Disappearing folder

Major Xsan troubles here, started last Friday. The Xsan has a dozen or so folders at the top level. When viewed from the Finder, one of those folders has no icon and reports a date sometime in 1904. When I try to select this folder (click on it), it disappears!
From the command line, a simple "ls" lists the directory, but a "ls -l" does not. Trying to "cd" into this directory gives a "No such file or directory" and trying to copy anything to or from this directory gives back an Input/output error.
Unmounted, stopped volume, restarted, cycled power, cvfsck -w, but nothing seems to bring back the directory. I'm running out of ideas...

Same here. In my case, not just one or two lost folders or files either. Probably more like 10-20 scattered throughout the filesystem recently. Some other individuals had similar problems a couple of months back (in the forum). After looking through the logs, I noted several inode lookup errors possibly around the timeframe that the folders and files disappeared. Obviously a corrupt filesystem. Anyone else note the inode errors?
Only notes that I've seen from Apple are suggestions to run the chkdsk utility on a regular basis with no guarentee that any corruption will actually be repaired. And, run a full backup regularly.
A note to Apple, the XSAN in our case is for short-term backup. When we are talking about 5+ TBytes of data, that's a lot of tape. Disappearing files with no ability to actually tell what has disappeared, when a corruption occurs, or how it occurred make me uneasy. I'm not particularly impressed. With such problems, having a RAID is of no use. We need an improved solution. Please?

Similar Messages

'Invisible' or 'disappearing' folder (Very weird)

Hi everyone, here's something for you to get your teeth stuck into!
I finally persuaded my partner to switch from PC to Mac and she's got a shiny new (refurbished) Macbook 2.2Ghz, 2GB RAM running 10.5.3. It's the first Leopard machine I've had to play with, I'm still on Tiger (as noted in my profile).
So obviously I have to fix the machine and generally trouble shoot.
The problem is this: a folder containing nearly all of her work (lots of nested folders and documents) keeps 'disappearing' or becoming 'invisible'. What I mean by this is that it won't show up in Finder and can't be seen by other applications. For example, if I want to attach a document from this folder to an email and use the attachment dialogue, the folder never appears so I can't navigate to my chosen document.
Also, I suspect the same problem may be behind MS Word freezing a lot recently - yes, on saves, but also not on saves (probably on auto saves in the background).
I've recreated the folder once with the same name but using caps rather than lower case and the problem persists. I change the Finder view and it makes no difference (ie column to list etc). Problem persists.
Right now I have two Finder windows open - one shows the folder, the other doesn't. Nothing I do to either window seems to make any difference.
Yes, I've repaired permissions and there's no connection with dotmac sync or iDisk or anything like that. The machine's about a week old with nothing fancy on it at all.
Help!
Thanks,
Jason

If you use the Finder's Go menu, and select "Go to Folder..." and type in the path to the mystery folder, does a Finder window open showing the contents of the folder? Thus, I have folder called "MyDisks" inside my Documents folder. Typing in this path in "Go to Folder..." opens it:
/Users/francine/Documents/MyDisks
Hit the Go button, and folder opens. If this works on your problem folder, try creating a new folder with a completely different name on the Desktop (presuming the problem folder is NOT on the Desktop), such as MyStuff, then drag the contents of the problem folder into the new folder.
One piece of advice: do NOT add a Spotlight comment to the new folder's GetInfo comments field. See if the new folder continues to behave correctly from the Desktop. If it does, rename it to the desired name and drag it to where the original folder is and see if the Finder asks if you want to replace the older item with this one. Say yes. See if everything continues to behave correctly. Oh, you do have a backup of the things in that folder, don't you?
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

The Mystery of th e Disappearing Folder/Files!

