terminal 'ls' shows files Finder does not - Finder 10.6.8 shows files, Finder 10.8.4 does not

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Level 1

8 points

terminal 'ls' shows files Finder does not - Finder 10.6.8 shows files, Finder 10.8.4 does not

Hello,

Mapped a network drive via smb://, copied files from Mac OS 10.8.4 to the network drive (Ext3). When map same network drive via smb:// and view files in Finder certain files do not appear. These are NOT typical hidden dot files like .DS_Store but word documents and other "regular" files (e.g. my_cv_ver8.doc), so these files should always be visible. When first open up the folder in Finder the files all appear before they quickly disapear after ~1 second. Strange! This is not happening to all the files, just a subset of files - many of the files and file types appear fine (e.g. some .doc files are ok). When I make Finder show me hidden files (defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE) I can see them, but these files should not be hidden!

It really seems to be an issue in OS 10.8.4's Finder:

With OS 10.8.4 when I look at the mapped network drive with a trial version of Path Finder I can see the files. With OS 10.8.4 using terminal, 'ls' shows all the files there (note: don't have to use ls -a). When I view the mapped network drive on my wife's Mac OS 10.6.8 Finder I can see the files.

What is going on? How can I fix this? How can I make the Finder in OS 10.8.4 show the same files as a terminal 'ls' or as OS 10.6?

Thanks!

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Jul 21, 2013 8:07 PM

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Answer 1

xnav

Level 5

7,113 points

Jul 22, 2013 12:42 PM in response to chowdymila

Do the hidden files have ACL's (use ls -el).

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Answer 2

BobHarris

Level 9

56,933 points

Jul 22, 2013 1:55 PM in response to chowdymila

Taking it one step further, what does the following say about the files:

/bin/ls -dleO@ file.name

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Answer 3

twtwtw

Level 5

4,948 points

Jul 22, 2013 2:07 PM in response to chowdymila

learn something every day...

Apparently OS X does not give native support for Ext2 or Ext3 file systems. here's a couple of links that discuss it and offer a solution:

cnet reviews

applegrew blog

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Answer 4

chowdymila Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 23, 2013 3:31 PM in response to twtwtw

Great, thanks for all the comments!

ls -l

reveals -rwxrwxrwx@ for each file

ls -l@

reveals that each file has "com.apple.FinderInfo" and "com.apple.ResourceFork"

ls -dleO@ cv_ver8.doc

reveals

-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 owner owner arch 48640 Oct 7 2012 cv_ver8.doc

com.apple.FinderInfo 32

com.apple.ResourceFork 286

Yes, great point about no read/write for Ext3 with Mac. My Mac cannot read the drive via USB but when I mount the drive via smb:// through the network my Mac can read Ext3 (I'm not an expert but it seems that smb is handling the read/write to Ext3).

Any thoughts with the new info?

Thanks!

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Answer 5

xnav

Level 5

7,113 points

Jul 23, 2013 4:19 PM in response to chowdymila

com.apple.FinderInfo does have an 'invisible' flag in it. See this. I don't know why it would be set for your case.

Also, see this.

Message was edited by: xnav

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Answer 6

BobHarris

Level 9

56,933 points

Jul 23, 2013 4:35 PM in response to chowdymila

As an experiment to just one of the invisible files, what happens if you try the following:

/usr/bin/xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo  name.of.invisible.file

If xnav is correct that the invisible flag is hiding in the Finder Info, this would brute force remove the Finder Info and any invisible flag inside the structure.

At worse, all you are doing it removing Finder position information, old Type/Creator information, and Finder Flags such as invisible. Most of the Finder Info is a holdover from the Mac OS Classic days.

Mac OS X uses

chflags hidden name.of.invisible.file

to mark a file hidden, or it starts with a leading period (a Unix convention).

The /bin/ls -leO@ command will show the Mac OS X 'hidden' flag. What we seen in your case is the 'arch' (archive) flag, which should not affect visibility.

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Answer 7

twtwtw

Level 5

4,948 points

Jul 23, 2013 4:57 PM in response to chowdymila

chowdymila wrote:

Yes, great point about no read/write for Ext3 with Mac. My Mac cannot read the drive via USB but when I mount the drive via smb:// through the network my Mac can read Ext3 (I'm not an expert but it seems that smb is handling the read/write to Ext3).

The operative word in my post was 'support'. When apple says something is unsupported, what they mean is

It probably won't work by default, or at all.
It may or may not be made to work with some monkeying, which they don't recommend.
If it works, it may not always work, or continue to work, or work the same in every case and context.
You're on your own.

The problem is that OS X doesn't know anything about the structure of the Ext3 file system, so it really doesn't know what to do when it sees them. If it works over smb it's only be because smb is doing some translation and OS X is treating the Ext3 disk like like it ware a standard unix format, but since it isn't, and smb isn't designed for that purpose, there's absolutely no guarantees that it will work correctly or consistently across the board.

It's a bit like having a car whose brakes only fail sometimes. The car runs perfectly fine until one of those 'sometimes' happens, and then it doesn't.

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Answer 8

chowdymila Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 23, 2013 5:43 PM in response to chowdymila

Thanks for the comments everyone!

I tried:

/usr/bin/xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo  name.of.invisible.file

and then using 'ls -l@' confirmed the com.apple.ResourceFork was removed for that particular file, and it in fact was. However, this particular file (along with all the others) was still not visible in the Finder.

Any other ideas?

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Answer 9

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Jul 24, 2013 2:28 PM in response to twtwtw

smb should mask out the fact that the file is on an ext3 filesystem. I'd say this should work.

What system is doing the sharing?

Could you try nsf sharing?

Robert

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