AppleDouble confusion

[MikeG]

I'm a little confused....

I'm using an AFP-capable server (ReadyNAS NVX) and want to sync a folder on the server with one on my mac -- only one direction at a time though -- I use two bookmarks for this (it's got about 4G of stuff in it).  I thought that if I use MacBinary encoding and FTP (not SFTP), resource forks are handled as part of the file (i.e., "AppleDouble" folders don't get created).  No matter what I try, I can't get rid of the .AppleDouble folders, and mismatches in the time stamps (off by 1 hour) cause unnecessary re-syncs -- If I do a sync-to-mac, then an immediate sync-to-server, I've got a boatload (hundreds) of files that needs to be sync'd -- all .AppleDoubles.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

[JD]

You have several problems here:

1. Yummy FTP does not support AppleDouble
2. Your server does not support MacBinary
3. There is a 1 hour time offset between your Mac and your server

Since Yummy does not support AppleDouble it will treat all such files/folders as normal files/folders and sync them as such.

Since your server does not support MacBinary it won't de-code the MacBinary on receipt from Yummy, nor will it encode into MacBinary when sending.

So you're essentially trying to make the two 'talk' to each other in different languages. Which won't work, obviously.

Do your files actually have resource fork data that you need to keep? Resource fork and Finder meta data are very little used these days in Mac OS X. Bear in mind that MacBinary is an old format and is limited to files up to 2GB in size and limited to 63 characters in the file name.  If not then a plain FTP file transfer will sort out this mess

The time difference is an easy one. In the sync setup window there is an 'auto-detect time offset' checkbox that you need to enable.

Also, I'm not sure why you need two Bookmarks? You could use one and choose Mirror to do a two-way sync.

[MikeG]

There was a post in the forums about a year ago that said MacBinary was the only format that supported Finder metadata.  And I use it quite extensively (labels, in particular).

My server's time and my mac's time get their clock data from NTP servers.  Although they could be a second or two off, it's definitely not 1 hour.  I'm also using auto-detect offset for the server time.

I've tried using plain FTP with auto-detect encoding (in fact, that's where I started with this).  I tried other settings (like MacBinary) to make a few attempts at other combinations before posting.

I use two bookmarks because sometimes there are files on one box that don't exist on the other, and I don't want them copied because they will be deleted shortly (but I can't delete them at the time I do the sync).

I eliminated the situation where a sync-to-server found files that were out of date immediately after a sync-to-mac by deleting the folder on the mac and re-sync'ing from scratch (this is 4G+ so I don't want to do this very often).  But the result still created AppleDouble folders.

In all my experiments with different encodings, etc. I always see an AppleDouble folder being examined in the progress window.  And although there is no existing .AppleDouble folder on the server, when I sync-to-mac, one gets created on the Mac, and a .AppleDouble folder shows in the server pane in Yummy's UI -- even though it's not there. So it seems that Yummy believes there is (or should be) a .AppleDouble folder on the server.

What I'd really like to do is to get successful copies of the folder hierarchy, preserving metadata and resource forks, without any AppleDouble stuff.  Is there a combination of settings that could do it for me?  The appearance of .AppleDouble in Yummy's window when there isn't any such folder on the server concerns me.  I'm using version 1.8.8.

A thought -- I wonder if TimeMachine is modifying the file's metadata and this is triggering the need for a re-sync.  I use TimeMachine on the Mac (but obviously not on the NAS server).  If this is happening, maybe it's goofing things up for Yummy.

Thanks.

[JD]

I'm sorry, but your requirement is simply never going to work. Honestly, there are so many issues to go over here that I'd write War & Peace all over again.

First and foremost, your requirement to sync back to the Mac will never work, because your server is not a Mac and does not decode the MacBinary file sent to it by Yummy.

MacBinary is indeed the only format (that Yummy supports) that supports Finder meta data such as labels.

I believe AppleDouble also supports the meta data, but the two are totally different formats and not interchangeable.

Yummy won't create .AppleDouble folders out of thin air. Since they are hidden folders (in Unix files/folders with names that start with a full point) you probably won't see them on the Mac or Server side unless you specifically configure Yummy to do so. See the 'Show invisible items' checkboxes (for Mac & Server) in the Interface Preferences.

The AppleDouble format in fact comprises of separate files for the data fork and resource fork using hidden folders (such as .AppleDouble) and this is how the server is storing your files. When connected to it via AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) the server transparently merges the files together on the fly. AFP is not FTP, so when you're connected via FTP then you will just see the raw files including hidden .AppleDouble folders, etc.

So, you'll never get rid of the AppleDouble folders on your NAS server because it isn't a Mac. That's the way the server is working to support Mac files.

I'm not sure what you're really trying to achieve with this, but if you want to backup or two-way sync with Mac resource fork and meta data intact you need to use another Mac and Mac-specific backup software.

[MikeG]

Thanks for taking the extra time to describe things so fully. 

I think that what you've helped me understand is that I'm trying to do something with Yummy that isn't supported. Perhaps it has something to do with transfers using the FTP protocol, since transfers when the NAS is mounted as an AFP device get the effect I'm looking for using Finder, PathFinder, SyncTwoFolders, or "cp" command from a shell. 

I'll just keep a variety of tools around, and use the one that seems best suited for the task at hand.

Thanks.