AFP Files Locked

[Nezil]

I'm relatively new to unRAID, very new actually, this being my second post. For the last few years I've been almost entirely a Mac user, and whilst I don't want to start a war here, I've been very happy since the switch!

 

With my new unRAID system (details here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=13575.0), I ran into a problem with AFP that I thought I'd bring up here.

 

As part of the migration from old storage to unRAID, I was copying a large amount of data onto the array. This was taking some time, not because of any issue, just due to the amount I was trying to copy over. I was using AFP for this by the way, though I could have used SMB. There is a distinct difference in behaviour between each of the protocols that I noticed, and AFP's approach caused a problem, that was kind of a pain to fix...

 

AFP

When copying multiple files and folders with AFP in finder, the destination disk will show the files and folders that you're moving / copying, but slightly greyed out until they've actually moved over. If you look at the destination disk from any other computer, those files and folders will also be greyed out, indicating that they're coming, but not there yet. Greyed out folders cannot be entered, presumably because it is felt that their contents will change.

 

SMB

When copying multiple files or folders with SMB in finder, the destination disk will show the files and folders that you're moving, initially at 0b size, almost as place holders. If you look at the destination disk form any other computer, you can browse and look at the files, just they will be no size.

 

The Issue

Once during a copy process, I changed a setting in the unRAID web UI. This caused the drives to unmount temporarily, which stopped the file transfer, as you would expect. Because I was using AFP to do the transfer, when the array came back online, the folders that I was copying were still all greyed out. I couldn't browse through them, and I couldn't delete them. They were sort of locked.

 

I was able to fix this, by logging in as root at the command line, renaming the locked folders, creating a new folder with the original name in Finder using AFP, then back at the command line, moving the contents from the renamed folder into the new folder. I could then delete the now empty folder at the command line.

 

I'm not sure if there is a fix for this, but it's certainly a frustrating behaviour.

[dgaschk]

Restarting the Mac and maybe the server will also fix this.

[defected07]

I've experienced this before--when transferring over AFP, and my network crashed, I was left with a grayed-out folder.

 

Not sure how I solved it, honestly--but I don't recall it being difficult. Either restarting both devices, or doing what you did is your best bet. I haven't come across an easy fix for this--but, just don't make changes to your shares, or really to any unRAID configuration, while you're transferring files. Most of the time, the share daemons are restarted which will cause your shares to unmount.

[Nezil]

I have discovered another fix for this since it happened the first time.

 

If the files or folders are stuck as grey in afp, they will appear normally in SMB. Any manipulation or deleting of them through an SMB share will allow you to easily fix the issue and they'll be back to normal in the AFP share.

 

Having said this... I didn't post the issue because I was looking for a temporary solution, rather to alert Tom to the issue.