Copy Interruptus - what is a ".DS_Store file"?

Hi, I'm running an old MacBook Pro (3+ years old), and I'm going to try install an SSD drive to speed this tired, but most wonderful critter up. I've already backed up the HD (500 GB), but the SSD (240GB) is smaller so I'm trying to move files off.
I thought I might strip out everything that wasn't applications and the operating system and later put back what I really need but I keep getting these messages about ".DS_Store" files, as I copy different folders and the copying keeps comes to a crashing halt.
Is there something I can do or do I need to grab an expert?
And I apologize but I'm pretty much a luddite at the technical details & computer code, so can someone explain ssssslllllloooooowwwwwyyyyy. LOL
Thanks,
Joel

These are generated, at least in my experience, by Macs
talking to
non-Macs. Whenever I copy files from my Mac to a shared
network drive
(on a PC machine), every folder I open from the Mac gets this
.DS STORE
file added. No biggie and shouldn't cause any problems.
There's no
Captivate association/requirement - delete/ignore as needed.
Erik
Leah Gold wrote:
> Does anyone know what a DS Store File is, and whether
that file is involved in
> the full motion sequence?
Erik Lord
http://www.capemedia.net
Adobe Community Expert - eLearning
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/
http://www.awaretips.net -
Authorware Tips!

Similar Messages

Home Directory Synchronisation and "DS_Store" files

I have five clients on Tiger connected to a Tiger server. All clients are 10.4.8.
Initially I turned Home Synchronising on, but since turned it off, realising I don't really need it. One of the clients, with the biggest profile, still keeps synchronising files. They often get the following message in relation to "DS_Store" files:
You do not have permission to synchronize this file. You can check
your permissions in the Info window in the Finder
Name: .DS_Store
Size: 6.15 KB
Modified: 09/02/2007 10:09 AM
Location: Documents/Work - laptop/office/folders/.DS_Store
My questions:
1. As I haven't apparently turned off Home Sync'ing (via the Workgroup application), what else can I check?
2. What does a DS_Store file do?
3. Will it kill something if I delete all the DS_Store files I can find, so they no longer synchronise?
4. Alternatively, how can I enable DS_Store files to be replicated?
Thanks,
Sam

A .DS_Store file is an invisible what controls what you see in every folder/directory. The most imoportant one is the one which controls the Desktop folder in your home directory. The Desktop folder is always open—it's what you see on your desktop when the Finder is running. If you delete the file, for any folder, including the Desktop, it'll be recreated as soon as you reopen the folder or relaunch the Finder, in the case of the Desktop .DS_Store file.
I can't answer your query WRT tp synchronization or servers. You might post the problem to the Servers forum.

How to make Finder use a copied .DS_Store file?

Hi,
since the Finder still does not allow applying view options to multiple folders I tried, yet again, to do this manually:
Create folder A and populate with stuff
Create folder B and populate with stuff
Verify that both folders use the system default folder view options
Verify that no Finder window shows the contents of A or B
Change the view options on folder A
Copy the .DS_Store file from folder A to folder B including the extended attributes
Kill the Finder
Open a Finder window in folder B and still it shows the system default view options
Folder A is still fine
Steps 6 and 7 were performed and verified in the shell (Terminal) with cp, xattr and kill etc.
Which process do I need to kill in order for the Finder window of folder B to reflect the copied view options?
Or is the inital approach of copying a .DS_Store file already wrong, where else are these options stored?
Thanks

Hi Guang!
We faced the same problem with webdynpro. The result of our research was to switch to JSP Dynpage Components to have full control of layout and design. There is no known way to include your own css, since the webdynpro controls use the portal display scheme css classes. You probably can overwrite them with own css, using a combination of css and javascript, but it's a process that will cost you plenty.
Using Dynpages instead of webdynpro may not be an option in your case, though, depending on what other features of webdynpro you are using.
Regards,
Jürgen

What are .ds_store files and can they be removed?

What are .ds_store files and can they be removed?

