Can't copy files from USB drive to Lion OSX

discovered this issue as well.

in my case, it was on my wife's macbook, trying to copy some pictures from her iphoto library to the desktop.

during the copy, files appeared, but once the files finished copying, they disappeared.

tried copying via PathFinder, and it worked perfectly.

relaunched Finder, as described on the first page, and it works again.

haven't noticed it on my 15" 2011 MBP.

glad i wasn't the only one with this issue, thought it may have been this new SSD i installed 😮

I had this problem when I first upgraded to Lion...

Repairing disk permissions fixed it on my end, haven't had a problem since...

i tired this searching the issue online, didn't work for me, i think it has something to do with after using airdrop.

@_R_ can you post instructions on how to repair disk permissions?

The issue comes and goes with me. Unplugging USB often works as well.

Hej John, try this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1452

Thank you David- this provides an overview but does not indicate how to actually repair the permissions?

Ok, go here.

Apps/Utilities/Disk Utility

Select the disk from the panel on the left and then select "Repair Disk permissions"

It should look like this:

I hope this helps 🙂

Fantastic, thank you! 🙂

I'm assuming by disk you mean the HD?

Yes sorry, HD = Disk, here in Sweden we call it a Hårddisk which is a Hard Drive. 😁

I've been having the same issues as well, but unfortunately repairing permissions hasn't worked for me. Hopefully Apple will have a fix for this soon.

it started happening to me after using Airdrop for the first time. Sometimes I can't copy or move files to my USB HD. I'm using a Mac Mini.

Here is a list of compatible computers to perform common AirDrop Lion:

- MacBook Pro (late 2008 release or newer)

- MacBook Air (release late 2010 or newer)

- MacBook (late 2008 release or newer)

- IMac (early 2009 release or newer)

- Mac mini (mid-2010 release or newer)

- Mac Pro (early 2009 release with the AirPort Extreme card, or mid-2010)

I guess if you are outside of these perameters you might need a patch.

If your mac is not on the list, AirDrop is not even visible, this is happening on macs that are compatible.

Seems to me that my problem occurs only after using AirDrop. So there might be some bug on the AirDrop functionality that kills other drag and drop or copy funcitons.

I had a problem copying any image files in LION. Thumb drive to MBPro (vice-versa) or even using finder to copy/paste or duplicate. The progress bar would go through the steps, but the final files vanished. Folders would copy and be empty.

I went to the Apple Store Genius Bar and the beautiful young genius proved she was just that.

She verified that the problem existed and was repeatable. She then wen to the guest account and tried it there where it did NOT occur. This told her that it was my login's issue.

She deleted: com.apple.finder.plist & com.apple.finder.plist.lockfile from my preferences and my issue was gone. They are just preferences, so there is little harm in trashing them and trying. I had to redo some passwords the computer now forgot, but at least I can copy.

Don't know if this will help anybody else, but it seems some people have run into an issue similar to mine.