Cheese21Cheese

Q: Lion Keeps Re-arranging my Folders

In Snow Leopard I used to make my folders simply snap to grid and I used to arrange them into an order that suited me.

 

In Lion when I do this, be it on the desktop, downloads folder or simply my user home, after a few times of accessing, the folders move randomly or get sorted by lion.

 

Any ideas why this is happeneing and how I can stop it from happening?

27, Mac OS X (10.7), 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD

Posted on Jul 27, 2011 6:54 AM

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Q: Lion Keeps Re-arranging my Folders

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  • by Jyri Palm,

    Jyri Palm Jyri Palm Aug 15, 2011 11:21 AM in response to coolas
    Level 1 (50 points)
    Aug 15, 2011 11:21 AM in response to coolas

    Here's a theory.  Perhaps the same mechanism that is zero-ing out these test files, in some form is doing the same to .DS_Store files, which are then replaced by brand new files with system defaults.  Then icon placement, views, and everything are instantly changed.

  • by Jyri Palm,

    Jyri Palm Jyri Palm Aug 15, 2011 11:36 AM in response to Jyri Palm
    Level 1 (50 points)
    Aug 15, 2011 11:36 AM in response to Jyri Palm

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

  • by Brett C,

    Brett C Brett C Aug 15, 2011 11:59 AM in response to Jyri Palm
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Aug 15, 2011 11:59 AM in response to Jyri Palm

    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

  • by leonfromalexandria,

    leonfromalexandria leonfromalexandria Aug 15, 2011 12:00 PM in response to Jyri Palm
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 15, 2011 12:00 PM in response to Jyri Palm

    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.

  • by billearl,

    billearl billearl Aug 15, 2011 12:09 PM in response to coolas
    Level 2 (175 points)
    Aug 15, 2011 12:09 PM in response to coolas

    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).

  • by Mogga,

    Mogga Mogga Aug 16, 2011 12:29 PM in response to coolas
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 16, 2011 12:29 PM in response to coolas

    On the zero byte issue... look at this post https://discussions.apple.com/message/15946051#15946051

     

    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.

  • by Brett C,

    Brett C Brett C Aug 16, 2011 1:44 PM in response to Brett C
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Aug 16, 2011 1:44 PM in response to Brett C

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

  • by MathGeekRob,

    MathGeekRob MathGeekRob Aug 16, 2011 1:52 PM in response to Brett C
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 16, 2011 1:52 PM in response to Brett C

    Brett C,

     

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

  • by Brett C,

    Brett C Brett C Aug 16, 2011 1:55 PM in response to MathGeekRob
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Aug 16, 2011 1:55 PM in response to MathGeekRob

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

  • by Ian Sen,

    Ian Sen Ian Sen Aug 16, 2011 5:29 PM in response to Cheese21Cheese
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Aug 16, 2011 5:29 PM in response to Cheese21Cheese

    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.

  • by Philippesan,

    Philippesan Philippesan Aug 22, 2011 10:57 AM in response to Cheese21Cheese
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 22, 2011 10:57 AM in response to Cheese21Cheese

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

  • by nvidia_nvidia,

    nvidia_nvidia nvidia_nvidia Aug 27, 2011 7:39 PM in response to Brett C
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 27, 2011 7:39 PM in response to Brett C

    @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

  • by Brett C,

    Brett C Brett C Aug 28, 2011 2:17 PM in response to nvidia_nvidia
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Aug 28, 2011 2:17 PM in response to nvidia_nvidia

    @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.

  • by MathGeekRob,

    MathGeekRob MathGeekRob Aug 29, 2011 3:01 PM in response to Brett C
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 29, 2011 3:01 PM in response to Brett C

    Does anyone know the link to report a Lion Bug?

  • by Brett C,

    Brett C Brett C Aug 29, 2011 3:06 PM in response to MathGeekRob
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Aug 29, 2011 3:06 PM in response to MathGeekRob

    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.

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