this to be a violation - Apple does not own my personal files on my hard drive - why are they messing with my folder structure? I have my own backup solution on site and I don't need iCloud to hold any of my files. Why was this the default for the install?

bryanwe wrote:

My files are now in a folder that is my name -> iCloud Drive (Archive) -> Documents. I did not ask for this and I never sync'ed my files to iCloud ever before. I did not ask for this feature as part of an OS update.

Well, you did. The Setup Assistant will ask if you want to do that and the default when you click through is to sync them.

I really find this to be a violation

That's what happens when you blindly click through and don't read what it is asking.

- Apple does not own my personal files on my hard drive - why are they messing with my folder structure? I have my own backup solution on site and I don't need iCloud to hold any of my files.

iCloud is not a backup solution.

Why was this the default for the install?

Because Apple wants you to use it. They clearly asked if you wanted to disable it, but you didn't.

Barney-15E reported that I clicked through this warning. Well, I'll admit I am old but could somebody please show me a screen shot of what I clicked through that did this to me, since I seemed to have just clicked through without reading - thanks Barney...

When I migrated by Mac a year ago, it was a nightmare. When I signed into my AppleID on the new Mac after having completed the migration, macOS/Apple had all the iCloud stuff enabled by default. The only part of iCloud I have ever used is syncing my Contacts so I can use Messages on the Mac.....that is all I have configured for iCloud (and backing up my iPhone) since my only Mac is my work issued Mac which I don't want to have any other personal items on it. I allow personal stuff in Messages on my work Mac just because I cannot type on the iPhone.

Apple doesn't understand that some of us do not want the full use & integration of everything possible. Previously I only used my personal AppleID when setting up Messages so it didn't activate anything else other than Contacts, but with Ventura it seems this is no longer the case....macOS activated everything iCloud related by default even though I had never enabled any of those settings previously.

So it may not have been anything you did.

I TOTALLY AGREE! So frustrating.

I put files on my desktop that are not super important, NEVER backup to cloud.

My phone also got +++++! it backed up to cloud and deleted and changed contacts, files and more!

So, they're all gone?

HiWTech,

I know this an old threadd but I came across it when looking for a related solution, you state, as other knowledgable people her also:

"iCloud on macOS is only a file syncing service where any change made on macOS is reflected on that file on all your other devices. "

I disagree a bit as Apple actually states on this page: What is iCloud? – Apple Support (UK)

that you have iCloud Storage.So it seems to me that iCloud offers syncing AND storage. The even sell you up to 12TB.

Good change that I do not understand the whole concept correctly, could you perhaps help me out in understanding this matter.

Many thanks in advance!

(BTW the problem I have is this downloading from iCloud to the internal Mac SSD, having 256GB. On my external SSD of 8TB I have now about 4TB and I want to have these files at work available (mainly PDF and pictures)

But ever so often I want/need to sync files and then this downloading to the interval SSD interferes, complaining about lack of space.

I would love to have all my files on iCloud available, as I want to stick to Apple software as much as possible.

iCloud at work cooperates fine with my PC there, Apple hardware NOT allowed. But don't worry about that now)

Similar thing has happened twice to me after updating the OS most recently with Sonoma.

I used to be able to recommend Apple to people, but for the last 4 years or so they, not so subtly, seem to rely on AI, iCloud, and a general hot potato type of customer support, to excuse a lack for the most basic thing a computer has been able to do for 20 years which is store files WITHOUT RANDOMLY DELETING THEM. Years worth of photos, years worth of music. The smarter they try to make their tech the more foolish it feels to rely on them. You call Apple support with an issue like this they pass you around for hours doing all the things a child would've already tried, all to say "that's weird your files got lost you should try updating again" Now why would I do that when that's what lost my files to begin with?? Oh yeah, it's because that's all they can say when it's clear the mistake is theirs' and the direction they're taking their software these days. 'Try relying on us further and try to get over losing your years worth of data.' You don't fool people into thinking you're correct with a lack of accountability.

Advice to Apple, Don't reinvent the wheel! You're not improving your computers by taking away the basics.

I'll never recommend them to anyone again.

I was happy at first that Shift + Command + Period did at least reveal the iCloud files I couldn't see anymore after the Sonoma update, but as you said they're grayed out now and it doesn't make ANY sense. No solution yet either....

Let me try again with nicer words. I guess I was rude in my first reply.

With this many people having this issue, would it not be fair to say the switch to Sonoma is a disaster?

Is everybody in this forum wrong?

I am missing files. I back up daily with Time Machine and if I go to my Time Machine backup, I don't see the missing files there either.