BoxCryptor for Mac: Finder needs "refresh" for displaying accurate filenames/directories

FredGR

Version:
1.1.b3 (21 december 2012)

Summary:
Finder needs "refresh" for displaying accurate filenames/directories

Able to reproduce:
Always

Steps to Reproduce: 
Mac A and Mac B share the same BoxCryptor folder over Dropbox or Google Drive.
When creating a directory or file with Finder on Mac A, the result is not shown on Finder on Mac B unless BoxCryptor is reloaded

Expected Results:
When a file or directory is created/modified on Mac A, the result should show nearly instantly in Finder on Mac B. And it does *NOT*

Actual Results:
Finder on Mac B does not list the modification. BoxCryptor needs to be reloaded or Finder needs to be relaunched. Then the modification shows.

Temporary Solution :
Using "Refresh Finder" application on http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24714/refresh-finder
This helps, but unfortunately you need to manually press that button from time to time.
This should happen automatically. BoxCryptor should for instance refresh Finder after any file is modified in BoxCryptor.bc

FredGR

Dede

Same issue on two Macs but only if Finder B is already opened. If Finder B is closed at the moment of the file changes on A and I open it afterwards (which seems normal for me), the new or changed file got displayed automatically and nearly instantly.

Bug or "feature" of the ENCFS file system?

FredGR

When two different people are on Finder A and Finder B, this can become problematic as they do not see the same thing !

Also, one would expect that what Finder displays is correct at any time, as the correspondig encrypted file on DropBox is, for which update is nearly instantly, even if both Finders are open.

I don't think is it a feature, it is a bug.

FredGR

Running this apple script manually solves the problem, so I would recommend BoxCryptor staff to run some kind of similar process each time BoxCryptor.bc has been accessed.

tell application "Finder"
	repeat with i from 1 to count of Finder windows
		tell window i
			try
				update every item with necessity
			end try
		end tell
	end repeat
end tell

Adrian

Hi,

i am not able to reproduce this issue on OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2). Everything works fine here, usually it's just a matter of a few seconds to get the changes made on another machine.

FredGR,
while Finder should display the correct and most up to date state of the files, this doesn't mean everything will be instant, especially with network storage/cloud providers, as it usually takes some time to get the updates from the servers/other machines.

Would be interesting to know what version of OS X and OSX FUSE are you runing guys?! Maybe you could also provide us with a screencast of the issue.

Thank you,
best regards,
Adrian.

FredGR

Hello Adrian

And thanks for following up.

I agree about the modification which cannot be instant.

But in an open Finder, modification does not show unless I restart Finder to use that manual script.

Try this example (which is not affected by Cloud sync not being instant) :

If you open the BoxCryptor.bc directory in Finder, and you also open a Finder on the decrypted directory at the same time, and you put those two Finder windows next to each other so that you can see instantly what is going on in both of them.

Now try to delete one file in the Boxcryptor.bc directory. The other decrypted Finder window will *NOT* remove the deleted file, unless you restart Finder.

That proves that BoxCryptor does not keep a permanent continuous sync of Finder folders.

I am using OSX 10.8.2 and OSXFUSE 2.5.4

Adrian

Hello FredGR,

let me explain a bit how BCFS work. First, there is only one copy of your documents. All of them are located in the .bc folder. There is really nothing to synchronise. Everything that goes to the .bc folder, is going through the BoxCryptor mounted volume. The volume is virtual, it contains no actual files, it just displays the files from the .bc folder, decrypting and encrypting them as requested, etc. This means BoxCryptor will always display the correct state of file in the mounted volumes.

Second, you really aren't intended to modify files directly in the .bc folder. This is not considered normal mode of operation. While there is a visible delay (see my attached video) in what Finder displays in the volume window and what is really on the filesystem when you delete a file in the .bc folder, this delay is caused most probably by an optimisation in Finder itself, or maybe in the OSX FUSE, but i tend to think this is Finder. This optimisation is preventing Finder from updating the file view while its window is not active. As you can see from my video, when i do an ls -la in the mounted volume, it actually displays the correct state of the files. And when i click on the Finder window, it does an update and shows the correct state.

I will of course do more research on this, and see if there is something we need to do about it, but i tend to think everything is working as expected.

http://cl.ly/351v2L0M0o3A

I hope this clarifies things a little.

Best regards,
Adrian.

FredGR

Thanks Adrian for your explanations.

I agree that playing with files in the .bc folder is not considered as normal operation, but I only did that for bypassing your argument that Cloud synchronizing was not *immediate* as you said.

I again used the Cloud sync on 2 Macs, and unless I do reload the destination Finder folder or use my little script, modification does *not* show dynamically.

I agree with you that it comes from Finder or OSXFUSE, most probably. However, it is very important that this issue be resolved, as the dynamic modification on all the machines is a key feature that works perfectly under Windows but obviously not under OS X.

The user Dede has had the same problem, and from my side, I am able to reproduce it *every time* on any of my 4 macs that I sync with DropBox and BoxCryptor. Even 15 minutes after the modification, it does not replicate dynamically on the other machine's Finder, unless I close and reopen Finder, or use my script....

I can see in the .bc directory that the modification appears immediately, but not on the visible directory.

Robert

Hi Fred,

We will have a deeper look at that issue and will do our best to make Finder work correctly when changes are made directly in the BoxCryptor Folder.

--Robert

FredGR

Hi Robert,

Your latest release still does not address this problem.

Can you confirm that investigation is still pending from your side ?

Have a gr8 weekend

FredGR

Hello

Any news on this issue ? It seems that it has not been addressed in the last release... 3 months now...

Adrian

Hi FredGR,

we are working on a fix for this issue, but it requires more time and lots of testing from our side, before we can release it.
Sorry, but we have no ETA for this fix yet. Maybe i could contact you when we have a beta, so you can give it a try?!

Best regards,
Adrian.

FredGR

Please Adrian, feel free to contact me.

I have the feeling that you are seriously struggling for finding a solution to this problem. It might also be related to OSXFUSE.

FredGR

Still no answer to this issue...

Robert

Hi FredGR,

I'm sorry that we don't have a fix for this issue yet because we have not been able to have a deeper look at it again. We're only having limited development resources which we're currently using for tasks with a higher priority on Mac OS X.

Best regards,
Robert