Probably the easiest way is to use Onyx.
If you show invisibles you can see ds_store in each folder.
Open Terminal.app (it's in /Applications/Utilities) and copy & paste this command at the prompt...
sudo chflags nohidden
Press return.
The reverse is
sudo chflags hidden

HT1750 DS_Store file

What's a DS_Store? How can I delete that?
I been trying to delete a ds_store file but I dont know how.

The .DS_Store (a.k.a. Desktop Services Store) is a hidden file that OS X creates to store folder attributes like folder icons, background images, and more. By default, Finder will automatically create this hidden file in any folder it accesses. The most common reason that you'd actually see this file in the Finder is that at some point, you've enabled the viewing of hidden folders in the Finder. Do undo this, open Terminal (found in Applications, Utilities) and copy and paste this text that is in bold:
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles NO
Then it return on the keyboard. Now type in: Killall Finder
then hit the return key. Now the .DS_Store should be gone.
Hope this helps!

Finder data not being written to .DS_Store file

The symptom of the problem I am experiencing is that the position of icons on my desktop (as well as icons in other folders in my home directory, as well as Finder window settings for folder in my home directory) are lost every time I log out. On a subsequent login, all of the icons "reflow" starting from the top right corner of the screen, just below the boot volume icon. I have been able to determine that this has to do with the .DS_Store file(s) in the Desktop folder and other folders of my home directory. If a .DS_Store file exists, the timestamp does not change when I change the icon layout and logout. If I delete the .DS_Store file, it is not re-created.
In my case, my home directory (and the child Desktop folder) is being mounted off an SMB share on a Windows 2003 server. My Mac is using AD authentication to the same Windows 2003 server, which is the domain controller. I'm logging in with my AD credentials, and my home directory mapping is picked up from the home directory field in AD.
Now, Googling this problem, I found a lot of people complaining about wanting to suppress the use/creation of the .DS_Store files on Windows network volumes. This led to an Apple KB article (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629) on how to modify a default to prevent the creation of .DS_Store files on network volumes--essentially the very behavior I am experiencing. The upshot of the KB article is to us the following command in terminal:
*defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true*
I did a 'defaults read' to confirm this default isn't set on my install of Mac OS X 10.5.6--and it isn't. I then tried using the following variation in the hope I could force the behavior I wanted:
*defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores false*
Predictably, this had to effect.
The upshot is, NONE of the Finder data for files and folders in my home directory (icon positions, Finder view window defaults, etc.) is preserved between logons. And this is driving me nuts! I've spent several hours over the past two evening trying to troubleshoot this, and I've had no luck.
As a footnote, I'll mention that if I drag a folder from my home directory onto the local hard disk, the .DS_Store file is created/updated and things behave as expected (icon position and Finder window defaults are preserved). But, if I then drag the folder back over to my home directory, the values in the .DS_Store file become "frozen" and don't change.

Hey, try this:
1.
Put a file in a folder on your Desktop.
Edit: not your Desktop, but rather a typical local home on an HFS+ volume ~/Desktop
2.
Use "Get Info" to add a "Comment".
The comment can be up to somewhere between 700 and 800 characters.
3.
Copy the folder to a FAT formatted flash drive, SMB share, etc.
4.
Create a new folder on the flash drive.
5.
Move the file from the first folder to the second folder.
Confirm that the "Finder" shows the comment to be there.
6.
Quit the "Finder" - in 10.4 and earlier, this action would ensure that all .DS_Store files get updated, including transfer of comments. I.e. don't "relaunch" or "kill", etc. Enable and user the "Quit" menu, or use:<pre>
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit</pre>
7.
Now where's the comment?
In step 2, you could also have just created a file on the non-HFS volume and wasted your time typing in a 700 character comment.
In step 6, a more real-world scenario is ejecting the drive or logging out, but deliberately quitting the "Finder" is the most conservative way to ensure that changes get written to .DS_Store files and comments survive. In 10.5.6, even under these conditions, comments are lost.
Icon positions and view preferences are one thing, but with comments - that's real user-inputted data that Apple is playing fast and loose with. And if they no longer support comments on non-HFS volumes, the "Finder" shouldn't be showing you the comments when you double-check them in step 5, or allow them to be added in the alternate version of step 2.
..."C'mon Apple... what gives here?"...
Unfortunately, this "Discussions" site is not frequented by Apple devs. Have you considered filing a bug report? I wonder what they would tell you, eg. if the treatment of .DS_Store files actually does turn out to be a bug or is intentional as it suspiciously seems...
http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/index.html

What are the weird files that start with ._ that pc users get when I send zips?

