Tao Effect Forums

Espionage => Espionage 3 => Topic started by: ssh on September 07, 2016, 11:24:18 PM

Title: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: ssh on September 07, 2016, 11:24:18 PM
Are there any known issues with Sierra for Espionage? I can copy the password out and then mount the sparsebundle, but it won't mount from Sierra. It throws a red error, but no error message or other information. Just failure to mount. Recommendations?
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on September 07, 2016, 11:32:21 PM
So what you are saying that if you copy the pass out and try to mount it on El Captain, then it works, but if you try to mount it in Sierra then it fails?
I suppose you use the same procedure, which one?
Can you unlock the folder using Espionage in Sierra?

Rgds
Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: ssh on September 08, 2016, 12:04:44 AM
Sorry I wasn't clear...

1) Folder decrypts and mounts in El Cap using Espionage no problem.
2) Folder fails to mount in Sierra using Espionage
3) Copying the password out of Espionage and using Disk Utility allows me to mount in Sierra

Hope that clarifies?
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on September 08, 2016, 12:14:36 AM
It does, I will check with devs

Thanks
Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on September 08, 2016, 03:49:30 AM
can you please try to  unlock it again in sierra using Espionage and monitor the console system log and all messages and see if there is anything related to the unlock attempt.

it seems that some testing on Sierra was done but we did not encounter any issues.

Thanks in advance for your input,

Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: ssh on September 08, 2016, 10:41:17 AM
Hard to tell. Which processes are likely to be those I should search on? I'm getting a lot of log messages right now!

I'm not seeing anything that's jumping out to me, but I'm happy to look for anything you think could help. Any search criteria to limit the messages?
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on September 08, 2016, 01:03:14 PM
just prepare everything, anchor the window of Espionage, then record the time stamp and click onto unlock, when the error message pops up, record the time stamp, then copy all the messages out of all messages and system in console, this operation lasts maybe 2-3 seconds so you should not get to many.
The espionage messages show up with espionage header, but I guess they do not come, otherwise you would see them.

Thanks
Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on September 16, 2016, 11:12:46 PM
Hello Jaldert,

​Here is a

https://www.espionageapp.com/other/builds/EspionageSierraBeta1.zip

​Would you be so kind to check if you can reproduce your problem with this beta build.

​Thanks in advance,

Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on September 16, 2016, 11:29:56 PM
Hello again, I just realised that the link is broken...and the devs are offline (it is night over there) so we will have to wait a few hours, I will let you know as soon as I get a new link.

Sorry about this

Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: greg on September 17, 2016, 12:13:45 AM
Link is fixed now, sorry that was my fault!
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on September 17, 2016, 11:16:41 AM
And hello again and again....the other user we sent the beta to, reported that it did not help. However, we figured out that he is trying to unlock a folder which resides on an external disk. If this is true in your case too then please try the following:

​Can you please create an empty folder on your internal disk, in your Documents folder for example, then unlock espionage, click onto small "i" near the folder name, and in the folder options window use the mount point folder drop down menu to point Espionage to the newly created folder.
​Once you switched the mount point folder to the new one, try to unlock the folder again, let me know how it went

​Thanks
Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: tobysmurf on September 20, 2016, 12:58:37 PM
I just ran into this issue with the formal release of Sierra.  Mounting to a local disk as opposed to my SD card does work.  Any suggestions on how to fix the issue with mounting to an external disk?
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on September 20, 2016, 02:03:31 PM
We can reproduce the problem using Apple's hdiutil which we use for mounting, so it seems to be Apple's bug, we are currently investigating if we can circumvent this, but at the moment the only workaround we can offer is to move the mountpoint folder to a local disk. It is not a big deal though as the data is still on the external disk, but it requires a bit of manual work which is not what we want.

We will update as soon as we find some better way.