Folks
Either gremlins or viruses [virii?] have suddenly begun to cause whole files/folders to disappear into a black hole! First of all a whole folder of photos I had scanned from slides that were located on my external Lacie just plain vanished into the ether! My Mac has been behaving a bit erratically lately, but now about 75% of my fonts (all except the system ones, I believe) have done too.
A search using the name of one of the missing fonts brings up nothing!
After the photos disappeared I did a complete re-install of Tiger and upgraded to 10.4.8
I have done a Hardware Test and all shows to be okay! Also ran Disk Warrior, but still no joy.
Now running ClamXav v.1.0.4 to see if a virus (WHAT? This is a Mac!) has invaded.
Does anyone have a clue about what may be happening.
Help would be VERY much appreciated.
Regards
Roy

I am having a similar problem with my G4 laptop running 10.4.8. All of the files that I had on my desktop have disappeared. If I try to copy a new file to the desktop, it is visable during the copy but immediately disappears after the copy is complete. If I try to copy the file again, I get the dialog box asking me if I want to replace the item already there.
I thought at first it just might be a visibility problem. I opened up the terminal and cd'd to y Desktop folder. Nothing there. I am quite perplexed. Anybody with any ideas?

In my RH8 project, I have a disappearing folder and one, un-removeable, permanent folder ???

I am using RH8 with both updates installed on a Win XP system. As you might know from my other postings, ignorance (my own and mine alone) has caused several problems for me. I did not know that the folders in the RH Project Manager were pseudo-folders.
Okay, here's what I did first and I think I understand what RH did in response. I wanted to create separate folders for each major sub-division in the Help project and segregate the images for those topics, also. I tried creating a "subdiv_1_topics" folder with a "subdiv_1_images" folder as a subfolder.
I could not get RH to generate WebHelp with any files in these sub-topic and sub-sub-image folders.
I tried to return to the "status quo" by deleting the folders I had created. However, I have never been able to delete one of the image folders. It is nested in the RH Images folder but my images folder (lower case i) is now the MAIN images folder.
I learned about this, the very hardest way. I discovered that I could move image files, one-at-a-time, from my images folder up to the RH Images folder. I thought I was putting the images back where they belonged but I was wrong.
On my local drive, RH was moving each image out of the Images folder and was putting it into the root with all the topic htm files and RH files. I did not notice this and I went completely through the WebHelp generation process and our process of moving the generated files from the WebHelp folder to our SVN repository. Then, I left for the evening.
Next morning, first thing, my boss and I were both apoplectic when we discover that all of the images are gone from the Help topics. A quick check of Windows Explorer and the RH folder/file explorer showed what had happened. I spend the next 3 hours moving all the images, one-at-a-time, from the topics area back to my images folder under the RH Images folder.
I have left them alone since ... NOW, the NEW EVENT: I wanted to create a folder just for a few topics that had been prepared in advance for future application enhancements. I was going to ask this forum if there was a way to block RH8 from touching that folder when I generated WebHelp ... I noticed a dfferent problem. The folder that I created is gone from RH but in the right place in Windows Explorer. I am baffled. In summary, in a perfect world, I would have the RH HTML Files (Topics) folder with just the HTM files and all the attending RH files. Then, as either a sub-folder to the topics folder, or as an equal folder, I would like a place to put these several files for future use, with the folder protected from WebHelp generation until I say so. This is just for convenience. Then, I would like to have the RH Images folder with all the project images but no sub-folder where the images lie right now.
Feel free to contact me off this forum. Sorry, if I am too breezy here.

Sorry Ernie that wasnt the problem, i highlight the folder and REBUILD is greyed out
I highlight INBOX and select REBUILD it does something to INBOX and APPLE HOT NEWS folders, but does nothing to any of the other folders.
yeah, that is the only folder with a problem.
getting a little frustrated now, i created another "mailbox" inside that Mailbox/folder and of course the little triangle displays the new folder when turned one way and hides it when turned the other way.
it seems as if i accidentally at an earlier time i created a new folder inside this folder and deleted it, possibly with the emails still it, and it hasnt updated the number of unread emails LOL.
i reckon i will just delete the darned thing all together and get on with life without any emails from "jeanie jeanie", i havent heard from her for ages anyways.
tim

File disappeared, folder with metadata remains!!?

