Mac OS X, User Folder and Case-sensitivity (plus a Partitioning Question)

Hello everybody.
Today, I'd like to start a new thread regarding the configuration of OS X and the formatting of the drive with a HFS+ (case-sensitive, journaled) file system.
There is a problem that has been tormenting me for quite some time now, and so far I haven't been able to find a losution yet.
Here is the issue. When I bought my MacBook Pro (early 2011), I changed the main dirve to an hybrid SSD destinating the original 750GB to a Time Machine backup disk. As a consequence I had to make a fresh install of OS X. When it came the time of formatting I've opted for:
Creating two partitions: 1 for the OS and 1 for the user folder (I have only one admin-user). Back then, I was coming from a Win enviroment and having two partitions seemed to be the best option for me. (Less chanche of user-data corruption in case something goes wrong in the OS partition).
Chose a HFS+ (case-sensitive, journaled) file system. It seemed to be the more complete alternative.
Everything was absolutely for a couple of months then I encountered the first issue: Adobe products don't work on a case-sensitive fs.
I managed to get Photoshop to work eventually (manually correcing folders name) and didn't care too much about the rest.
In the meantime over a year has passed and I kept the mentioned configuration, uptdating to Lion and ML. Recently another couple of isses have appeared: AutoCAD presents the same problem as Adobe and there is an issue in the keyboard balcklight control (from forums seems that ML is not able to store any information in System Preferences regarding the backlight).
Despite the fact that case-sensitive fs seems to be the future solution chosen by Apple, it is still premature to have it as OS fs unless you are an hard-core developer that don't care about tons of programs that would eventually miss from your application folder.
Being decided to move back to a case-insesntive fs, I need wish I could calrify a couple of doubts before proceding:
(Not relatete to fs) Is it a good practice to keep user folder on a separate volume? Does it generates any issue on the base of your experience?
Is it possible to have the OS on case-insensitive fs and the user folder on a case-sensitive one? Does the OS have an issue with that?
The second point is the most critical as my data are now on a case-sensitive volume. They mostly consists in documents, images and music which should be migrated on a case-insensitive volume seamlessy, however, I'm not 100% sure about what happened during the last year (i.e. if there has been the generation of not-unique names).
Furhtermore, I wish I could keep a case-sens volume as I plan to be dealing with a Linux enviroment soon. If that could be the user volume, this would be amazing.
I'd also like to ask personal opinion on advantages of having case-sens fs.
I understand I asked lots of questions in a single post. I hope, however, that this thread could be a base to collect some of the quite dispersive topics related to case-sensitivity present on the web.
Best Regards,
Alexander

alexanderxc wrote:
Linc, in the provious post you said there might be issues having user data on a separte partition.
Which kind of issues are you tihnking of? Have you ever encountered such problems?
The biggest risk is that poorly written software will assume your home directory is at /Users/you and will fail (or worse) if it doesn't like what it finds there.
I really appreciated if you could be more specific and don't worry about being too technical.
There are two ways you can go about it.
1) Set everything up normally as if you only had one partition. Create your user on that one parition. Then, copy all the real user data to the 2nd partition. Using your admin account, make sure that all the permission on the user folder on the 2nd partition are the same as on the original partition. The, use System Preferences > Users & Groups > your account > right/control click > Advanced > Home directory and change it to the home directory on the 2nd partition. Log in to that new account. Make sure everything works. Then delete the user directory at /Users.
2) A even more robust, old-school option is to create an /etc/fstab file and have your 2nd partition mounted at /Users. Then, everything will function normally and your user home directories will all be at /Users. /Users will, however, be on a different volume.

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Many thanks in advance!

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Showing the Library folder will not cause the problem you've described. Nevertheless:
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Question: Do Any Mac/Lightroom users use a case-sensitive filesystem?

I know most people use the default case-insensitive Mac filesystem. But plugins may have issues in a case-sensitive filesystem (if not explicitly programmed to handle case), which I just learned is an option for Mac users. Just wondering if any Lightroom users actually do it.
Thanks,
Rob

areohbee wrote:
I'm starting to think that having a case-sensitive filesystem on Mac would only be done by people with very special purposes in mind - e.g. developers who want to test unix command-line apps..., and would "always" be accompanied by case-insensitive volumes for normal Mac use - e.g. Lightroom-data/plugins/photos...
Ya think?
Almost certainly.
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Note that apps that treat filespecs as unique when they differ only in case are not necessarily "poorly coded" as this would depend on context and application. There are some very, very good reasons to do so. In fact, one could make an argument that apps that cannot handle a case-sensitive environment are the poorly coded examples. Blindly assuming the case of a filespec makes it unique, or rewriting an existing filespec to a "corrected" one, are very dangerous assumptions.
For most of us, the defaults are more natural, and I would hazard a guess that Lr gets little or no QA under such environments. I know of at least one corner-case (exposed here) that would probably break.

