Gary Brandt

Q: Why does DS_Store prevent copying?

After installing ML this last week I can nolonger copy to another drive. It keeps saying DS_Store already exists. I have searched for these files and can't find them. What a PITA. What's going on with ML anyway?

Mac Pro Desk 8 core 2.93GHZ 16GB ram, Raid, PB 1.67, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 3 serial SCSI 15k spin drives, MOTU DP, RME IO's

Posted on Sep 8, 2012 5:49 AM

Close

Q: Why does DS_Store prevent copying?

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

first Previous Page 3 of 5 last Next
  • by Grant Hall,

    Grant Hall Grant Hall Dec 15, 2013 10:24 AM in response to Benway1
    Level 1 (75 points)
    Dec 15, 2013 10:24 AM in response to Benway1

    I never had this problem in Lion and now Mountain Lion does it all the time. Checking ignore ownership does not work for me - so it's not a permissions problem - Using Windows 7 to copy Mac file sworks 100% as well as using Lion machine on the network the problem does not appear so for sure (or appear) it's not related to permissions.

  • by ZoiVan,

    ZoiVan ZoiVan Jan 11, 2014 7:17 PM in response to thomas_r.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 11, 2014 7:17 PM in response to thomas_r.

    It is NOT a 3rd party app issue. I have a brand new NAS and a brand new Mini. I have NO apps on the mini except MediaCenter19 other than what came with the OS. And I don't even allow MC to monitor the library folders. I do it all myself. When I copy a very large folder (music) containing a number of large subfolders, it quits because "there is already a 'DS_Store".

     

    It is certainly an OS bug. It's a PITA!!! My work around is to show hidden files, and when I copy, I am careful not to include the .DS_Store file in the from files. Then there is no problem.

     

    So, I repeat. It is not a 3rd party issue, but rather a bug in the OS.

  • by Cableaddict,

    Cableaddict Cableaddict Jan 12, 2014 7:58 AM in response to ZoiVan
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 12, 2014 7:58 AM in response to ZoiVan

    "It is certainly an OS bug. It's a PITA!!! "

     

    That's what I've been saying as well.  CLEARLY an OS bug, and it's incredible that Apple hasn't addressed this yet.

     

    I think you're right about sub-folders as well.   When the transfer stops, it's always at the EXACT point of a sub-folder,  never on an individual file.

  • by Phil Hastings,

    Phil Hastings Phil Hastings Jan 12, 2014 1:57 PM in response to Gary Brandt
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Jan 12, 2014 1:57 PM in response to Gary Brandt

    I'm going to through something out on the table as an observation. This seems to only happen on one of my external drives, and OWC Firewire 3TB. It has exhibited other concerning issues like spontaneously ejecting. Often I have to use disk utility to repair the drive. The other day I started to try moving stuff from the drive to another again and ran into the same problem. Could it be an error specific to a drive? I don't have D to go deeper into diagnosing the problem drive but will be reformatting it and seeing if it behaves better afterwards.

    Phil

  • by rbbrnck,

    rbbrnck rbbrnck Jan 18, 2014 3:37 PM in response to Gary Brandt
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Jan 18, 2014 3:37 PM in response to Gary Brandt

    I have a full drawer of different disks, any storage size and any physical size, rotating or solid, you name it.

    I am experiencing this problem no matter what copies what onto what else.

    And I have failed at isolating one reason for it.

     

    I noticed it first in Mountain Lion, when trying to dupe an SD card from the MBPr15 built-in card reader onto a different one stuck in a USB adapter. Which I blamed at first, just to find out that it had no part in the failure.

    I tried to copy the same SD card onto the internal HD, and when it failed, now I blamed the SD card, of course. After reformatting it, I re-installed OS X onto it, and tried once more. Just to see it fail again.

     

    Fast forward one year and a half later: brand new MBPr, right out of the box. As in now.

    Need to copy a ~500GB library onto it. It failes like the one machine before, saying "The operation can’t be completed because an item with the name “.DS_Store” already exists.".

     

    I truly don't know why, and I can't say I have a solution.

    But I started to use a specific method, though, that got rid of the problem.

    Once for all, pronto, finito. It never fails, it does not dodge files, it does not delete them.

     

    Maybe someone might find it useful, too?

     

    I'm not proficient at command-line, don't remember enough basic commands to perform all file duties in there, but I know from experience that when something fails to deliver in the "windowed" world, you switch to the parallel, command-line universe, and it always works (because of .bash_history, yep), but it does.

     

    Anyway, I have installed an OS X port of a file manager named Midnight Commander, or simply mc, that exists under Unix, DOS, Linux since the dawn of creation; mind me here, there might exist a thousand other file managers that do the trick, but I stuck with the only one I know, and it's been this one since I was young.

     

    First: look up Midnight Commander for OS X, locate a repository from which you feel comfortable to download.

    There's a developer that's made a .pkg installer that never let me down.

     

    Now, from within a Terminal session I launch Midnight Commander as a super-user:

         sudo mc

    After entering my password (as an Administrator of my own machine), I now select whatever I need to copy, point to where I wanna copy it, hit F5, end of story, Roger and out.

     

    It's not THE solution to a bug, or whatchawannacallit.

