Finder automatically changing folder names...

finder will not automatically change file or folder names in the manner that you are describing. it is more likely something that you are doing, rather than the operating system.

you should schedule an appointment with a mac genius to demonstrate the issue you are having.

http://concierge.apple.com/store/R130

this will get you an appointment at the Penn Square store in OKC.

It sounds to me like something is wrong with the directory on the hard drive. Try booting from the install disk, then go to the menu and select Disk Utility and run the Repair Disk function. If it finds errors and fixes them try rebooting and see if the problem is gone. If it finds errors it can't fix you need to either:

1. Wipe the drive and restore from your backup (assuming the backup is undamaged)
2. Invest in DiskWarrior and see if it can fix the problem

If it doesn't find any errors.... Well, I don't know what is going on. I've never seen an undamaged system behave that way.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

I have also just started seeing this behaviour. Sort of relieved to see I am not alone as it looks so freaky I thought I was having an "episode". With me it is folder names on a memory stick I am trying to use for syncing work between computers. I'll see if it behaves after the suggested restart.

Same problem! Happy to find you ...

Reproducible on both SAMBA and NFS shares running on Linux SuSE 10.0 server. No problem with folders on local macMini disk.

My way to reproduce:
- Create new folder, i.e. "NewFolder"
- Create new folders within just created folder, i.e. "a", "b", "c"
- Clicking in folder window on folder "a" changes folder name to "c" and seems to sort folders new

Behaviour doesn't depend on the way folders are created (by context menu, menu or keyboard shortcut) within finder.

Inspection with Terminal program on macMini shows that folders "a", "b", "c" exist on share(s).
Inspection on Linux Server shows that folders "a", "b", "c" exist with appropriate user and group information and access bits set to "drwxr-xr-x".

Reboot seems to fix the problem.

Working with 2 miniMacs. Same folder structure shows no problem if showed from miniMac that wasn't used to create the folders.

I am witnessing similar odd behavior: Finder is changing the case of the letters in a filename!
Specific example: A folder that was named in all uppercase letters "WORKING STORIES" appears that way when you scroll down a list of sibling folders. However, as soon as you click on that folder, its name changes to "Working Stories". When you deselect it (select a different folder), its name returns to "WORKING STORIES". In other words, it is capitalized only while selected!
The problem folders are on a Mac Mini acting as a server, but that shouldn't have anything to do with it.
I've reinstalled Tiger, repaired permissions, repaired disk, etc. No joy. Does anyone have an idea what might be going on?

On a MacBook pro OS 10.4.9, with a USB Flash drive partitioned in 2 partitions (just to analyze the facts), one named "Mac" formatted with Apple HFS journalized, the second named "PC" formatted MS DOS (FAT16):


I observed and confirm all the points above by Bastiann Harmsen on the "PC" partition, but no problem on the "Mac" partition.

Reboot seems to fix the problem.

OK , even unmounting and remounting the drive seems to fix it.

More observations:
1) the name is changing only on new folders created after the last mounting.

2) the behaviour is not the same if the presentation is with icons or with lists. In the latter case, clicking after the list restores the original names, while not in the former.

3) it seems to be a problem with the graphical interface and some kind of cache update: it is always the latest name given to a folder which is given to the earlier created folder when you click on its name.

4) the problem is not fixed by an upgrade to OS 10.4.10

PS: before making myself the tests , I did'nt believe what my friend, owning this MacBook Pro, described.

Any other comments are welcome!

Antoine

Cube Mac OS X (10.3.9) Early Mac user (Mac SE), also PC since DOS 2

Hi,

Getting the same issue here - we're mounting home directories over NFS using the apple-user-homeDirectory attribute from an LDAP server.

Multiple folders are created, when they start renaming all of the folders appear to change to the same name, looking on the file server shows the names to still be the original (distinct) names.

Seems like a bug, are Apple aware of it?

Message was edited by: putty_thing

I have the same problem with external (firewire) attached drives (500 GB each) formatted as FAT32.