Portable Home Directories, FileSyncAgent, and Case-sensitive drives

I have a 10.5.3 Server machine that is serving (via NFS) home directories to a mixed group of Leopard (10.5.3) and Linux clients. The drive containing user home directories is formatted to be case-sensitive. I also use Portable Home Directories and mobile accounts on all the Leopard clients. Many of the client machines have case-insensitive drives.
FileSyncAgent is dying on the client machines with a lot of "Reverification failed" messasges in ~/Library/Logs/FileSyncAgent.log. The files being verified often have mixed case file names, while the error messages show lower case file names.
Anyone else seeing FileSyncAgent dying on every home sync?

Hi Guys, So far I have found what seems to be a fix for this issue. I was also having the issue happen to me around some iphoto file but that seems to be coincidental. I will detail what I did below but please first backup the mobile account on the local machine as you will need to recreate it.
Backup the local mobile home folder
Log into a admin account and delete the mobile account under the Accounts Pane in System Prefs
Log into the users Network account on the notebook
Delete all the following items
~/Library/Application Support/SyncServices
~/Library/Mirrors
~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.syncservices.*
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.filesync.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.homesync.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.syndication.plist
~/Library/Preferences/Syndication
Logout of the Network account and then back in
Recreate the Mobile Account
From this point on I have not seen any issues with the FileSyncAgent crashing. Omit any of the files listed above that do not exist. I generally have the notebooks sync on login and logout and I forced a sync while logged in to make sure everything was okay and so far so good. Hope this helps.

Renaming filenames and case-sensitivity: a race condition in the OS?

There appears to be a curious set of circumstances where the OS doesn't allow you to rename a file where the only changes are case-sensitive. For example, "foo.JPG" to "foo.jpg". You can see an example using the command-shell "tcsh". Start this shell (type "tcsh" at any command prompt), and then type:
% touch foo.JPG
% mv foo.JPG foo.jpg
overwrite foo.jpg? (y/n [n])
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#!/usr/bin/perl
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What I don't understand is why this error happens, when, and how to get around it. Obviously, other programs that rename files don't have this problem. The default shell, bash, doesn't have a problem either--even though tcsh (also a similar command-line shell) does. In fact, most programs don't have this problem. But as a programmer, I'm not sure what I should be doing. This exact same perl script (and correlating C programs) work perfectly well on all other unix platforms I've tried.
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

It's not at the os layer, it's at the filesystem
layer. The filesystem you have is not case sensitive.
well, the filesystem is part of the operating system, although it's clearly only one component of it. In fact, one of the primary defining characteristics of unix is how the filesystem works, albeit there are variations of implementation. But this is a nit=picking point.
As to the issue of whether the filesystem truly is case-insensitive, that isn't so clear. I can rename a file from foo.JPG to foo.jpg easily in the Finder (just click and edit a file to change it's name from upper to lower, or mixed), and the new name you give it DOES change. similarly, I can do this with virtually any other app that has a file-finder style dialog box. Why I can't do it with the shell (or at an API level) is the real mystery, and there is no doc on the subject that I'm aware of. Clearly, the OS is preserving the change somewhere, somehow. the question is, who's doing it? (and if it's not part of the filesystem, why?)
It could be that some other layer is sitting on top of the filesystem that is overseeing such actions, and is preserving the case of the filenames, but this is such a huge waste of time and work, all for a "feature" whose value is still as yet unclear to me.
If it is, as you say, that "my version" of the filesystem happens to be case-insensitive, I'd love to know where that came from, and what the rationale was behind it. And, of course, how to get some version of the filesystem that doesn't have this feature. I've been working with unix systems at every layer since 1983, and have never run into such a thing before.
dan

Users folder on CAS

I saw the posts from others regarding the Users folder on a CAS server. I understand that these folders are written when users log on through OWA and change their password; however I didn't see an answer to the question as to whether or not these folders
can be deleted. I would think that since the folders are empty, deleting them would be alright; but want to clarify first.
Thanks
Mary Cato

Hi Mary,
Yes, if users log on via OWA and change their password, the users' profiles will be created on the CAS server in this folder. It is not recommended to delete this folder.
Hope my clarification is helpful.
Best regards,
Amy
Amy Wang
TechNet Community Support

User folder and library disappeared?