Rgds
Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: ssh on September 23, 2016, 11:02:05 AM
Thank you. My travel schedule has kept me away from this issue for a while. I will attempt the local mount point, but sounds like that fixes it for now.
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on October 10, 2016, 12:31:13 PM
Dear All,

So here is the final verdict on Sierra and failing folder opening:
Espionage uses encrypted sparse bundle disk images which are a data format provided by Apple's OS X. It is a clever and flexible approach of storing data safely. This is why we went that route and it worked fine for many years.
Apple also provides a command line utility to manage and manipulate those disk images, this utility is called hdiutil.

After troubleshooting the problem, it turned out that if we specify to the hdiutil a mountpoint folder path which is located on an external volume, then the hdiutil returns a "no mountable filesystem found" error in spite of all data being in good condition. It is sufficient to specify a mountpoint folder which is on the system disk and all starts to work fine.

The problem being in Apple's utility, we cannot do much more then report it to Apple. At which priority will Apple address this problem, we have no clue.

Till then there are two workarounds:
1. move the mountpoint to the system disk, as we suggested earlier
2. do the 1. but create a so called symlink on the external disk where the original mountpoint folder was located. This symlink is very similar to Alias of a folder in Finder, it is a folder which "points" to another folder. In this way you could access the content of the protected folder in a same way as before, although there would be two mountpoint folders, one real, on your system disk and one which would look as real, but would in fact be a link to the one on the internal disk. If you want me to send instructions how to create the symlink, let me know.

Thanks for your patience in this matter,

Rgds
Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: ssh on October 10, 2016, 03:41:56 PM
Thank you!

The symlink idea is quite brilliant! I hadn't gotten to thinking how to make it easier, but that will work great. Thanks, again...
Title: Re: SLOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW Mounting
Post by: Doctor X on October 26, 2016, 02:10:26 AM
Sorry to "hijack" but I think this may be a part of the problem. Trying out Sierra OS 10.12 on:


Espionage mounts on the Internal HD. ALL data is backed up on two Ex-HD so there is no danger of loss.

Right, I notice it takes a long time for the encrypted sparse bundle disk image to load and, then, Finder will sloooooowww down trying to access it. Usually, on El Capitan and previous, you just click on the folder and there you go. Also noticed that some files like video will slowly play, if at all, crashing QuickTime 7.

Understood if this is "normal" with a relatively new OS. Just wondering if there is something I should do or if you need further information?  8)

--J.D.
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on October 26, 2016, 11:13:06 AM
Hello J.D.

thanks for your input.

For us, the main task is to differentiate between Espionage problems and external utility problems, hdiutil in this case.
Espionage problems we can fix, external utility problems we cannot, just report.

When you unlock a folder, we call hdiutil with path to the disk image, moutpoint folder and password, the rest is done by hdiutil.
Once the folder is unlocked, it is all operating system which handles the communication between disk image content (native Apple data format) and application which is reading the data (quicktime in this case - again Apple's app)

The unlock-mount part, you can do without Espionage if you have all the info needed, here is how to get it:
- Apple's Terminal application has a nice feature of filling out file paths if you drag the folder or file over Terminal's window
- so first we will find the files in Finder and then we drag to have the paths filled in

- unlock espionage
- make sure the folder you will be testing with is locked
- click onto small anchor icon in the lower left corner of the Espionage window to keep the window open
- click onto small "i" near the folder name, this will take you to the folder options window
- here you will see two drop down menus, one for disk image another for mountpoint folder you will also see a copy password button
- click onto disk image drop down menu and just select the disk image with the mouse in the menu and let the mouse button go, this will open a finder window with the disk image selected
- do the same for the mountpoint folder
- now paste this into terminal:

/usr/bin/hdiutil attach

press space once to add a space char after attach word

drag the disk image over terminal window

hit space again, the write

-mountpoint

another space

drag the moutpoint folder over terminal window

hit space and write

-noverify -noautofsck -stdinpass -nobrowse

The complete command whould look like this:
/usr/bin/hdiutil attach /Volumes/PEROosxj/esptst.sparsebundle -mountpoint /Volumes/PEROosxj/mountpt -noverify -noautofsck -stdinpass -nobrowse

hit enter

you will be asked for a password, click onto copy password button in Espionage window, paste it into terminal, hit enter

if all good you will get a short report on mounted volume.