Create a sub folder named xyz
Create a second folder in the same folder that xyz is in named abc and now both show up in Finder as abc!

Inspection via terminal shows them as xyz and abc but no amount of fiddling in Finder seems show xyz anymore.

Very flaky. How does one engage apple on this?

I had this problem as well. I created some new folder on an external hard drive, newly formatted as FAT32. When I clicked on "Documents", it would change the name of the folder to "Music"! I thought I was going insane. A remount did seem to fix it, but I checked the disk both with Disk Utility and on a XP system. This seems to be an issue with FAT32-formatted drives, as I never had a problem w/ the external drive when it was HFS+ formatted...

I having a similar issue with 2 of our Intel Mac's (I haven't heard of anyone with a PPC complain yet). My clients are working on a SMB share running on an external firewire drive that is formatted as HFS +. When they make a folder, a duplicate gets created. If they delete the folder, both of them disappear. A reboot clears it up temporarily, then the issue returns.

I took a look at the share from a PC and I do not see any duplicates. Is there any way to resolve this issue?

Thanks,

Steve Poulin
White Flower Farm

We are experiencing this issue on both ppc and intel machines and it appears to be isolated to the Finder as the terminal reports properly. The commonality is network shares, it does not seem to matter if they are nfs automounted from solaris, smb mounted from a linux box, etc etc, nor does it matter if an admin user manually mounts these shares, the issue persists. I, like a previous poster on this subject was skeptical given the symptoms but kept an open mind and then witnessed this anomaly for myself. We can now re-create it at will. I have narrowed it down to the 10.4.9 update and it continues through 10.4.10, in my testing, the issue does not exist in 10.4.8. The Finder version changes from 10.4.6 in OSX version 10.4.8 to Finder version 10.4.7 in OSX version 10.4.9, the Finder versions do not coincide with OS versions. Swapping in the older Finder did not solve the issue so there are other culprits involved. It may not even be the Finder at issue, the issue may reside in the way OSX mounts shares and simply manifests in the Finder. Odd behavior to say the least, one good thing is that while the data appears to have gone away, it's actually safe and sound and a reboot/logout-login resolves the issue. Deleting .DS_Store, force re-launching the Finder does not seem to help nor does deleting caches, preferences, etc, the only solution I have found is to revert to 10.4.8.

While many have said they've had this problem w/ Samba/NFS/etc. shares, some of us have this problem with USB hard drives. The commonality is not network sharing but the drive being formatted FAT32/VFAT.

I have the same problem: see my post:

I've got a Sandisk micro cruzer 2GB flash drive which had the U3 software on it. I hated U3, so i ran the uninstall program. Now I can copy files and folders from my computer (mac os x 10.4.10) to the flash disk, but if i try to create new folders on it, there are big problems. Let's say I create 2 or 3 new folders. Each of those folders is indexed to the final folder I created. If you open any of them up, you're actually only opening the final folder. When you double click the name changes quickly to the final one, and then it opens the final one.

I have Parallels installed, and I checked using Windows, and the file system works fine there, and I can actually see the older folders and delete them, which I can see on Mac OS X but I can't delete them cos it just tries to delete the final folder each time.

I've tried reformatting the disk using a HP utility, using Disk Utility on Mac OS X, using Windows, reinstalling U3, uninstalling it again... Nothing works. Any suggestions? I don't want to buy a new flash drive! I've tried using FAT32 and FAT16 file systems.

Did not read all postings, so then it may be that the issue occurs on external storage not formatted in a Mac format. Does reformatting the USB drive to Mac OS Extended solve the issue? Has anyone experienced this on the internal hard drive? I cannot reproduce on my USB SanDisk formatted as Mac OS Extended. And again, the issue does not occur for me in 10.4.8.

Formatted my USB SanDisk with OS X Disk Utility using the UNIX file system format and I can recreate the issue. When using the Mac OS format it does not occur. I also mounted an AFP share from an OS X server and did not experience the issue. So, I guess that means that whatever the cause is, Macintosh flavored file systems are not affected.