MacOS – Large files in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

file-transfermacos

I have constant problems moving large files in Mountain Lion. When I say large I would say roughly 2GB or larger, which means nearly every iso and vmdk I touch. This can occur moving a file to or from a USB disk, a FW800 disk, a samba share, a netatalk share.

For instance, here is the latest error: "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "Fedora-18-x86_64-DVD.iso" can't be read or written. (Error code -36)"

I know the data is not corrupt because I can use rsync to copy this file to the exact same destination and it will succeed, just that finder will fail to copy it. I've also used the same file to install a vm which worked fine as well as moved the file with a USB stick which for no apparent reason succeeded. On top of that when I share out files using SMB from the same Mac and try to move the file from a windows server the connection will hang up halfway through the copy for no apparent reason. Is anyone aware of a larger bug or problem with large files in 10.8?

Best Answer

We had the same problem. Communication stops briefly on extended transfers of any kind.

I contacted Apple Senior support who were actually able to reproduce the problem. I was told that Apple will release an update after they solve the issue.

Obviously until then we all must wait.

Related Solutions

MacOS – How to disable ._ AppleDouble files for SMB

Finder

Finder does much to ensure integrity of data, and to make its results compatible with a broad range of Apple operating systems.

Please, you should not attempt to prevent Finder from creating ._ (dot underscore) files during copy or move routines.

File system

If you prevent creation at the file system level – as you did with your configuration of Samba – you make that file system partially incompatible with at least:

Apple Finder
Microsoft Office Excel, PowerPoint and Word 2011.

(For any use case that involves Office 2011 saving to a file system, you must allow ._ on that file system … and so on.)

For more detail please see my answer to a more recent question, Why are dot underscore ._ files created, and how can I avoid them?:

Purposes of .DS_Store and ._ files

MacOS – Samba share on Mountain Lion freezes

Considerations

For the partition, in its entirety, at the server you grant read and write privileges to everyone:

may be comparable to guest access, which does not require authentication.

Consider the following possibilities:

some communication, or attempted communication, by Windows 7 may be anonymous, without authentication (whether/how such communications would be logged by the server in a non-Server build of the OS, I don't know)
writes, or attempted writes, by Windows 7 are inappropriate for something at/around the root of the partition.

Suggestions

Increase the verbosity of logging for SMB

This may be easier to achieve with a Server build of the OS.

Diagnosis at the server when the client perceives a problem

Enable the stackshot daemon then use the key chord for sysdiagnose

Preparation: enable the daemon

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.stackshot.plist

When the problem occurs: use the key chord for sysdiagnose.

For at least ten seconds after the chord, touch nothing.

After Finder brings to front the result of sysdiagnose: decompress the archive, consider the files that comprise the diagnosis.

References

stackshot(1) OS X Manual Page

sysdiagnose(1) OS X Manual Page

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