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Data Loss Bug In OS X 10.5 Leopard
An anonymous reader writes "Leopard's Finder has a glaring bug in its directory-moving code, leading to horrendous data loss if a destination volume disappears while a move operation is in progress. This author first came across it when Samba crashed while he was moving a directory from his desktop over to a Samba mount on his FreeBSD server."
Just wanted to also confirm that the bug was in Tiger. I was backing up music files to do a clean format for Leopard and lost everything when the hard drive got disconnected by mistake.
Another thought springs to mind... is this even that critical? Doesn't leopard have the time machine in it? Can't you just go back and get your files out of the time machine if they were that important?
I haven't "upgraded" yet so I don't actually know much about this Time Machine thing and how it works.
I drink to make other people interesting!
Unbelieveable. Forgot to check the result of the copy operation eh? So basically this is a catastropic defect for people who deal with very large media files to and from remote stores or people who deal with virtual machine images.
Back in the day when I used to use my mac I dropped a directory (A) into another directory (B) but there was an existing directory (C) with the same name as (A). The finder asked me something, I clicked OK. I was dismayed to find that the dialog had asked me "Would you like to replace directory C, with A?" - Why on earth would that ever be the default option for a directory move? From the users perspective you aren't really moving the directory, the intention is to move the files, thus the sane response would be to merge A with C not replace it.
Whatever.
I've had that also (on Jaguar, IIRC) when an external drive lost power. Lost both the data and the old backup, simultaneously.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Apple beta tests software through the AppleSeed program. You have to pay to be able to participate in the program (What? Don't most companies pay the people that test their software?).
There aren't nearly as many AppleSeeders than there were free Vista beta testers for instance. This is why Vista has no data loss bugs. The sick bugs are more likely to get caught when there are more testers.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
That's left over from the original spatial Finder design in Mac Classic. Apple hasn't really decided whether they want to get rid of the spatial interface, so instead they've made this horrible frankenstein half-spatial, half-browser interface which pretty much everybody hates.
Doing a "replace" for that operation makes sense in a spatial system because all spatial icons are treated the same way. You'd wouldn't expect dragging a Word file named "happy.doc" into a folder already containing a "happy.doc" to perform a merge operation; so why would you expect that with a folder in the same situation?
That said, if you've never used Mac Classic, you'd think OS X has nothing but a browser interface, in which case all metaphors and ideals are out the damned window, and the OS might as well do a merge operation. Since you most likely came from Windows, or a Linux environment ripped-off from Linux, you'd expect dragging identically-named folders together to do a merge operation because that's what you're used to.
Apple needs to make up its mind what Finder is. It gets worse and worse every version.
Comment of the year
Why is every destructive computer bug that happens tagged with "haha"?
Data Loss Bug In OS X 10.5 Leopard
bug, macosx, apple, haha
Symantec Updates Cause Chaos in China
haha, security, bug, windows, feature
Banner Ad on Myspace Serves Adware to 1 Million
haha, myspace, pwnd, security, adware
Ubuntu May Be Killing Your Laptop's Hard Drive
linux, haha, storage, bug, spam
Islamists exploit buffer overflow, hack U.S. nuclear command; world doomed
eschaton, religion, waronterror, haha
OK, I made one of those up. But it doesn't even matter what OS or company is responsible for the problem - whoever makes the tags seems to take great delight in all computer snafus. How does the tagging system work anyway? It's always been mysterious to me.
Grr! Arg!
So your irreplaceable videos were made the previous year and you had no backup.
I suppose the PC makers should like you. You'll shoot up a PC and have to buy a new one every couple years. And each maker will get a piece of the action, since you'll blame the previous maker for routine data loss.
Or you could just do what everyone in the computer business has been telling you to do for at least 30 years and... make a backup.
I call bullshit on Windows and Linux, and I'm pretty sure you're wrong even for DOS.
Maybe move should be implemented as copy, completly then delete but its often not.
Why on earth wouldn't you? Doing it any other way is not only obviously dangerous, it's far harder to implement! What would you do, map the file on disk, unlink the file and then copy and wipe each raw disk block? I could see doing something crazy like this in specialized applications, where freeing storage at the source is priority one, but in the general case it's insane.
The Apple issue is clearly just a stupid exception handling bug.
Basically, it nukes the conflicting /alpha/baz and then performs the copy. Brain dead behavior if you ask me.
Vista works very differently, not only Folders are confirmed but every file in the folders are confirmed with options to replace/don't copy/create second copy...
So ya this sucked in older versions of Windows, but Vista does a great job of handling this, better than any other GUI file manager I have ever seen to date.
Maybe you should try Vista instead of OSX... But again if MS was doing their job and was touting features like this in Vista, people would find more reasons why Vista has a lot of things to offer. Instead MS's marketing is retarded and nice features like this are NEVER mentioned and none of even the tech press notices them or points them out to users.
And trust me when I say there are literally 1000s of features like this that make the difference between Vista and XP night and day for daily usage.
Honestly, it took me a little while to get used to it, but now that I expect it, it's fine. Usually, if I'm doing anything complicated with copying/moving lots of stuff recursively, I'm going to want to use a command line anyhow. In the command-line, "cp" and "mv" work in normal unix fashion.
