Copied file vanishes when client is OS X

[Benjamin Riefenstahl]

Hi Ed,


Ed Holden <eholden at mclean.harvard.edu> writes:
> If you want to compare using the same file, it's the PDF file on
> http://www.edholden.com/linux.

I can now reproduce it with your file if there is no other file in the
directory that has Mac OS metadata.  Reading the log at debug levels 2
and 3 makes for some interesting reading ;-).

It looks like the Finder does it like this:

- Create the files for actual datafork and for Mac OS metadata.

- Copy the data. 

- It looks at *some* file in that directory with metadata and resource
  fork.  If there is some other file with metadata, it looks at that
  and all is well.  If it only finds the metadata file that it has
  created before for gnu-linux.pdf than it deletes both files again.

What it *should* do in this instance, is to realize that the metadata
file it has created only contains default information and discard it,
but leave the actual data file alone.  Maybe at this point it hasn't
yet written the metadata file correctly and so it thinks something
went wrong.  Or maybe the routine that reads the metadata file for
verification recognizes that the data in there is just defaults and
thinks that *that* is an error, because such a file shouldn't actually
exist.

Interestingly I can not reproduce the problem with a virtual FAT disk
on my Mac, although that has the same on-disk representation for Mac
OS metadata, and so it should in theory be handled in the same way by
the Finder.  But maybe there is something more going on when there is
a network involved.

I created a bug report for Apple.  They will probably have to fix this
in the Finder or at least they should be able to tell us what goes
wrong here.  We'll see if we get feedback...


benny