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Volume becoming partially then fully hidden somehow

I have a Drobo hard drive raid array. Twice now something has caused it to become hidden in stages:

First, it shows up grayed out and inaccessible in the left columbn of a finder window while I can still access it by double clicking on its icon on the desktop. When this happened sweveral weeks ago, it was fully visible as a desktop icon; this time the icon is grayed out on the desktop but can still be double clicked to access it.

Next, it becomes comletely hidden.

The last time this happened, after about a week it became fully hidden. Both Apple and Drobo support agonized about this and I finally repaired it by resetting the chflag from terminal to nohidden.

The same thing fixed it this time around. (it jsut went to the grayed out stage overnight)

Nevertheless, I want to figure out why this is happening.

Drobo thinks it has to be the operating system since, as far as they are concerned the drive array doesn't even have the capability to do this. I don't know if I believe them.

Apple is just mystified.

A particular mystery is the gradual nature of this, first becoming gray and unabailble from a finder window but still available from the desktop icon and then becoming totally hidden (still shows up in terminal, of course).

Is there a partially hidden (grayed out) unix flag? I can't find one.

Is there some flag that tells the finder to gray something but not fully hide it? This does happen in certain finder states with files and apps.

Would love some help figuring this out.

This happened under both Mountain Lion and Mavericks.

The drive is connected using Thunderbolt.

I am using a fairly new imac computer.

--Kenoli

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), 24 GB RAM

Posted on Jan 16, 2014 9:49 AM

74 replies

Jan 27, 2015 12:28 PM in response to JohnlP

I was getting the disappearing files glitch about once a week and last week I finally got tired of the constant babysitting and lack of fixes from Apple. We have a very simple server setup (AFP file sharing only) so I pulled out the data drives, wiped the server's boot drive, installed 10.10 then Yosemite Server, then slid the data drives back in and set everything up from scratch. So far all has been well and it seems quite a bit peppier (last-gen Mac Pro).

Feb 25, 2015 4:25 PM in response to Shorthorn

Has anybody else been able to resolve this by upgrading to OS 10.10 and Yosemite Server? I do not want to spend the time upgrading on a weekend if it is not going to solve the problem.

_mc

Level 1

0 points

Feb 25, 2015 9:53 PM in response to TalkingMoose

yes. same here. seems as if with 10.10 the issue is resolved.

we run yosemite server for a few months now and i've never had this issue again, nor any other problems.
(simple afp share setup)

rlhyde

Level 1

0 points

Feb 26, 2015 7:24 AM in response to _mc

We "upgraded" to Yosemite Server 4.0.3 and the issue persists. I can't believe that Apple is ignoring this bug.

Apr 29, 2015 9:18 AM in response to rlhyde

I am not sold that upgrading to Yosemite server will solve this problem. Does anyone have any new info on this issue. It is exasperating.

Apr 29, 2015 9:20 AM in response to TalkingMoose

While I realize this isn't a rock-solid "Hey, Bob the Apple programmer here, yep, we fixed it" response, but I can confirm that personally, ever since I did migrate our server to Yosemite, I have not experienced this bug at all. Not once.

It used to be almost daily, sometimes multiple times a day.

Apr 29, 2015 9:23 AM in response to Andy Ringsmuth

Andy,

Did you upgrade your existing Mavericks server to Yosemite, or did you do a fresh clean install of Yosemite on a new mac? I would like to replicate what you did and rid myself of this issue.

Apr 29, 2015 9:29 AM in response to Andy Ringsmuth

Andy,

From what I've noticed, the more you use the server, the more likely the server will be hidden. If once or twice a day, you may not experience the issue. I have 2 shared volumes on the same server. 1 gets used all the time by many people and the other volume rarely gets used. The volume that gets used all the time is hidden almost every day except over the weekend! The volume that hardly gets used, it might get hidden twice a year. I'm still on 10.8 server, have not upgraded to 10.9 or 10.10 yet.

Apr 29, 2015 9:28 AM in response to TalkingMoose

I did an upgrade.

BEWARE though. The upgrade process is fairly unnerving. Apple makes it seem easy:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202848

But in my experience, make darn sure you have a good Time Machine backup! I lost all my Open Directory user data and had to run Migration Assistant to pull it back in from a backup. Maybe you'll have better luck than me in that regard.

Apr 29, 2015 9:29 AM in response to quang2550

Quang,

I've noticed that too. I have upwards of 50 people using this server for 8-10 hours a day.

Since the move to Yosemite Server, I've had no hidden volume issues.

Apr 29, 2015 9:31 AM in response to Andy Ringsmuth

Thanks Andy. I feel a bit more at ease about spending my weekend upgrading the server.

Apr 29, 2015 9:31 AM in response to Andy Ringsmuth

Thanks Andy! I usually clone my servers before doing any upgrades.

May 5, 2015 6:00 PM in response to quang2550

I upgraded to Yosemite Server on Saturday and so far the hidden volume issue has gone away. so far...

Jul 19, 2015 8:55 PM in response to TalkingMoose

I'm on El Capitan. And its still here. Plus when I see two drobo drives, I noticed that they have similar files in both. Except that the icons are different on certain folders. I copied one to another, and it did a merge, so there must be different documents in one than another. So I deleted a sample file. Big Mistake, as the file disappeared on both drobos. So I'm confused as to what I should be doing with two drives with the same files. Is this normal? How do I get rid of one without deleting the other?

Volume becoming partially then fully hidden somehow