Hey guys, I have my entire years worth of income reports in one file. I opened it yesterday and it was fine. I tried to open it today and it was gone.
All that is left is a folder that says "Income 2014.numbers" with data and metadata folders inside along with tiny thumbnails of what the spreadsheet looked like.
I typically back up my computer once a month but I haven't backed up in months.
Anyone have any idea what happened to my file??

Just spent a long time on the phone with Apple and got it figured out.
Duplicate your "blank.numbers" folder to be safe.
Open Numbers, create a new file, save it, and close it.
Find that new file in Finder, control click or right click and then hit "show package contents".
You should see the same type of folders, metadata, data, index.zip etc...
Delete all of those, and copy/paste the same folders from your old document into that file.
Reopen your new file in numbers and viola, it should be back to normal!!

Disappearing Folder Icons

I dont know if anyone else has had this problem, but Ive looked all over to find a solution and have had no success. I'm not quite sure when it started but one day I booted up my Macbook Pro and all of the folder icons were gone. The names of the folders were still there and were still clickable and active, but the icon of the folder is gone. Any solutions?

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Have you tried repairing the disk? You do this by booting from your install disc and navigating to Disk Utility on the install disc. Then you select your boot disk by brand name and go to the First Aid tab and select Repair Disk on the lower right. Repair the disk until there is nothing left to repair. If you get any error message that the disk cannot be repaired by Disk Utility, you may still be able to repair it with a more powerful utility like Disk Warrior.
Also, check to see that the S.M.A.R.T. status is verified.
Good luck!

Disappearing folder permissions from Server

I have a Mavericks Mac that is binded to Active Directory. I am able to mount a server and the access shared folders. Once I close the Finder window and then re-open, the permission to the folder gets denied. I receive an error "The folder foldername can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents."
I can re-mount the server and the folder will be accessable again. And this is the only server that is having this issue. I am able to re-connect to other servers just fine without lossing permissions. She is still able to browse to the folder from her Windows machine and her account doesn't get locked out.
Any ideas?

Assuming that the XServe RAID is attached to said XServe, there is no problem. The fact that it's a server isn't relevant.

Most of my bookmarks disappeared and restore does not bring them back. How do I get my bookmarks back and how do I keep this from happening again?

The folder that I added to the bookmarks menu has disappeared (along with the subfolders in it). The bookmarks I have that were not organized in a folder (just listed on the bookmarks menu) are still on the bookmarks menu. Tags from the lost bookmarks are still there, but they are empty.
The "recently bookmarked" option just lists the bookmarks I had added to the bookmark menu (but not put in folders) and the default bookmarks from Mozilla and Windows Live. There were many things in the lost bookmarks that were more recent than these.
I tried restoring from an automatic backup and that didn't work. My browser history seems accurate though.
I only have one firefox profile.

I don't think it is the corrupt localstore.rdf file since none of the problems listed in that article are happening. The disappeared folder and bookmarks do not appear in the sidebar or in the menu.
I can still add bookmarks and the back/forward navigation still works. I do not want to do anything that will delete my history.
I downloaded the places.sqlite extension suggested and tried "Rebuild Indices." That did not bring my missing bookmarks back.
I had it do the "Deep Check" preset and this is what it told me
> Integrity check
+ The database is sane
> Coherence check
+ The database is coherent
> Orphans expiration
+ Database cleaned up
> Vacuum
Initial database size is 40960 KiB
+ The database has been vacuumed
Final database size is 40960 KiB
> Statistics
Database size is 40960 KiB
user_version is 12
page_size is 4096
cache_size is 43181
journal_mode is wal
synchronous is 1
History can store a maximum of 58957 unique pages
Table moz_bookmarks has 104 records
Table moz_bookmarks_roots has 5 records
Table moz_keywords has 0 records
Table sqlite_sequence has 0 records
Table moz_favicons has 2015 records
Table moz_annos has 113 records
Table moz_anno_attributes has 13 records
Table moz_items_annos has 34 records
Table moz_places has 53400 records
Table moz_historyvisits has 85428 records
Table moz_inputhistory has 448 records
Table sqlite_stat1 has 15 records
Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_bookmarks_roots_1
Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_keywords_1
Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_favicons_1
Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_anno_attributes_1
Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_inputhistory_1
Index moz_bookmarks_itemindex
Index moz_bookmarks_parentindex
Index moz_bookmarks_itemlastmodifiedindex
Index moz_places_faviconindex
Index moz_places_hostindex
Index moz_places_visitcount
Index moz_places_frecencyindex
Index moz_places_lastvisitdateindex
Index moz_historyvisits_placedateindex
Index moz_historyvisits_fromindex
Index moz_historyvisits_dateindex
Index moz_annos_placeattributeindex
Index moz_items_annos_itemattributeindex
Index moz_places_url_uniqueindex
Index moz_bookmarks_guid_uniqueindex
Index moz_places_guid_uniqueindex
Trigger moz_bookmarks_beforedelete_v1_trigger

