Random locked folders in 9 on OS-interchange drive - thoughts?

[Hyram]

Here's a bit of a puzzler.

I've got Ross's 9.2.2 v9 build ticking away nicely on both of my G4 Minis in a dual-boot setup - 120GB SSD, triple partition prepped with Drive Setup 1.9.2, 10GB for OS9, 16GB for 10.4.11 (the 9 partition is mounted read-only under X via fstab so no interference) & 80GB of HFS Extended (no journalling) as a workplace for both OSes. Other than the standard quirks associated with 9 on the Mini, everything has been working perfectly for many months ... except for this little problem.

Occasionally, a sub-folder on the shared-space will become locked, and once locked, there's absolutely no way to unlock it from OS9 - it and its immediate contents are immutable, un-trashable, although any deeper sub-folders are fine (see the attached image). If I boot into Tiger, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the 'locked' folder, it behaves like any other r/w item, with Disk Futility and DiskWarrior 4 both giving the workspace volume a clean bill of health, no b-tree hiccups, no broken custom icon alerts, nothing. (Yes, I know full well never to use an OS9 disk-fixer utility on a drive also used by OSX. The workspace behaves well under both 9 & X except for this odd locked-folder issue.)

So far, my only recourse is to make a note of the folder path so that the next time I boot Tiger I can make a new folder next to the locked-in-OS9 one, drag over the contents & trash the offender, and the next time I'm in OS9 things are back to normal, even if I give the made-in-OSX replacement folder the exact same name as its locked-in-OS9 predecessor.

I've examined the locked folder with DiskTop, can't see anything odd, no locked flag no shared bit set, et cetera (not that I expected it to, considering XATTRs are in play). I've used TinkerTool System to remove & disable ACLs on the workspace volume, ignored ownership, force-propagated permissions, none of which unlocks a 9-locked folder nor stop it from reoccuring when in 9.

It isn't a life-shattering problem, but it's one that happens once a day or so, and it's always a different folder somewhere else in the tree. I just work around it until the next OS-switcheroo.

But I am absolutely perplexed as to WHY this is happening. It is undoubtedly something screwy with the extended attributes stuff Tiger's got going on that's making OS9 unhappy, but I'm not that clued in on the innards of file-system mechanics.

If there's a fix it would certainly make me happy, but I'd just really like to know what's going on - any light that can be shed and improve my understanding will be extremely appreciated.


H

[IIO]

on my 9/10.4 machine i have occasionally single documents, which, under OS9, refuse to keep the label color i assign them, and which also refuse to keep their location when you want to move them on the desktop or in a finder window (which is a bit funny because that should have nothing do to with the document itself.)

they mostly originate from intel-mac or linux machines where someone who is not me created the file using superuser or higher rights.

i fix this using filebuddy, which seems to ingore the circumstances which causes the phaenomen.

[Hyram]

Interesting - I've never been able to make sense of the FileBuddy UI, but I'll give it another look next time this pops up.


H

[IIO]

for things like that - workarounds when something doest work in finder - it is superb.

i just hate that you can delete files from the browser.

[GaryN]

Occasionally, a sub-folder on the shared-space will become locked, and once locked, there's absolutely no way to unlock it from OS9 - it and its immediate contents are immutable, un-trashable, although any deeper sub-folders are fine (see the attached image). If I boot into Tiger, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the 'locked' folder, it behaves like any other r/w item, with Disk Futility and DiskWarrior 4 both giving the workspace volume a clean bill of health, no b-tree hiccups, no broken custom icon alerts, nothing. (Yes, I know full well never to use an OS9 disk-fixer utility on a drive also used by OSX. The workspace behaves well under both 9 & X except for this odd locked-folder issue.)

But I am absolutely perplexed as to WHY this is happening. It is undoubtedly something screwy with the extended attributes stuff Tiger's got going on that's making OS9 unhappy, but I'm not that clued in on the innards of file-system mechanics.