What is interesting to see is how quickly will this happen, will there be a delay or not?

note that espionage will not be aware that the image is mounted, i.e. it will not show the folder to be unlocked, this is normal as we did the things "behind" espionage.

To unmount the volume, you write in the terminal

hdiutil unmount volumepath

the volumepath you will get in the aforementioned report

####

To the slow reading, see if you get this slow reading effect also when you mount it by hand, but I'm positive you will....

Let me know how it went,

Cheers
Zsolt

P.S. we got one report with similar behaviour, and the culprit was in a virus scanner, if you have one, make sure you disable it while testing. Thanks!
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: Doctor X on October 26, 2016, 10:56:36 PM
I suspect the issue is an Apple and Sierra one, but just now I could not get Espionage to mount a folder/sparse image. Clicking on the "i" sign would only allow viewing the location of the folder--not the actual "sparse" image.

Force Quit of Espionage then restart resulted in allowing the option on "i" to "mount" which then resulted in a "major error."

Trying a Reboot.

That allows the Proper view of "i" I think you want:

Since I cannot "see" the attachment, I will post this and then continue.

--J.D.

Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: Doctor X on October 26, 2016, 11:16:11 PM
Right, let us see if I can "mount" the usual way.

Waiting . . .

Waiting . . .

(http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u264/DoctorX_photos/Smilies/93ff71c8.gif)

Still not mounting after two minutes--far longer than ever. So let us try your suggestions . . . and now it just "Unlocked" (http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u264/DoctorX_photos/Smilies/brood.gif)

Cool . . . everything is there . . . so let us relock it and try your suggestions. I stress that this current delay is FAR longer than when I first bitched about it.

Following your directions I get:

Enter disk image passphrase:
/dev/disk2          GUID_partition_scheme         
/dev/disk2s1        EFI                           
/dev/disk2s2        Apple_HFS                      /Users/DoctorX/Pictures/Stuff


THAT happened immediately. The held open Espionage page now shows it "mounted."

The final command will not unmount it--probably putting in the wrong volume--but Espionage does unmount it.

For fun when I try to remount it through Espionage it immediately remounts.

So I will watch it. I have my Int-HD clones in El Capitan and new data is simply a few things I will copy over the clone. So if all else fails I will simply mount from my Ex-HD clone and go back to El Capitan until Apple sorts it out.

I will try a reboot to see if things are the same, better, what have you. (http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u264/DoctorX_photos/Smilies/f0a6af76.gif)

--J.D.



Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on October 26, 2016, 11:30:36 PM
Hello,

Thanks for your "live feed" on things happening, but it is a bit hard to follow you.....

Lets try to simplify it:
- do you have a virus scanner
- does the folder in Espionage unlock quickly (obviously not, that much I understood), if it eventually unlocks, if you lock and unlock again, does it work better? Can you try it few times?
- if you reboot, does it again face delay between unlock?
- what about hdiutil, does that work quickly (after reboot, if this is the reboot which makes the delay appear)
- this is the path you need to use in unmount /Users/DoctorX/Pictures/Stuff
so hdiutil unmount /Users/DoctorX/Pictures/Stuff should eject it, with a
mount
command you can check what is mounted

Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: Doctor X on October 26, 2016, 11:37:35 PM
Okay . . . now to try it again after reboot . . .

(http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u264/DoctorX_photos/Smilies/eyesbleed_smle_zps40ecdd06.gif)

(http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u264/DoctorX_photos/Smilies/_gah__by_Link3Kokiri_zpsf9bb97e8.gif)

So it is slow but it did mount.