Drive disappears in Windows Explorer Window

Hi there,
I have enabled my iPod Nano to be used as an external storage disk, as per page 35 of the iPod-Nano-Features-Guide.
I connected my Nano to my PC and in the Explorer window it appeared as drive H (very good) and then it disappeared! (so sad).
Does anyone know how to make it stay in Windows Explorer so I can drag files onto it?
Also, I was told by Apple support on the phone, that when Nano is connected to PC you can load stuff onto it, but the controls on the Nano won't wrok. Now when it is connected to PC and disappears from Explorer all controls work (I can listen to music, watch my pictures et cetera) is that ok?

Did you ever figure out how to solve the 'disappearing' folder in windows explorer? I have a nano-2G and the same thing you described happens to me...It shows up for a second, and then it disappears...and I can't save anything on it. You help would be appreciated.

In place display of folders:available?

Hello,
Is the inplace display of folders and their contents available in 3.0.8 ? currently,
I use a html portlet to show the fixed tabset. But, in 3.0.7, if you go to a folder, then you lose the tabs. Any workarounds or
do I have to go to 3.0.8 ?
Thanks

Thank you Jerry ! That was a feature that we were really looking fwd. to. Could you please take a look at my post about the disappearing folder region edit links ? I take the following steps to consistently get the same result:
1. Create content area
2. From Navigator (or Explorer), click on edit Folder properties.
3. click on the page tab (so now you see the pageforXXX)
4. Edit the page so that now you have a horizontal region with a HTML portlet (or some other portlet) and the bottom region has the nav bar and folder.
5. Now go the CA and click edit folder style,style link->folder layout. The links to edit the different folder regions is not there.
Any clues.

Help! Think I've just lost important documents ;(

Hi all, brand new to the Apple system and just getting my head round everything. However I've just had a 'panic' moment and not sure how I have done it but tried everything to restore it but no luck!
In short, I have had something sitting on my shortcut menu across the bottom of the screen for a month now which I use regularly-in this case just to the right of that broken line that splits your installed programs from your Trash, Applications and Documents Folder. Well, somehow my finger managed to slip whilst opening the folder and instead of clicking it open I picked the folder up and dragged it onto the desktop and let go all in the space of half a second! Problem is it made that 'crunched paper' sound and disappeared in a 'cloud' and now I cannot find it anywhere. Its not in my trash and to make matters worse, and through pure stupidity, I then picked up the light blue 'Applications' folder and dragged it onto the desktop to see where it sends it and the exact same thing happened so now I only have left the 'Documents' folder and my Trash to the right of the broken line. I have re-started the system but it hasn't resolved it.
Can you help me please? Please don't tell me I've just deleted them permanently ...
Message was edited by: Maffstar

Open a Finder window (the face), and select your hard drive in the left sidebar. You should see the Applications folder in the window. Now just grab that folder and drag it back to the right side of your Dock (the "shortcut menu across the bottom of the screen"). You'll see that the Dock expands to make room, so just let go. Now your Applications folder is back where it belongs.
What's in the Dock are simply aliases that point to the real thing--just like this new Applications folder you put there is an alias pointing to the real Applications folder on your hard drive. So that means that the original of your now-disappeared folder is still on your computer somewhere; you just need to find it and drag its icon back to the Dock so that alias is restored. If it was documents, it's probably a subfolder in your Documents folder itself. Otherwise, use your Spotlight (the magnifying glass in the upper right) to locate folder in question, and drag it back to your Dock.

