Finder automatically changing folder names...

You said you used the OS X disk utility, did you format it as MacOS Extended? In my tests, Mac formats were not affected but formatting as UNIX the symptoms appeared. One more question, does this happen to you for newly created folders only or do older already existing folders change names as well? In my tests, when only one folder was created at any particular level in the hierarchy there was no issue and after logging out and then back in, or unmounting and remounting the disk the issue ceased to exist.

I also have the same problem.

I installed a brand new G5 with OS X 10.4.10, no problems there. But when we wanted to use it in a Windows network using SMB to connect to a W2k server, the problems began.
New folders started to change names, exactly as you describe. And if I try to copy newly created folder 2 into newly created folder 1, I get a dialog with the following error message:

+Sorry, the operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occurred (Error code -122).+

Can anyone confirm that?

After reconnecting everything is as you would expect it. When I take a look with the terminal program all looks well too.

BTW the windows volume is formatted NTFS, so it's not only a FAT32 problem.

I'm also having a similar problem with a USB 2.0 250GB Seagate FreeAgent drive formatted in FAT32. There are no issues when using the Terminal or Windows, and Disk Utility reports that the partition has no issues. Furthermore, a friend with a FAT 32 partitioned external drive also has some similar issues.

I am also having this problem with two Intel Macs running 10.4.10 (Brand new Macs too, which probably couldn't be reverted to 10.4.8 even if I wanted to do so!) The issue doesn't manifest itself on my iBook G4 1.42 GHz model, but the 24" iMac Core 2 Duo (white) and 20" iMac Core 2 Duo (Aluminum) both have it. All systems are running 10.4.10. The problem exists on USB flash drives and Samba shares. Basically anything that isn't formatted HFS+.

The only cure seems to be to unmount the affected volume and remount it, then everything is fine until you start making new folders at the root of the volume. Only newly created folders are affected, and only until the volume is unmounted again. This is a very weird, very stupid bug that should have been fixed months ago. Has anyone here had the time to file an official bug report on this? I'd like to do it but it will take some time to follow all their bug submission rules and gather all the screenshots and supporting files so that someone at Apple might actually pay attention to this very bad bug.

I can't believe this has been around since at least February without being fixed. That's almost a year at this point. This bug makes using non-HFS+ external drives and Samba shares a real pain. Users who don't understand that it's just a cosmetic error in the Finder are freaking out and thinking their folders are actually being renamed and/or their data is disappearing. Anyone know if there may be a fix for this in the 10.4.11 update? If they leave this bug in Tiger permanently I for one am going to be extremely unhappy with them. There are millions of Macs out there that will never be able to run Leopard, so the final version of Tiger needs to be 100% functional. Bugs like this make a Mac practically useless for some users.

We are also fighting the randomly changing file/folder names with 10.4.10 clients connected to a linux server running samba 3. I tried switching to WebDav (using apache and mod_dav) on the server but the problem was still there. With both WebDav and Samba, the correct changes show up if you look in terminal. Oddly enough, using "Refresh Finder" (http://www.soderhavet.com/refresh/) does not correct the file list. The only quick fix is to switch from one view type to another (like icon to list). Unfortunately our users aren't very tolerant of quirky behavior so we decided to switch to afp for the mac clients. Running afpd from the netatalk package (http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/) works perfectly and there is no file name weirdness. Obviously this doesn't help those who are using non-mac formatted usb drives but hopefully Apple will fix someday?

I just applied 10.4.11 to a new Aluminum iMac that had previously been demonstrating this issue and it appears to have been cured if the Finder folder name bug. I tested with a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive and saw no problems after creating several folders starting at the root of the drive. Thanks, Apple, for finally fixing this issue.

I had this issue a few days ago too when trying to rename files on a samba share. A restart seemed to fix it.

MacBook Pro 15.4" - Intel Core Duo 2.0 Mac OS X (10.4.6) 1GB RAM

So, update 10.4.11 was finally released after months of preparation. Can anyone here try it out and verify whether it addresses this very unacceptable Finder bug? Anyone? Please?

Looks like 10.4.11 fixed it for me on smb and webdav.

Can anyone else confirm this yet? Is it fixed?

I can confirm that it has been solved for me too. On a Windows NTFS share as well as on USB sticks.

It made my day!