I do use Sophos--never been a problem before--I was going to post the Gibberish that is Console but only notice Sophos in the lines and lines of text.

Unmounting and remounting then happens immediately. So in the future--barring issues--I will simply allow it to mount than unmount on a reboot.

--J.D.

P.S. And you just posted. Per your questions:

Quote- do you have a virus scanner

Yes, Sophos, had not been a problem before.

Quote- does the folder in Espionage unlock quickly (obviously not, that much I understood), if it eventually unlocks, if you lock and unlock again, does it work better? Can you try it few times?

Yes to all of that. I can now lock/unlock very quickly.

Quote- if you reboot, does it again face delay between unlock?

Yes. Then as above.

Quote- what about hdiutil, does that work quickly (after reboot, if this is the reboot which makes the delay appear)

I tried it once and it worked immediately. I probably typed the command wrong to relock--I did not realize it should be "hdiutil unmount" rather than just "unmount."

Once mounted I can access everything. I will even load a "big video"--opens and plays quickly.

--J.D.
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on October 26, 2016, 11:56:05 PM
Can you please disable sophos, reboot and see if you can reproduce the problem.

Thanks
Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: Doctor X on October 27, 2016, 12:04:45 AM
I will do that in a few hours--need to work on a few things before I can reboot  :-X--but I will post the results!

--J.D.
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on October 27, 2016, 12:09:17 AM
Thanks
Zsolt
Title: Re: SOLVED
Post by: Doctor X on October 27, 2016, 01:07:42 AM
First /dev/disk2s2  was the disk I should have used Terminal to unmount. In the below, Espionage would not unmount so I used the Terminal command.

Completely Solved

From my running commentary:

QuoteTurning off Sophos through its webpage after Reboot and Espionage mounts immediately. Unmount, turn on Sophos . . . "Critical Alert! Failed to unlock 'Stuff'. Failed to mount disk image, error!"

I will delete the rest and get to the solution. (http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u264/DoctorX_photos/Smilies/96ae1c3e.gif)

Here are the two files I excluded from Sophos:

/Users/DoctorX/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3/Data/

/Users/DoctorX/Pictures/Stuff/


Reboot . . . voila! Espionage mounts/unmounts quickly as before! (http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u264/DoctorX_photos/Smilies/7088b798.gif)

The FIRST path is probably the critical one. I have more than one file encrypted, and the other files mount quickly as well. So I suspect one needs to simply prevent an anti-virus from scanning the first path. If the file has a lot of data in it, I would suggest blocking it as well to prevent the anti-virus from scanning it after it is mounted.


Thanks for all of the help, especially since this is not a problem on Espionage's end!  :)

--J.D.
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: zsolt on October 27, 2016, 02:15:27 PM
The Data folder is where the disk images are mounted, but it is a surprise to me that it does not scan mounted volumes.
But as long as it works fine we are all happy.
Thanks for letting us know.
Cheers
Zsolt
Title: Re: Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?
Post by: Doctor X on October 27, 2016, 02:28:12 PM
Quote from: zsolt on October 27, 2016, 02:15:27 PMbut it is a surprise to me that it does not scan mounted volumes.

I suspected it is because the primary sparse bundle and resulting mounted volume has a lot of "stuff" in it like videos proving JFK was brought back in time to assassinate himself and where Hillary Clinton buried Paul McCartney's body  :-X ~120 GB

Since others have smaller files like scans of receipts and the like, it does not take Sophos any time to freshly scan ~1.12 MB and ~35 MB volumes! No idea why Sophos is doing this now so slowly and what Sierra has to do with it.  :o

SO:

People with the same problem should try excluding just the "Data" file--which will include the sparse bundle contents--first and see if that corrects slow-down caused by anti-virus software. If that does not work, then exclude the mounted volumes as well.

Might work as a "FAQ" though with less words.  :-X

--J.D.