    It just works, it's free, and it promotes a bit more awareness of the Terminal even to non-geeks users like me.

    And, it comes in handy whenever I need to move these 400GB of audio files, which is once every so long or half.

  • by mumu1,

    mumu1 mumu1 Jan 19, 2014 1:02 PM in response to Gary Brandt
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 19, 2014 1:02 PM in response to Gary Brandt

    I have got this problem with Snow Leopard and now I have got it with Mountain Lion. The issue appears with : 1) just duplicating the same folder on the internal disk (in the same location), 2) with copying to external disks WD and Lacie Rugged, and 3) with copying to CF card... In fact, at the beginning when I left copying a large amount of data over the night and I didn't realize that it has stopped somewhere; thus I lost quite some of the data at that point. Despite being super careful after that, I keep facing this problem... I would appreciate a solution, this is becoming quite annoying...

  • by Cableaddict,

    Cableaddict Cableaddict Jan 24, 2014 11:16 AM in response to mumu1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 24, 2014 11:16 AM in response to mumu1

    The fact that Apple still hasn't addressed this common & incredibly frustrating problem, tells us all we need to know about the new direction of the company.

     

     

    "Oh, but look at our shiny new iPads!"

     

     

     

     

    It's seriously time to start looking at Windows for all my work.

  • by tadtadtadtad,

    tadtadtadtad tadtadtadtad Mar 13, 2014 2:43 AM in response to Gary Brandt
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mar 13, 2014 2:43 AM in response to Gary Brandt

    I'm having the DS_store copying error and there's still no solution. Apple please address this incredibly annoying problem.

  • by Gary Brandt,

    Gary Brandt Gary Brandt Mar 13, 2014 3:26 AM in response to Gary Brandt
    Level 2 (178 points)
    Applications
    Mar 13, 2014 3:26 AM in response to Gary Brandt

    I have not had this issue for quite some time now. Not sure why. I do know that you can boot into root and do things permissions halts in the user but make sure your an administrator or problems like this happen. I'm currently in Mavericks 10.9.2 and things are better though.

  • by Cableaddict,

    Cableaddict Cableaddict Mar 13, 2014 2:13 PM in response to Gary Brandt
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Mar 13, 2014 2:13 PM in response to Gary Brandt

    I got the 10.9.2 updates as well.

     

    Still no luck transferrring files.  It's unbelievable.

     

     

    I see now that it's not a CORRUPTION problem:   The OS constantly creates ds.store files, and when you try to copy a complex folder (with other folders and single files inside of it) the OS sees ds.store files on the source, thinks they are identical to the ones on the destination (they of course are NOT identical) and STOPS THE COPYING PROCESS.

     

    I have recently started using the app "Cocktail" to bulk-erase ds.store files from my source drives, instead of OnyX,  because Cocktail makes it a little easier.  This seems to work, but you have to remember to do this every time, and JUST before you start dragging that folder.  Otherwise, the OS starts putting more ds.store files everywhere, and you get the same problem again.

     

    It's beyond words how Apple doesn't care about things like this. There is simply no way that they don't know about it.

  • by Gary Brandt,

    Gary Brandt Gary Brandt Mar 13, 2014 5:19 PM in response to Cableaddict
    Level 2 (178 points)
    Applications
    Mar 13, 2014 5:19 PM in response to Cableaddict

    I could not get "Cocktail" to run in Mavericks. Supply a Mavericks compat link please.

  • by Cableaddict,

    Cableaddict Cableaddict Mar 14, 2014 5:30 PM in response to Gary Brandt
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Mar 14, 2014 5:30 PM in response to Gary Brandt

    Gary,

     

    Cocktail 7.2.1 is Mavericks compatible.   I don't have a link handy right now, but I'm sure.

  • by Benway1,

    Benway1 Benway1 Apr 18, 2014 7:36 PM in response to Cableaddict
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iCloud
    Apr 18, 2014 7:36 PM in response to Cableaddict

    Hi Cableaddict .

    How do you use Cocktail to clean the DS_store files ?


    I'm just looking at the app now , and not sure how to do this .

    Thanks !

  • by Cableaddict,

    Cableaddict Cableaddict Apr 19, 2014 2:36 PM in response to Benway1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 19, 2014 2:36 PM in response to Benway1

    Open Cocktail.

     

    Click on "Files"

     

    Click on "DS Store"

     

    Drag a folder or a drive icon into the box.

     

     

     

    That's it.  it takes a few seconds.  -  but remember that you have to (literally) do thi to your source location JUST before copying stuff,  even if you did it 5 minutes earlier. There's a huge flaw in the Mac finder that just continually creates more of these "DS" items, all with the exact same name. 

     

    Apple HAS to know about this, and obviously it's not important to them. The're too busy designing the iPad 17.

  • by Cableaddict,

    Cableaddict Cableaddict Apr 19, 2014 2:39 PM in response to Cableaddict
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 19, 2014 2:39 PM in response to Cableaddict

    Another possible solution:

     

    I just was reading about the app "TotalFinder," ($18)   which also brings back colored labels.  One of its claimed features is, quote:  

    "Stop creating .DS_Store litter."

     

    That sounds promising, though having suffered with Mavericks for several months now, I think the best solution is to buy a Windows machine.

first Previous Page 3 of 5 last Next