After the upgrade to Leopard, I found my Mac was slow to respond to commands, the Finder was constantly crashing, and I couldn’t restart or shutdown my computer anymore. I ended up doing clean installation of Leopard thinking something went wrong during the update process. No dice. My computer was great for about an hour after getting all caught up on my updates. Then the problems started to occur. I posted this question on the Apple Support forums in hopes someone else had a similar issue. I really didn’t want to send my computer into Apple. After getting a good reply about the possibility of my RAM failing, I purchased memtest and ran it thinking that it had to be a bad RAM module. I was sure it would come back with a bad test for one or both of the modules. Nope. Then I thought one of my WD Firewire hard drives were failing. Or maybe my Firewire controller was bad. So I unplugged everything from my computer, force-restarted my computer, went into single-user mode and deleted all of my cache files from /Library and ~/Library and booted up. Still wouldn’t restart or shutdown and my Finder was as unstable as ever.
It began to occur to me that my MacBook Pro at work was experiencing similar issues. But they weren’t as extreme as the problems I was having on my iMac. I couldn’t restart or shutdown about 50% of the time but I could occasionally restart or shutdown so there weren’t any alarms going off in my head. When I started to think about what these 2 machines had in common, the only thing I could think of was Leopard. In every other way, they were different. I felt like I was running out of options.
I’m not an Apple Certified Technician or anything and I just never think to look at the Console. But for some reason I did (probably because I was really trying to get out of sending my iMac in for repairs). And I noticed this line:
FileSyncAgent[147] LOCK /.FileSync (FAILED)
I didn’t even bother with a Google search for .FileSync. I immediately knew who the culprit was after reading that line. I jumped to my System Preferences, clicked .Mac and stopped my iDisk Syncing. As soon as it was stopped, I went to the Apple Menu and selected Restart. Bingo. That was it. My computer was back to being a bad-ass.
What really irritates me about this whole story is that I didn’t check the console sooner. No, that’s just a shame since I wasted so much time. No, what really irritates me is that this is Apple’s own product. Their product which has some really great uses but is also a big, fat lemon. The .Mac suite has to be one of Apple’s biggest failures over the course of the last few years. The idea behind it is solid but the implementation just sucks. If it weren’t for the amazingly simple way to get photo gallery pages up online for my family, I wouldn’t have any use for .Mac.
I don’t know, after this whole episode I’m pretty soured on .Mac anyway. Maybe it’s time to just give up on it since I don’t think they’re ever really going to fix it.
#1 by Florian on March 29th, 2008
I fully agree with this article. The problem with iDisk and filescnc is discussed in all kind of forums for four month an non of the updateds fixes this bug. After this period of time I lost my temper. .Mac is a waste of money, I will quit it when the year is over.
#2 by chum on December 27th, 2008
Gee, I sure wish I’d found this site, two hard drives and a logic board a year ago. Don’t even ask me about all the various flavors of installs I performed!
I’ve experienced the identical issues posted above and have gone from newbie to somewhat experienced trouble-shooter since buying my iMac October 2007.
The constant hanging of applications, mostly the finder, and the need to power down to re-start, and often unable to restart at all, sent my iMac in a new hard drive twice and another logic board.
During all the tech support calls, I was never asked to read or send a copy of the console log. In my learning curve, I came to this gem (posted above) late and discovered .FileSync throughout the log.
I’m just now experimenting with syncing iDisk manually rather than automatically in the hopes I can still use the iDisk. Or maybe not.
Any other suggestions or contrarian opinions welcome.
Thanks for taking the time to read this posting.
chum
#3 by Chris on December 27th, 2008
@Chum
I am sorry to report that I still have these same issues with iDisk. Not only does it hang if I try to use Automatic updating but it’s also very slow and unreliable. I don’t know if it’s the WebDAV protocol or Apple’s implementation but it’s something I no longer trust.
Fortunately there’s a service called Dropbox (https://www.getdropbox.com/) that lives up to the dream Apple envisioned with the iDisk. It’s amazing how fast an item is updated on my laptop when I make a change on my desktop and vice versa. This service fills the void perfectly and I highly recommend giving it a try.
#4 by chum on December 27th, 2008
Thanks Chris!
I’m looking at DropBox right now and poking aroubnd at what it can do.
BTW, since switching my iDisk from automatic to manual sync 36 hours ago, I’ve had no problems. Yet.
CHUM
#5 by Mark Heaton on December 28th, 2008
C’mon guys…it’s not that hard. Yes, there’s a problem with iDisk syncing in Leopard. So TURN OFF SYNCING. I still find iDisk a valuable tool, regardless of the Leopard/Finder/syncing issues. The Finder app issues in Leopard will be resolved at some point; until then, work around it.
I wouldn’t be without my iDisk. I love it.
#6 by Chris on December 29th, 2008
It’s not that iDisk is “hard” it’s that it stinks. If I upload a 24MB Photoshop file, it takes forever. And often I get an error that the iDisk couldn’t be synced for whatever reason. I’ve found DropBox to be much more reliable.
#7 by Mark Heaton on December 29th, 2008
Use Cyberduck or Transmit for that big PS file. Really, the Finder application just isn’t a WEBdav client–at all–and it needs to be to properly address the iDisk.
I still maintain that for the average user, you cannot beat Apple’s iDisk interface for syncing all the various devices and browser apps that most of us use these days, including the things you can do on Apple TV.
Yes, the current issues are frustrating; but I think Apple will get it worked out. (I hope)
#8 by Mylar on January 6th, 2009
Just started using the AutoSync feature at work so I know when customers give me new files. It seems like the perfect answer, instead of having to constantly check throughout the day. So far, no issues, but I don’t see what the difference is between Manual and Auto. How often does it check in Auto setting? I don’t see the circle arrows moving after an hour or so.