Weird failure to mount after install of Sierra beta 8?

[ssh]

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...

[Doctor X]

Sorry to "hijack" but I think this may be a part of the problem. Trying out Sierra OS 10.12 on:

1. Macbook Late 2011
2. 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
3. 16 GB RAM
4. Espionage 3.6.6 freshly downloaded
5. 1TB Internal Hybrid SD
6. Shoe Size 11 1/2

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.

[zsolt]

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!

[Doctor X]

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.

[Doctor X]

Right, let us see if I can "mount" the usual way.

Waiting . . .

Waiting . . .



Still not mounting after two minutes--far longer than ever. So let us try your suggestions . . . and now it just "Unlocked"

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:

Code Select Expand

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.

--J.D.

[zsolt]

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

[Doctor X]

Okay . . . now to try it again after reboot . . .





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:

- do you have a virus scanner

Yes, Sophos, had not been a problem before.

- 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.

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

Yes. Then as above.

- 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.

[zsolt]

Can you please disable sophos, reboot and see if you can reproduce the problem.

Thanks
Zsolt

[Doctor X]

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.

[zsolt]

Thanks
Zsolt

[Doctor X]

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:

Turning 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.

Here are the two files I excluded from Sophos:

Code Select Expand

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

/Users/DoctorX/Pictures/Stuff/

Reboot . . . voila! Espionage mounts/unmounts quickly as before!

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.

[zsolt]

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

[Doctor X]

but 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.