Very strange... I have an Intel iMac 6 which did something in the "holy crap" category tonight. May have to call Cupertino tomorrow but thought I'd try here first.
I restarted my computer from the pull down menu after quitting a RAM hogging program (Transmission) because I was getting ready to do some work in iWeb and that can be pretty RAM intensive too. The computer wasn't acting up in any way.
When it started up, my desktop pic was gone, which I thought odd. Then I noticed all the files I had on my desktop were gone, too. I tried to go to system prefs, and it wouldn't open. Tried to open iPhoto and it acted like this was the first time I was using it, with set up menus popping up. Further exploration showed all software I installed wasn't showing up and all applications factory installed were giving my set up menus when I launched them.
However, "get info" on the hard drive shows less than 200G of the 500G available, so the files must be there SOMEWHERE. Disc utility shows "vol 1 needs repair," but it won't let me select "repair disk." I repaired permissions with no effect.
Under "users," my icon is just gone, as if no user was ever set up on the computer.
Why would it go back to factory settings on a restart?

OK,
Since my last post I have run Disk Utility by booting from the OSX disk first, which said vol needs repair. I clicked repair and the list of things it did was extensive, but supposedly, repair was successful. Well, the symptoms didn't change.
So, I ran Tech Tool again booting from the disk. Volume Structure continues to fail, so I clicked repair. Symptoms persist, except now my home folder is back, but all the subfolders are empty. There is a folder marked lost + found with subfolders labeled by number, but if I click on those, I get a "no application specified... etc" message.
Spent an hour on the phone with tech. Booted in safe mode. She had me try a few things and Clicking get info on highlighted hard drive still shows just under 200G of the 500G available, but highlighing my home folder and clicking get info shows only 24G in that folder. Weird. She thinks we are at the point of needing to do an erase and reinstall. I'd like to avoid that- have had to do it twice since purchasing the machine in March. She suggested I take it in. I swear, I have owned 7 macs and all the issues I ever had with any of them added together wouldn't equal the headaches I've had with this machine. I thought the last reinstall fixed the problem because I've been trouble free for a month, now this.
So, I followed Pe Bakk's instructions. Here were the results.
Welcome to Darwin!
wendy-donahues-computer:~ RedWrath$ cd/users
-bash:cd/users:No such file or directory
wendy-donahues-computer:~RedWrath$ is -IA
bash: is: command not found
BTW I am working on my iBook and only troubleshooting on the iMac as I don't want to inadvertently make the problem worse by setting up any of the applications all over again. Any application I try to open still gives me the setup screen.
Two more weird things. If I try to use the Finder's drop down menu to log out, it gives "Log out Wendy Donahue" as an option, but if I click on it, nothing happens. Also, if I try to go to System Preferences, nothing happens. If I go to applications to try clicking on the System Preferences icon, it doesn't appear like the light switch/panel thingy it usually is. There is a generic application icon titled System Preferences.
Very strange, I will call to make an appointment to take it in but I'm willing to try some more troubleshooting before it goes.
iMac with Superdrive Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Which MAC OS EXTENDED format? journaled, case-sensitive?

I'm going to be using my new Mac Pro for editing corporate videos and I want to use an external firewire800 LaCie 1tb drive from my windows computer on my Mac.
I've gone to the disc utility screen and not sure which format I should re-format it as. I've been told to use MAC OS EXTENDED but there is several flavours: journaled, case-sensitive, etc.
I need it to be as fast as possible but also reliable and able to handle large video files (e.g. 60gb HD files.

The Mac can read and write FAT32 and FAT16 volumes, and it can read NTFS volumes (cannot write to NTFS). FAT32 will only allow files up to 4 GB in size, so it's really not acceptable for video. The Mac generally reads it's own format, Mac OS Extended faster and more reliably.
If you need platform independence, you have a few options.
1 - Get Windows machines to read Mac OS Extended with special software.
2 - Get the Mac to write to NTFS with special software
Because of the way the Mac manages external hard drives, option #1 is ideal. But you should keep in mind, the Mac will run your FireWire 800 drive faster than the Windows machine not because of compatibility, but due to the fact that Windows doesn't support FireWire 800 and limits transmission with those devices to FireWire 400 speeds (or so I've been told).
The Mac Pro will partition using the GUID Partition Table scheme by default. This partition scheme is required to boot an Intel Mac, but not for simple reading and writing of data. I'm not sure what implications this might have on the ability of your Windows system to read the data, but it's worth checking. It's possible that the Windows software might not recognize GUID, but I'm not sure.
I think most people who edit video professionally on the Mac are choosing to alleviate this confusion by avoiding Windows altogether. That works very well.
Use Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Case-sensitive can sometimes cause problems and is best avoided.
Interesting to note, Adobe software won't run on a case-sensitive volume.

