Lion Keeps Re-arranging my Folders

A question to everyone experiencing these various problems. Are you using File Vault 2, or no encryption? I'm using FV2 here.

I'm having this problem too.

Jyri - it's doesn't seem related to Filevault2 encryption - I saw it happening without FV2 encryption, and I just turned on encryption over the weekend and the problem still occurs.

as I discovered after seeing @Whiteman007's video post (thanks!) - at least in my case the messed up icons are triggered whenever I save a file from some app and the Save/Save-As dialog box pops up, as I mentioned in this other thread

if you have this problem and it seems to occur randomly, try doing a Save-As and see if the problem occurs. it's definitely repeatable every time when I do a save-as.

I've tried deleting my Finder and desktop preference files, but the problem still occurs. I'm guessing we'll have to wait for Apple to fix the bug in some future update to Lion

I am not using any encryption. My OS usage is pretty vanilla with few extra non-Apple add ons. I do use Dropbox and Carbon Copy Cloner, both of which are intimate of the system. The latter I've used for years so that is not likely a problem. My Dropbox usage is recent.

coolas wrote:

Get Info on the file confirms the file size is zero bytes. Also, opening the file reveals the data is gone!

Yikes! I haven't run into that one (and hope I don't).

On the zero byte issue... look at this post https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3262770?answerId=15946051022#15946051022

It seems Time Machine is killing these files when you rename.

I can confirm it no longer kills the data when I turn Time Machine OFF.

OS X 10.7.1 update is out and in case you're wondering.... I just ran the update and the problem still occurs 😟

Brett C,

To which problem? The rearrangement of the icons or the renaming of the files being corrupted?

sorry, I meant the rearrangement of the icons still happens with 10.7.1

for the record:

i updated one macbook pro to lion (from snow leopard) and i bought a macbook air last week (with lion pre-installed):

and they're both exhibiting the random re-setting of icon arrangement.

so, for sure, it's not isolated to migration / upgrading etc.

Same problem and more for me, shame on Apple, the new finder is terrible !

@BrettC

"as I discovered after seeing @Whiteman007's video post (thanks!) - at least in my case the messed up icons are triggered whenever I save a file from some app and the Save/Save-As dialog box pops up, as I mentioned"

Yup, I notice the most annoying Finder re-arrangement happens to my certain folders in my Documents folder and Downloads folder. Usually it is after *something* has written to it. Eg. saving a document, or downloading something.

The Save/Save-As dialog box messes up some Finder settings for that folders that you navigate through. It is not the only culprit though, just downloaded Chicken Of The VNC for example, dragged it to Applications etc, and viola, Downloads folder was messed up this morning even though there was no "Save/Save-As" prompt since Safari puts it in Downloads automatically.

At least I think we narrowed down the bug a little. Hopefully anyone with Developer accounts reading this and trying out 10.7.2 can test this out further.

Personally, somewhat dissapointed that the Finder has gone "off" after doing so well in Snow Leopard particularly with the Cocoa rewrite in SL.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I think the two options of "Arrange By" and "Sort By" are good. It's just that these settings seem to be messed up when something "touches" the folder.

Tip: Cmd-Option-1 or Cmd-Option-2 (Clean Up By...) keyboard shortcuts. The best thing to do for now if you see a folder in which you don't like the arrangement. Just hit those keyboard shortcuts and the pain goes away for a while 🙂

@nvidia_nvidia - yes, I've also noticed when downloading files vis Safari that this triggers the bug too.

as a temporary cleanup shortcut, I'm using the tip posted earlier in this thread (or maybe another similar thread, I forget...) - i.e. with my home folder in a known good state, I go to Terminal and save a copy of the .DS_Store file. then any time the home folder gets messed up, I restore the .DS_Store file from the saved copy. saves manually rearranging everything again for the hundredth time...

meanwhile I hope a proper bug fix comes from Apple soon.

Does anyone know the link to report a Lion Bug?

I reported the bug, along with details how to reproduce it, to:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

not sure if that's the best place to report it, or not.

if someone knows another place I'd be interested too.

hate to sound like an old AOL noob user here 😁 but ME TOO! Lion just randomly rearranges my icons on my machine all over the place (especially after rebooting) it makes the View Options settings pretty much moot at this point for me .... I've deleted .DS_store files galore (that used to cure those types of problems in the pre-Lion days if they became corrupt) but to no avail ... Lion truly has a mind of its own ... HAL??

yes, this is a repeat post that I put in a slightly older thread .... but the problem remains the same ... every single one of my Mac user friends have complained about this as well