When I send files that I zip using Stuiffit to pc users they get the files plus an equal number of files that start with ._ Does anybody know what these are and how to get rid of them?
Thanks!
Karen

Dot files are invisible files that OS X uses to display positions of files and folders icon for instance when you open a folder.
That is indeed what a .DS_Store file does, but that's not the ones Bogies is referring to.
There are various other items that start with a period, such as .Trashes. Every drive gets a trash folder, just as Windows does to each of its drives. While it hides its own trash folders from view, Windows doesn't recognize OS X's version of the trash folder, so you see it.
But you're likely talking about these. Every file you copy from OS X to a DOS/Windows formatted drive gets a ._ file. The Mac OS has a twin file system; the data fork, and the resource fork. Windows has only a data fork.
In order for OS X to maintain the resource fork data on a Windows drive, it has to write the resource data as a separate data fork file. So a file named foo.tif will also get a ._foo.tif file on the drive. Mac users don't see them since UNIX automatically hides anything that starts with a period. When you copy the file back to OS X, the data and resource fork info is combined again into a normal Mac file.
Most of the time, removing these are no big deal. They hold simple data like Type and Creator codes, modification dates, icons, etc. Others, like Mac Type 1 PostScript or Mac legacy TrueType fonts have all of the font data in the resource fork. Delete the ._ files for those types of fonts, and you're left with nothing.

Logic corrupts DS_Store file?

I have some really strange behavior on my machine:
I upgraded today from 10.4.1 to 10.4.2 and everything went smooth. After the install and the permission repair, Logc 7.1 launched with no problem and everything seemed to be fine. A little bit later when I did some work in the FInder, I noticed that I couldn't opened some folders. I got the spinning beach ball and the system seemed to be locked up even if there was no significant CPU, disk or network activity. If I were lucky, I could open the Force Quit window and relaunch the Finder. After some testing I found out that the hidden ".DS_Store" file seemed to be corrupted. If I encountered any folder which I couldn't open, I deleted its DS_Store file inside the Terminal and the folder opened again.
After I deleted all those files from the problematic folders, everything seemed to be stable again. I continued to work with Logic and found out later that some folders had the same problem again. After a tedious process of trial and error, I found that all the folders which encountered the open-folder-spinning -ball issue were folders with Logic files:
~/Library/Application Support
~/Library/Preferences
~/Library/Caches
This is my conclusion so far: I Logic writes a file (most likely .plist files) to a folder and corrupts the DS_Store file, or the Finder doesn't update the DS_Store file with the new information from Logic.
Maybe something went wrong during the OSX 10.4.2 upgrade? I did the upgrade on a second G5 (same Dual 2.5GHz with similar configuration and Logic 7.1) a few weeks ago when it came out and I don't have any problem there.
Anyone with a clue what is happening here?
Thanks

AJD1170 wrote:
A .DS_Store file keeps appearing on my desktop. It returns seconds after I have moved it to the trash. I have deleted the .DS_Store files (hidden) from wherever I have found them, but like the desktop icon, they immediately reappear. I some time ago stumbled upon the solution, but it evades me now. How do I get rid of this nuisance permanently?
You want and need those .DS_Store files.
You need to hide hidden files in terminal, copy and paste:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE ;killall Finder
Finder will create a .DS_Store file in every folder that it accesses including your Desktop folder. You witness this everytime you try and delete it.

When saving a file in [.jpg] format, i am asked to choose a quality from 1 to 100. what changes in the file created based on the quality parameter chosen?

when saving a file in [.jpg] format, i am asked to choose a quality from 1 to 100. what changes in the file created based on the quality parameter chosen?. i would like to know what changes, so in the future i can set my camera to a setting that will give me the highest quality to begin with,allowing me to make crops and still preserve the quality.
thank you
dovid

It's the level of compression. Lower number, more aggressive compression, more visual artifacts.
Aside from that you should never use jpeg as a working format. The compression is destructive and cumulative, and the file deteriorates every time you resave it.
Use TIFF or PSD, and if you need jpeg save out a copy as a single final step.