Downloads disappear from folder

I have downloaded some music and when it has completed the task, the download file disappears. Hasn't done this before, files always remain in download folder.

Launch Finder.
Finder > File > Find
When the Finder window opens up, enter the name of the music file in the search box at the top right corner.
It will show up in the Finder under “Name”.
Right click on it and select “Reveal in Finder” from contextual menu.
The resulting Finder window will show the location.

I have multiple libraries on an external drive. Somehow all the iTunes library files i.e. iTunes Library.itl, xml, itdb, Media folder, etc disappeared! Only the music files remain. Now when I start iTunes w/option it can't find any of the old libraries!

Help! I 'm using an old G4 powerbook, Mac OSX 10.5.8, iTunes ver 10. I have multiple iTunes libraries on an external drive. Everything was fine for a while, then all of the iTunes library files, i.e. iTunes Library.itl, xml, itdb, artwork folder, Media folder, etc mysteriously disappeared! Only the music files remain (thank god) So now when I start iTunes w/option key to choose a library, I can't choose any of them because iTunes won't recognize them. Because all the library stuff is missing. So can I re-create the library files? (I don't care if I lose my ratings)
Or should I create a new empty library on the external drive, then manually move all the music files to the Media folder in the new library?
I tried some stupid ideas like creating a new library just to start iTunes, then going into prefs and advanced, then under iTunes Media folder location, selecting the location of the old library on the external, to see if iTunes would then find all the music which is still there, but no workee.
I'm out of ideas, and I searched the archives.
Help! anyone?
Scott

I don't know if this is me adding files to iTunes when the external wasn't connected
it is.
is it OK to just keep deleting that library on the Air?
i wouldn't - at least not until i
mount the external
point iTunes media folder location back to the external via preferences > advanced
consolidate my library via file > library > organize library
The ntfs hasn't seem to be causing any problems, but I've always wanted to know.
in order for your Mac to write to NTFS drives, it needs some help by installing e.g. the NTFS 3G driver. apparently that or something similar is installed on your Mac already. preferably, it would be formatted for Mac but then windows machines would need to have e.g. MacDrive installed to recognize the drive.

I just got my Ipad2 and have my email accounts set up. When I go to the folder icon at the top of the page and click on Sent Items they disappear to somewhere. How do you look at your sent items?

I just got my Ipad2 and have my email accounts set up. I have sent messages but when I go to the folder icon at the top right of the page and tap on SENT emails it makes the inbox email on the screen disappear. How do you check your sent emails? Thanks for your help.

You can send over WiFi, but it sounds as if you need to setup your Gmail account, or did you do this already?

Dragged folder to slideshow - folder disappeared

Hi,
yesterday i tried to drag a folder with 7 albums and drop it on an empty slideshow, because i thought i can add the pictures this way. But unfortunately i did not work and the folder disappeared from view. I got no error or anything, but i cannot find it anywhere now.
I thought i might have dropped it on the trash, but i tried it with another folder and that leeds to a confirmation dialog.
I wonder if anybody else has experienced such a strange error. It's pretty ugly, because the folder with the albums was a selection of 255 picture out of 5000 for a little slideshow for the christmas event of my choir and now it seems i have to go through it again
When i'm back home, i'm going to try a library rebuild, seems that can sometimes solve strange issues, hope it helps here as well. Any other ideas, anyone?
Best Regards,
Holger
Powerbook 17" Mac OS X (10.4.8) iPhoto 6.02

hro1234:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. My first thought was the Trash bin scenario but evidently that wasn't it. Never hear of that before.
As a precaution against losing an album for any reason in the future again just assign the √ keyword to those photos in the album. Then it's easy to get them back in a single group.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application, iPhoto dB file backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Disappearing folder

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