Mobile accounts - sync - between 2 machines

I have an iMac in my office that is running MacOSX 10.4.10 Tiger.
My User account is set up as a "Mobile Account" and syncs to a Xserve running 10.4.10 Server
I have purchased a new iMac that is using Leopard 10.5.1.
I wish to use this Leopard iMac at home and using my mobile account sync to the Server so that both my Office (Tiger), and home (Leopard) systems have the same user account information.
Leopard is supposedly backward compatible with Tiger, but is there any known or expected problems that I will come across using this syncing set up.

We do use portable accounts. This is so that we don't tie up the network letting users work directly from their network accounts. We also need to have the ability of our users to work at different computers, but still get access to their own stuff. We have it set up so that when a user logs onto another computer for the first time, he is asked if he wishes to create a portable home directory. We have them answer "yes". I think at that time it then brings down from their network account all their files and settings so that the new computer will look like any other computer that they already have worked at. This appears to creat what is called a mobile account on the computer. We also have syncing set up to sync at login and logout. This, hopefully will sync up their network directory to any changes made at different computers and thus make those changes appear on any other computer that they work at. Sometimes the user gets a message that their network account has changed since last logon and ask if they wish to sync to their network account or their local account. We normally tell them to sync to their network account, assuming that it has the newest changes. None of our users ever work offline from our network so their network account should always be the most recent version of any files. This is assuming that the syncing is working properly. Does this make any sense? Does it sound like we are doing this properly or is there a better, more efficient procedure?

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Mobile Account Sync Logging?

Is there a log somewhere that I can check to see what files are synced during a Mobile Account sync session? Something like a sync log file?
I looked though the WGM'er and didn't find anything.
Thanks...

also, check ~/Library/Logs/FileSync/FileSyncAgent-Verbose.log and logs in ~/Library/Logs/FileSyncAgent/ on the client and/or server homedir.

Mobile Accounts - Sync of iCal and Desktop Background Fails

I just set up mobile accounts and mobile home syncing on my computers so network users have a local home rather than just their network home. However it is interesting to me that the desktop picture is independent of the network home. That is to say, each machine has its own desktop picture for any one account.
However iCal does the same thing and thats a problem for me. For example, if I set up iCal to sync with my gmail on on computer, the other computers will not do it. I'm trying to avoid going into every computer and setting up the calendar preferences because that would be a pain in the tail.
Any clues?

Ditto. I am having the same problem. I don't understand why ~/Library/Application Support/ doesn't sync. There are two entries in the exclusion list, but none of them would prevent Mail, iCal, AddressBook, or iChat from syncing their configuration (.plist) files.
The only reason I bought this Mini Server was to manage these portable home directories (or Mobile Accounts) so that my family could login on any Mac and have their account all setup with everything configured and files available as if they were on their primary Mac.
Really a bummer!

Mobile accounts sync problems

My mobile account user's keep getting Sync alerts. Strange long filenames, etc.
Is there anyone who knows where this comes from ?
Is it preferable to make clean mobile accounts without any of the former user's settings, on a freshly installed netinstall image ?
without any netinfo accounts on the machine (exept Admin account)
Thanks !

I had a similar issue and held off rolling out Snow Leopard clients.
10.6.2 fixed syncing however the users who under 10.5 could manage their sync preferences are now not able to open the 'Mobile Account Preferences'

Mobile Accounts: Sync new accounts first time only.

When a user logs into a computer for the first time it is set to create a mobile account, however we don't use home directory syncing because the typical size of our 200 users' home directories is over 100Gb which makes syncing home directories not viable.
It would be very handy, though, to have it sync the first time only at login so that our user directory template is automatically copied over which will save a lot of time setting up new users.
Accoring to Apple's User Management v10.5 documentation on page 203:
+"To initially sync local and network homes so that the network home folder replaces the local home folder, choose “Create home with default sync settings."+
(This refers to Workgroup Manger -> Preferences -> the Mobility pane -> Account Creation -> Creation tab)
After testing, though, it is quite clear that this does not work - at least on my setup. I can get it to work by going to the Rules tab in the Mobility pane and ticking the sync at login and logout, but this syncs every time on both login and logout, which is not what I want to achieve.
Any ideas?

