Bizarre self-replicating empty folders all over my computer

Question

Level 1

30 points

Bizarre self-replicating empty folders all over my computer

This is really strange, but yesterday I found that hundreds of empty Folders appeared all over my desktop. They were also found in most of hard drive folders. The originals don't seem to be affected. The empty folders have the names of my actual folders, but for the most part they are empty. A few have a very small phantom file with the extension .fpbf

Has anyone else experienced this. Could it be a virus? The person I spoke to at AppleCare had never heard of it.

Thanks.

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3), 8GB RAM, 1 TB HD

Posted on Apr 20, 2013 4:16 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Apr 20, 2013 4:22 PM in response to MarcinOC

It is a finder file, it is not the result of a virus.

Read here for more detail.

Reply

Answer 2

MarcinOC Author

Level 1

30 points

Apr 20, 2013 4:27 PM in response to Csound1

Thanks for the info. How can I get rid of it? My iMac is just a few days old, and I used Migration Assistant to move over everything from my old iMac. Never had this problem before.

Reply

Answer 3

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,494 points

Apr 20, 2013 4:29 PM in response to MarcinOC

You have 90 days of free AppleCare telephone support, that would be what I'd recommend as the first line of support.

Reply

Answer 4

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Apr 20, 2013 4:29 PM in response to MarcinOC

Take rkaufmann87's advice.

Reply

Answer 5

MarcinOC Author

Level 1

30 points

Apr 20, 2013 4:29 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks, I'll try them again.

Reply

Answer 6

Apr 20, 2013 4:31 PM in response to MarcinOC

.fpbf is the extension on burn folders, viz. a folder you create to hold files you plan to burn to a CD/DVD.

You can create such a folder yourself. In Finder, go to File menu, Burn ... to Disc.

Your computer is behaving as if you select various files / folders and decided to burn each to a disk.

This might help - try relaunching the Finder:

type: command + option + esc ( all three keys together). Then select Finder and click on Relaunch.

This might stop the process, but you will still have to find those folders and trash them. You will not lose anything doing this. Those folders have no real content, only aliases.

p.s. this is not a virus.

Reply