If there's a fix it would certainly make me happy, but I'd just really like to know what's going on - any light that can be shed and improve my understanding will be extremely appreciated.

I can tell you what is happening… more or less. The UNIX-derived multiple file permissions in OSX are unreadable and incomprehensible to OS9.
OS9 has NO multiple levels of ownership and read-only, read-write etc. etc. permissions like OSX.
What it does have is sharing permissions. To OS9, all files are "owned" by their creator. OS9 has a File Sharing Extension and a File Sharing Library to go with. All of that was basically for setting up shared access to multiple users on a shared network.
In that scenario, everybody on the network had their own password and there was a function called "Users and Groups". You could create a file, and set a sharing level that could allow some people access read-only, read-write and so forth.

It was generally a complicated, unfathomable clusterf**k.

It was possible to lock a file, move it accidentally and find you could not make any changes yourself until you unlocked it, which could be a huge problem if you had moved it to someone else's drive and they weren't there because OS9 would also prevent you from even moving it!

The OSX permissions work a little differently in that a file can have multiple levels of access carried with the file… sorta….
Anyway, the OSX permission flags can and do get misinterpreted as "locked file" flags by OS9 - especially if the file is deposited on the OS9 volume by OSX.
OR (apparently) a common "shared space" where the two systems can do battle over who's in charge of that space.

The way around this is to not have, as you call it, a "shared space". It's likely that 99% of the files are only used in their own OS's anyway so you can simply keep the files separated and avoid the issue. If you DO have particular needs to process a given file in both OS's, try to move the file ONLY with OS9. If you create a file in OSX, be certain that ALL permissions are set to "everybody".

Lastly (and this is important) remember that OS9-era disk repair apps have no knowledge of OSX file parameters at all, so many things created by OSX that work fine in OSX can be seen as corruption and they'll try to "fix" them. The next time you open OSX, it will see the OS9 "fix" as corruption and "fix" it back. Only madness lies down that road.

[DieHard]

It was generally a complicated, unfathomable clusterf**k.
Only madness lies down that road.

The above is all you need to know, the tech stuff was just filler

It is amazing how many issues we have parsed thru over the last 10 years with the Dual boot (or more) file system scenario,
and specifically, how OS 9 really has a hard time with file system integrity when another OS modifies its files/folders. I think that is why I was labeled
"X-a-phobic" back in the early days of the forum, which of course is un-true, I just found it simpler to separate OS X and OS 9 and run them on different machines altogether.

As I mentioned before, back in the day when my company offered network solutions we would store graphic and document libraries on Novell servers, with "Apple/Mac Name space" added to the volumes. I can tell you we had networks of up to 40 to 60 clients of Mac OS9 &  OS X (up to Panther) and I don't remember having any file issues at all when sharing. No errors whatsoever, just a simple file lock if another client was accessing the same file.  Network volumes would auto-mount and life was good.  The NT servers were a little more quirky with Apple shares, but also worked fairly well... except a 2GB file size limit.

Now that I went off on a tangent, as usual; I will just suggest, as Gary did, that the shared data volume idea may not be the best way to keep your sanity.  Make a separate data volume for each OS.  Also search our forum for settings and tips that make OS X stop writing/updating info on the OS 9 Volumes.

Lastly, a cheap FW drive is great to bounce files back and forth between OS 9 and OS X, although this may be less convenient than the shared data volume approach.

[Hyram]

Well the 'why' was explained pretty well (and was roughly what I expected) and as the lock-hiccup only occurs every few days, I can cope with the work-around(s) as I bounce between OSes, it's no biggy.

Ta for the input, enlightening as always


H

[IIO]

i doubt that it has anything to do with OSX permissions.

i have never seen a locked folder in my life on my dual boot machines, and i am usually running OSX as admin and share files between the OSes on a daily basis.

the only folders OS9 cant open are the ones owned by root, the rest is free as in free.