Strange problem when copying files to NAS

Thank you so much, I've been dealing with this on and off for what felt like months (since I upgraded to Maverick). I don't do a lot of transactions with my NAS drive, but when I do, I do a LOT, hundreds of files. And it was really getting beyond frustrating when I kept getting "... file in use" messages when I know that was not the case and I had to re-continue the file copy from that point, towards the end goal of copying hundreds of files. Once I changed to AFP, it hasn't failed me yet, in copies of a few hundred files. But I do notice, that it's "slower". Listing the directory of hundreds of files is slower, and copying is slower, and "show preview column" is slower (but I disabled that for most of the time now, using it only when I am dealing with my local drive only).

Thank you all for helping reduce the frustration. I guess now we wait for Apple to release a fix around this so that we can actually move beyond AFP for NAS drives when using a Mac.

Maveric is very disappointing. I waited for long enough to avoid getting into too much troubles after upgrade and, to my surprise, I suffer from this silly issue now! Can't copy a few dozens of photos to my NAS.

I have observed a couple of things:

- copying using simple copy command (ie from shell) works perfectly

- copying from Finder is almost always problematic - even after applying all tricks mentioned above

I have noticed that Finder, apparently, tries to copy the files in some weird way - maybe it creates all these files first and then writes to them or something like this. And, it seems to me that Finder tries to copy multiple files in parallel - that's what shell does not do when you copy a bunch of files, it is always sequential and always as simple as "open/create-write-close".

I conclude that if there is a bug in CIFS client, then it is Finder that triggers it - because of the way it copies the files.

Also it seems if you "copy" all files you want to copy first and then paste them to the destination it will fail at some point. But if you paste again and select "skip - all" for duplicates - they will eventually all get there.

Shame on Apple for letting such a silly bug to get released.

Hi there,

This is a ridiculous problem, I've been working on a Mac since 1992 and never had a problem with the simple basic tasks of Copy and Paste until recently when during copying the very annoying "The operation can't complete because the file ... is in use" message started appearing.

In my case it usually copies 5/15GB from one remote disc to another remote disc until it stops and as I have ±10TB to copy this proces is very contra-productive and time consuming.

I started copying on my MacBook Pro (10.9.4), then took the discs to an iMac (10.9.4) and then to a power iMac (10.6.8) but in all cases the same disappointing result.

After visiting several sites about this topic to find a way around this serious problem I'm very surprised that as far as i know nobody came up with a temporary solution for this failure, close down Spotlight, icon preview, even a clean install and Terminal suggestions don't help at all.

I wish someone at Apple wakes up and and restores the system to the good old days when copy/paste worked well in the background and I could occupy myself with more important things or wake up the next morning to find that the copying was successfully finished.

A statement from Apple that they recognize the problem and are working to solve it as soon as possible would send my mind at ease but as usual such a statement is nowhere to be found.

When a new application is being launched bugs can be expected but that we're discussing Copy/Paste problems in 2014 is beyond me and I wonder how long it takes Apple to change the system back to a state that simple basic computing tasks can once again be done without problems.

Things change in this world and some not for the better but let's see what the next update brings, I wonder.

Hi there again,

I've gathered some more information since my last post that might be useful to someone who knows to draw the right conclusions.

I was (and still am) struggling to get folders and files from a 3TB Western Digital disc to a 3TB Intenso disc and vice versa with the constant annoying "The operation can't complete because the file ... is in use" message. Both discs only have a USB connection and were first connected to a MacBook Pro and later to an iMac.

While struggling on the iMac I started copying my next remote discs on the MacBook Pro, these are two identical 2TB LaCie discs connected with Firewire 800 and to my surprise all went well, very well, the first 450GB folder copied without any problems at all. Now these LaCie discs have several in/outputs and I was curious what would happen if I used their USB facility and once again to my surprise there were no problems at all, copying takes longer but no annoying messages appeared.

Then I tried my two identical 6TB Western Digital discs with Firewire and once again no problems at all with Copy/Paste.

I've also tried my 500GB Intenso USB disc and also this one gave no messages during copying. All the discs have 1 partition in the Mac OS extended journaled structure.

I'm sorry if I accused somebody at Apple wrongly but I really don't know anymore what causes the "file is in use" problem and it's still there i can tell you, is it the way USB is handled or the 3TB WD disc or the 3TB Intenso disc, if you can make sense of this information I'll be glad to hear from you.