FileVault in Snow Leopard and case-sensitive filesystem?

Does FileVault in Snow Leopard support case-sensitive filesystems?
I know it doesn't in Leopard but was wondering if the situation had changed with Snow Leopard.

V.K. wrote:
I don't know the answer to that but why are you using a case sensitive file system?
it's generally a bad idea not only because of filevault but also because many apps will not work well with it and some like many Adobe apps won't run on it at all.
I find it amusing how Apple tout the virtues of their operating system being Unix-based when they allow MSDOS-style bastardisations like this.
I've been using OS X for five years in case sensitive mode because I write software for (proper) Unix systems for a living. I need to be able to connect to a Unix-hosted version control system and know that my Mac isn't going to throw a wobbler just because there are two different files which would have the same name under a case-insensitive file system.
It's a shame that I am therefore denied access to Filevault but, from what I hear, Filevault causes all sorts of problems with Time Machine backups anyway, so perhaps it's for the best.
I have to say, in five years I haven't encountered a single piece of software that has a problem with case-sensitivity although, admittedly, I've never voluntarily used any Adobe software (does Adobe Air count)?

HFS and case sensitive file systems

I recently received a pre-installed Macbook. The file system is HFS+ (Apple_HFS according to 'diskutil list').
This file system is not case sensitive but I would like it to be. Is there a way to deactivate the HFS wrapper responsible for that without formatting the disk and re-installing the OS from scratch ?

I got issues synchronizing my linux account with my macosx account
If it's home directory contents that's the issue, you might consider simply partitioning your drive and creating a separate home directory partition that is case sensitive, separate from the boot partition tht is not.
Assuming you're on an Intel-based machine, you can resize the existing partition to make room, then create a new case-sensitive partition and move your home directory there.
Now your account synchronization shouldn't have an issue and you didn't have to re-install the entire OS.

CS4 and Case Sensitive File Systems

Does anyone know if CS4 will support case sensitive file systems?

While I do wish all software companies including Apple completely
supported the case-sensitive file system. Many don't. I cannot pull up
an article, but I remember reading that Apple only recommended the use
of the case-sensitive file system for OS X server and if memory serves
even for that it only recommended it for the attached hard drives.
We can lament the lack of support but if you really want to change the
status quo for Adobe products then the only useful way to do so is:
...Mike

Where are Mac App Store user ratings and reviews?

What happened to all the user ratings and reviews in the Mac App Store? They're all missing. I checked a whole bunch of apps and nothing has any ratings or reviews from anyone. Has Apple gotten rid of user ratings and reviews? I sure hope not because I use those to help decide if I want to buy an app or not!

Yep. I think they've gone. But Google the app and another set of reviews (usually from the developers site) can be found.

WE19 (iDoc Test Tool) and case sensitive content

Hi experts,
I am not able to send case sensitive content via WE19. When I change a value of an existing iDoc (via WE19) all values of the segment are converted to uppercase (independent of the domain).
To reproduce:
1) Open transaction WE19
2) Use any existing iDoc as template
3) Open any segment
4) Fill any field with a lowercase text
5) Press ENTER
6) Re-open the segment and check changed field. -> The value is converted to upper case
This (translate to upper case) happens only on the segment that has been edited in WE19.
In my opinion, the transaction WE19 is not usable because it is not possible to edit/change case-sensitive values. In our customer setting we need to send case-sensitive data in iDocs to the receiver.
Question: Is there any other transaction to read an existing iDoc, change the data case sensitive and send it to the receiver.
Thanks in advance.
Björn

Hi,
yes - this is a "strange" behaviour ;o)
Only other solution I know you need an IDoc in status 51 for:
- go to bd87
- select the IDoc in status 51
- navigate to the needed data record
- double click it
- menu => display => change
- insert your data
After saving the status will be reset and you can process the IDoc in BD87.
I am not sure this will work for each IDoc and element - but you may give it a try.
For converting an existing to status 51 you can use this report: RC1_IDOC_SET_STATUS
Regards,
Kai

Mac OS X, User Folder and Case-sensitivity (plus a Partitioning Question)

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