I guess the reason I have a problem with this is that my own computer usually has 3 drive letters listed - the internal hard drive, an external hard drive, and my USB flash drive, which I plug in when I sign on, usually. The typical user drags and drops a folder called "photos" from their flash drive to their desktop, which - unfortunately - also contains a folder called "photos"... they click the wrong button thinking it will replace duplicate files WITHIN the folder, not the folder itself (a careful wording change that could easily be missed in a hurry) and bam - all of the photos that were on the desktop to begin with are gone! For a user who seems reasonably knowledgable about Apples to say that the easiest way to do a simple directory merge is to whip out a command prompt and do some Unix-style command prompt kung-fu proves just how flawed Apple's little Finder thing is. It's time for a total rework.
Enough of the fanboys being wowed by cute translucent graphics and crap... improve the functionality first, for goodness sake. Oh... and when I'm closing a maximized window in Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, or Vista, I can click in the top right corner of the screen (not actually on the "X" to close the window) - and it closes the window. On a Mac... if you can even figure out how to maximize, you gotta click right on. Don't click that piece of desktop showing in the middle of the CD icon on your screen on a Mac - you didn't click the icon PICTURE, so it won't click the icon. My mom with her arthritis has no problem with the PC - click in the vicinity of the icon and it knows what you're doing. How is even something as simple as scroll-bar manipulation, window manipulation, and icon manipulation STILL so flawed in Apple's OS? God-damnit, I want my file menu at the top of the window not at the top of the screen with that stupid little Apple icon. When I click "FILE" in an inactive window on a PC, it opens the menu without trouble. On a mac... click the window first to activate, wait for the menu at the top to change to that program's menu, then go click on file. Waste of time. Programming design flaws. Stop trying to hold onto the past... make something NEW and FUNCTIONAL for a change.
I used to recommend Macs because they were easy to use and relatively safe when manipulating files and data - so I told people I liked to get them. Now I recommend them to people I hate - I hope they lose their precious family photos because of a basic programming glitch... and blew $1800 on an overpriced piece of shit that some has-been in a turtleneck brainwashed them into thinking was the best thing in the world.
that's bizarre. I love OS X, but I have no use whatsoever for the finder. it's not like it's actually a good file manager or anything. seriously, if the finder just disappeared one day it would be a long time before I noticed.
Does the open source version support resource forks? That's the main reason for using Apple's. If I knew I could use the stock version, I would.
Clear, Dark Skies
Simple solution: Change the dialog that pops up and says, "[Cancel] [Replace]" to one that says"[Cancel] [Replace] [Merge]". Done.
We lots of databases deployed on crappy wintel servers in remote locations. Prior to deploying any server, we lose the write cache. The group that handled deployments before us did not, and sure enough:
Friends don't let friends have write cache turned on
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
Were this Windows, I'd assume you then recovered the lost files in a few minutes with an easy free tool. Do such tools not exist for Macs?
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
Speaking as one of those IT people, NTFS is probably one of the coolest pieces of software ever to come out of Redmond. ACLs, alternate data streams, directory junctions, single-instance stores, shadow copy, the list of useful features is huge. Even more surprisingly, it works pretty much as advertised. Frickin' cool.
There's another angle, though. On paper, Vista's NTFS-based backup technology walks all over Time Machine. However, the USABILITY of Vista's technology is crap. This morning, I enabled Time Machine by plugging in a USB drive and clicking "Use as Backup Disk" when prompted. To do restores, I launch the cleverly named "Time Machine" application. I've already used it twice today just because it's fun to watch the spacey animations.
Compare that to Vista's clunky "Backup and Restore Center", which you have to use if you want to backup your files on an alternate volume. I guarantee you that using "Backup and Restore Center" is beyond most average users. Sure, it might be "better", but what good is it if it never gets used?
This
That's just one of several ways to burn a disc in Mac OS X. You can also:
1. Click on the disc on the desktop and then go to the File menu and select "Burn Disc", or...
2. Double click on the disk, review its contents in a Finder window, and click the "Burn" button, or...
3. Right-click (or command click with a pesky one button mouse) on the disc and select "eject disc". If you have copied any files to the blank disk, it will ask if you want to burn it. If you haven't, it will eject the disc. This is the same procedure as dragging the disc to the trash (which starts the eject disc process).
Personally, I think triggering the burn process by dragging to the trash is a good idea. If you start to compile a disc, and forget about it, you will be queried to burn that disc upon attempting to eject the blank disc. It's good that there are several different, convenient ways to burn a disc in Mac OS X. So yeah, I'm happy it uses the trash to burn discs. Aren't you?
First of all, files should never be deleted, they should only be hidden, unless the disk is full, of course.
Secondly, "move" across different devices should be copy and then delete.
Thirdly, if you copy a folder over another one with the same name, the computer should ask you what the purpose is: merge or replace? merge is often as catastrophic as replace if merging results in undesirable file combinations.
Forthly, files should be versioned by the O/S, as in VMS. It was a great feature, I don't know why it's missing from all modern O/Ses.