What is a imoviemobile file?

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What does a blinking file folder with a question mark indicate?

What does a blinking file folder with a question mark indicate? I cannot get past it or do anything with the unit.

glamiera wrote:
What does a blinking file folder with a question mark indicate?
That's the firmware telling you it can't find the operating system it's been assigned to boot from.
It could be because it forgot somehow, or the operating system is no longer there or readable or the hardware holding the operating system has failed.
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Once in OS X, head to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your boot drive so it can remind the firmware.
If there is no OS X boot volume, just recovery or Bootcamp (if Windows installed) then you need to perform more work.
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
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Step by Step to fix your Mac
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What is the max file size that a Adapter Engine [J2SE] can handle ?

We are having a scenario where a 4 GB compressed file needs to be sent across without mapping, I'm trying to explore the possible options to tackle this scenario.
Some of the options, we are considering :
- Sending a file from one Adapter Engine [J2SE] to another Adapter Engine [J2SE] bypassing PI. Adapter Logs will be monitored. What is the maximum file size that can be then handled assuming a standard installation ?
- What is the max file size that Adapter Engine [J2SE] can send through PI without mapping?
Any help with the above options or with any other possible solutions to handle extremely large file transfers will be much appreciated.

Hi,
j2se is not a good option here
if you have 4gb then you need a copy solution
a) build an proxy that will just copy the file from sender dest to receiver
b) build an adapter that will do the same as proxy)
this way processing of this message will be controlled with SAP PI/XI
it will be as quick as copy & paste of the 4gb file
I did the a) for one of the flow for 300 mb and it works perfectly
Regards,
Michal Krawczyk

NTFS-3G - Help setting up, and getting rid of .DS_Store files

Hello All,
I'm new to the Mac world so please bare with me. I installed this last night using a video from CNET on youtube, but the final command line they gave didn't work. I eventually mounted the disk and it seemed to work, however there were strange files and folders on the disk when I went back into Vista.
So I reinstalled everything and now I'm ready to try it again.
Could someone please give me a step by step way (step 1. Install Mac Fuse) of setting up Ntfs-3g and any command lines or anything I would need to use. Call me lame, but I don't understand the instructions as I keep finding different ones everywhere I look.
Secondly, could someone explain why I keep getting .DS_Store files and similar ones like that when I navigate into Windows? I realize these must be Mac system/meta files, but they're clogging up everything. Is there a way to either have them not be written, or be hidden/cleaned by vista.
Thanks for your help!
Jeff

actually, what would work awesome as well is a single directory where I could just put the files in that I need or want to modify....that would be another cool option if anyone knows how.

HT1455 G-4 Showing .DS_Store file ?

I have a .DS_Store file appearing on my desktop. What is this file and why cant I have trash remove these files?

They're normally hidden part of OSX/HFS+
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10478
Invisibility Toggler - 1.1...
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/32246
InVisibles - 1.5...
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14722

.DS_Store files undo delete command in Terminal

I was copying large quantities of files to a poorly formatted LaCie 3T external drive and kept coming up with interruptions in copying because the Finder kept "seeing" the creation of .DS_Store files. I researched and found a command for Terminal which stopped the OS from creating .DS_Store files. I restarted my laptop and sure enough, no more .DS files are being created.
I was then able to complete the massive transfer, I reformatted the drive, and returned all of the files to the 3T drive. Now everything's working alright.
My question is... How do I return the creation of .DS_Store files back to normal?
Can anyone drop me a line that I can insert into the terminal command line and get it done?
Thanks in advance.

You know, I did that, and nothing happened. So I then decided to re-install M.L., and I'm now manufacturing .DS_Store files with abandon.
I've been reading that it's not a popular kind of file for folks, especially those who are working with variously formatted devices. There are some obscure advantages to having the files sit around the hard drive.
Thanks for your advice, however. It's good to know that I wasn't so far off.

Copy Interruptus - what is a ".DS_Store file"?

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