Unable to lock folder

[jeremy1234]

Hi all.

I recently installed and purchased Espionage (2.8.13), and I am running into a problem w/ one of my folders.   After unlocking it, it won't lock again.   What's weirder is that the first time this happened, the folder itself disappeared from the Finder.   It still showed up within the Espionage app window, and I was able to see the folder contents through the "reveal in finder" option there.   Upon doing so my folder, named "FCP Projects" showed up as ".FCP Projects".   Sensing something was wrong, I copied all the contents out of that folder into a new one in the same place, which I also named "FCP Projects"  However, now when I try to lock this new folder, it won't lock.  No error message, no nothing.  I'm not encrypting it, I just wanted to password protect that folder.  

Any thoughts as to why this would happen?  My other locked folders (both encrypted and non encrypted) are working fine.  

I'm running OSX 10.6.8, for what it's worth.
thanks!

[greg]

Any thoughts as to why this would happen?  My other locked folders (both encrypted and non encrypted) are working fine.

That's very odd, particularly that your other folders are working just fine and you say there are no errors. I'm honestly stumped, have you tried simply password protecting it again? Just so you know, simply password protecting a folder (without encrypting it) is a very safe operation. The worst that could go wrong is what you encountered already, the folder being renamed to ".[foldername]" and not being named back, requiring you to use a tool like iVisible to rename it back.

Also, FYI, when Espionage password protects a folder, the reason why it renames it (puts a dot in front of it) to hide it, is so that both the Spotlight and Finder caches is cleared of its contents. Then it's renamed back and iSpy prevents further access to the folder. This temporary trickery helps to make it so that when you double-click on it (and it's locked) it appears to contain nothing.

[jeremy1234]

Thanks for the reply!   After posting this I went back and read through the Espionage help, and downloaded iVisible.   Using that, I saw that there was a hidden, empty ".FCP Projects" folder there, which was possibly preventing the new one from locking?   I deleted that one, and now the new one locks fine!  

So I don't know if the original folder got corrupted or not, but it seems to be working fine now.  

Are there any known issues with using Espionage and fast user switching?   I use separate accounts for work and for personal use, and this folder was created under my work account, which does not have admin privileges.  Is it possible that switching from one account to another without locking the folder caused this?

thanks again.

[greg]

Are there any known issues with using Espionage and fast user switching?   I use separate accounts for work and for personal use, and this folder was created under my work account, which does not have admin privileges.  Is it possible that switching from one account to another without locking the folder caused this?

Yes that sounds like it could have been the culprit. Espionage runs as a separate "instance" in another user account, completely in its own universe, unaware of any manipulations that might be happening by other instances of Espionage, so we don't recommend encrypting or password protecting the same folder with two instances of Espionage unless you are careful to make sure to leave the folders in the same state as you found them before switching to the other user account (if that makes sense).