I also mentioned, that some Safari-Extensions I installed on the iMac are missing now on my iMac-Profile. I also mentioned, that some settings for 1Password are reset to default values.

Mobile Account Sync inherently broken?

Hey guys I've got a setup with 2008 R2 servers running active directory domain services and distributed file system. I've got all of my macs bound to the directory for network authentication and local user login with mobile accounts being created on login. We've been having some really poor performance with the sync, it will simply stop syncing and provide no warning to the user. I've also noticed files becoming "hidden". Anyone else experience this or have a better way to set up?

also, check ~/Library/Logs/FileSync/FileSyncAgent-Verbose.log and logs in ~/Library/Logs/FileSyncAgent/ on the client and/or server homedir.

Changing home direcotry location breaks mobile account sync

Dear all, hope you could help me with the follow problem:
I recently transferred my users' home directories to a new NAS.
The old home location was e.g. afp://192.168.1.7/homes/user1 (old nas)
I moved them to afp://192.168.1.9/homes/user1 (new nas)
For all networked accounts things work fine.
I have a 1 mobile account user (i.e. user1). When logging in, or when performing home sync, the client keeps on searching for the old nas (i.e. 192.168.1.7), although in workgroup manager I removed all references to the old nas, and updates the home location to the new nas.
What's wrong? Is there a file locally on the client that stores information about the home location that is not updated? Can I change or delete that file???
Thx for any help,
Best regards,
Stefan.

you can change this on the client side by modifying the OriginalHomeDirectory and OriginalNFSHomeDirectory attributes in the user's account config.
check the current config with dscl . -read /users/username on the client side.
alternatively, you could create a new mobile account with /System/Library/CoreServices/ManagedClient.app/Contents/Resources/createmobilea ccount (run without options for usage details).

Mobile Account Sync still occurring outside network

Hello;
From everything I have read I was under the impression that once I left my network, my mobile account would not sync but was of course still usable as it is a mobile account and the homefolder does reside on the local hard drive.
My mobile account still syncs from home. What am I missing or did I just misunderstand?
Thanks.

If your workstation can't connect to the file server, it won't sync. You probably shouldn't be providing file sharing access over the internet. Use your firewall to restrict external access.

Mobile Account Sync Is Grayed Out

Dear Friends,
One of our users started having problems using account syncing, they had contracted Flashback and asked to have their OS reinstalled. The system is bound to AD and things worked for a while and then they installed VirusBarrier X6 and made some changes. At first the sync wouldn't work and now the option is grayed out for all users on the computer from the Preferences Pane. We have unbound and rebound the system and tried a permissions repair. What might be blocking this service from running? Thanks!

I have the same problem with my ipod nano. I downloaded tunes from my old pc. ITunes does not recognise it from my new pc and I cannot sync.

Sync between 3 machines

Hi I have an iphone, and 3 laptops: macbook pro and 2 macbooks. i want to sync seemlessly between the 3 machines and my phone but everytime i sync, i get the message asking if i want to merge records. i merge and then it creates multiple contacts in my phone and in my address book. although not mission-critical, it is a terrible inconvenience.
thoughts to try today is to create groups on each address book on each computer then sync inly to the groups but im sure this is going to cause the same issues.
the other question is how do i remove the duplicates in my address book without manually going through them?
thanks
Lou

Hi I have an iphone, and 3 laptops: macbook pro and 2 macbooks. i want to sync seemlessly between the 3 machines and my phone but everytime i sync, i get the message asking if i want to merge records. i merge and then it creates multiple contacts in my phone and in my address book. although not mission-critical, it is a terrible inconvenience.
The iPhone (as well as the iPods) were designed to sync with exactly one machine. There is no convenient way to sync with 3 (or even 2) machines.
thoughts to try today is to create groups on each address book on each computer then sync inly to the groups but im sure this is going to cause the same issues.
Yep. Even if the groupname are identical, their internal identifier will be different from each other causing the sync software to treat them as non-identical groups.
the other question is how do i remove the duplicates in my address book without manually going through them?
Maybe there is some third party application doing such automatically (if so, I do not know this third party software). However, there is no built-in way. If you have a backup, you could restore the backup (which should not contain the duplicates).