Got the same problem. It was there with Lion, it was there with Mountain Lion and it's here with Mavericks... just worse. CIFS does not work. .conf file in Library does not work, upgrading NAS (QNAP NAS) to the latest firmware with SMB2 does not work.... and... it's not tMac OS file system, it's Finder. If I copy files using ditto or cp, it al works fine. It seems Finder uses some other way to copy files (I think they're using multiple threads or something similar, as well as progress bars for individual files... it could be something to that sort) The fact is the problem happens even when I copy a single file. It's random, it could happen after I copy two or three files, or it could happen for every file. I've disabled the icon preview, I've disabled SMB2 in Mac OS... nothing seems to work.

This is difficult to say, at the best, but nothing of this happen with Windows. Leaving alone the fact that my 802.1X network is losing connectivity every hour when it's time to rekey, and even iOS devices don't have that problem. Mac OS is getting worse with every new version, even when you wait for the big updates and don't rush to install the very first version. I remember the old good times when Apple was the choice for professionals, people who could not afford to spend two hours to copy 20 files to a NAS, or otherwise resort to a command terminal a-la-linux... if I'm gonna have to use a system like a Linux machine, I would rather prefer Linux itself. Maybe Apple should re-hire all the low-level technicians they fired to hire the new graphics design team. I loved Snow Leopard, it was fast, it was stable, it was rock solid, it was the best OS I've used EVER, it could run forever without an application crashing, or even the whole system going zombie and requiring a hard reboot. I can work without translucency... I can't work spending a whole morning to copy a bunch of files over a network.

I'm also experiencing this problem on my Qnap. The thing is that I don't remember having this problem a few months ago (I think before upgrading to QNap os 4.1). And I can copy from the finder to our corporate network to mounted SMB shares without problems, so it's just to the Qnap I have problems with. The finder seems to make a ._FileName file while it's copying and then erases it once the copy is done. This is somehow causing the problem. Very frustrating.

I'm tried all the fixes I could find on the net, but still the "file in use" problem persists.

It only appears when copying files over a network share via cifs, smb or afp.

How can such a company like Apple screw over this basic functionality and not apply a fix?

So for now... bye bye finder, and use the Terminal again for a stable copy of files.

Back to the future?

I'm curious if you also have this problem when copying files in a directory.

Put all the local files in a directory, and copy this directory to the network share.

I'm only seeing this when I connect with SMB. If I connect with AFP I can copy files without problems.

What's worrisome is that the problem still exists in Yosemite. I've reported the bug in that version.

I had the same problem as everyone else in this thread - used to work fine to copy files to my NAS (iomega ix2-200) but when I upgraded to Mavericks and Yosemite I couldn't copy files without getting the "in use" error. I solved the problem by switching the original location and the destination location from List View to Cover Flow View in Finder. That was it. It makes no sense to me, but as soon as I did that, it worked just like it used to before I upgraded OS X. I'm using SMB and I'm highlighting and dragging to paste.

I have a data point that may be helpful. I use makemkv. If I transfer the resultant file directly over to the NAS, it transfers fine. If I change the file name in finder, no go, I get the file in use error.

Hi Guys,

I had the same problem in connection with a Seagate Backup Plus drive connected to my FritzBox as a NAS.

When I tried to copy the files by pulling them with the mouse from the directory to the NAS I got the problem.

However after I right clicked them and selected copy files and past them to the NAS by right clicking it worked.

Nice from you Adrian! How can we support the bug report you made ?

I have to add another issue, maybe it's the fault on how NAS OS and MAC OS have their "finder written in-them".

Some how, "NAS-finder" has the ability to discriminate between capital and non caps letter, able to create, "M"usic and "m"usic folder in the same path.

This cause MAC-finder to fail seeing the two of them.

I don't now, it seems to me all crap these things. Not from apple Iìd say but from the company who make NAS (like zyxel in my case).

How do you possibly complicate world making things like these ? It really has non sene to me.

Riccardo

Hi Riccardo, thanks for the thanks......

If everyone signs into:

https://bugreport.apple.com/

And fills a bug report in, then the more Apple will realise it is happening to quite a few people.

All of them with different setups, so it is more likely they will fix it sooner rather than later.

Adrian.

I had this annoying problem too for months, then I stumbled onto the solution.

This is caused somehow by the "Show Icon Preview" in the finder view options ... disable "Show icon preview" in finder and things magically start to work perfectly again.

Hope this helps someone.

Hi Brandon, I tried this and along with the other solutions in this thread and http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=98869

None of them worked, hence I filed a bug report with Apple as all my Windows machines (and Linux/Android boxes/phones) can copy paste fine to the shares.

Adrian.