Mobile Account Sync Problem on Server

I am using home folder syncing on a network with an iMac and a MacBook Pro. The iMac is the Open Directory server where the network user home folders are stored, and is also a workstation used by the network users.
Does anyone know how to avoid this?
There was a problem connecting to the server "server.______.___".
This file server is available on your computer. Access the volumes and files locally.
It seems to happen regardless of whether I use the local home directories as the network shares, or another folder share.
Thanks

Sorry to hear this is biting you too. I've been trying to figure out what causes this error for more than a year. Until then, I can't mount my Time Machine on my Macbook, so no backups. Amusingly, Migration Assistant managed to copy over the bug when I upgraded to a new Macbook. Thanks
Here's my ancient post asking about the same AFP mount error. Sorry I can't be more helpful

Why won't my hotmail account sync between devices?

It's really annoying to have to see and delete emails on every single on of my devices. I have icloud all set up and all the settings I believe are correct. Yet, they don't seem to me syncing or mirroring one another like I thought they would.

You can't pair an iPhone with an Android device.
There are lots of other ways to transfer contacts. Do a Google search for "transfer contacts from android to iPhone" and pick the method you like best.

Mobile accounts: Only sync with specific computers?

Is it possible to have a mobile account sync with the local computers only on selected machines?
Most of my users have a computer in their own offices, and I want those to be synched (and it works well with mobile accounts).
But when they go the labs, I don't want all their data (possibly a lot) to be copied, and if they could then behave as network accounts it would perfect.
Is it possible?

if you configure mobile prefs to popup a dialog to confirm creating a mobile account on new machines, train them to choose "no," and they'll login with network homes on other machines.

Mobile account folders failing to sync

Hello All,
Having a strange problem with syncing mobile folders on our Mac clients.
We are running an OSX server with Mountain Lion that has open directory on it and this essentially just validates with our Windows domain controller that is using active directory. All of our Mac clients are running Snow Leopard and everything seems to be operating swimmingly except for one issue…
We have mobile accounts set up, so that users can gain access to their Windows based ‘my documents’, ‘my music’ and ‘my pictures’ folders. Everything seems to sync fine except that sometimes when users try to log off, or try to sync their data manually, the process fails. It will either claim that username/password details could not be validated then hang, or it will say that the user’s password has expired and lock them out of their accounts (which we then need to unlock in Active Directory).
After checking the logs on the client machines there are a couple of noteworthy errors:
SMB_Mount – Mount failed to SMB://Storageserver.co.uk/staff$ - syserr = Authentication error
And
SMB_Mount – Mount failed to SMB://Storageserver.co.uk/staff$ - syserr = Unknown Error -5999
It seems to be very random and inconsistent as users can go a week or so without the problem occurring, and then have it happen twice in an hour. Has anyone experienced any issues with mobile accounts syncing?

Address sync with google inly works with 10.6

Mobile account won't complete setup, initial sync won't complete.

I'm trying to setup a mobile account but it won't complete the sync process on the client MacBook Pro. Both the server and the MacBook Pro are running 10.5.5.
When I login to client it prompts me to create a Mobile account and proceeds with the sync to create the account, but when the sync is complete it just logs in with the default account setup. None of the user files or settings (desktop image, preferences, etc) appear. The sync process says "Checking..." for all the files that supposedly get copied to the client, but it looks like it doesn't complete.
Is there a way of knowing what the problem is? Is there an issue with the user's home directory, some file that prevents the sync and mobile home creation from completing?
Thanks.

Forgot about getting this problem solved.
The user account that had this trouble had a copy of his home directory from a laptop in his home directory. This backup had it's own Library folder which was confusing the Mobile account sync process.
When I removed the backup home directory, the initial sync went fine.

Mobile accounts - sync - between 2 machines

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