Messages

Hello, yes, this is a known issue. There is a workaround though, but it will need temp space on your internal disk.
First put the data on your internal disk, add the folder to espionage, let it encrypt, and once the folder is present in Espionage, click onto small "i" near the folder name to get to the folder options. There you will see a disk image drop down menu with the option to change disk image location, select your external drive and Espionage will move to the external image.
After that you will have the disk image containing the data on the external drive and lock and unlock as well as adding or removing files will work just fine. It is just the encryption processes which does not work.
I hope this helps
Cheers
Zsolt

We in support use to say that the problems which go away themselves come back with friends :-)
I'm glad it works, now, Espionage or not, it is wise to do a regular backup if not of the whole machine, than at least your home folder, that will include Espionage data as well if you left it all on default values.

Happy encryption

Cheers
Zsolt

Hello, one simple try, can you switch the OS theme to light instead of dark and see if that changes anything. If it does not, please open a ticket with us and I will look into this thorough a zoom session if all right with you.

Cheers
Zsolt

Hello, please open a support ticket with us, and I will assist you through a zoom session.

https://www.espionageapp.com/support/contact/

Cheers
Zsolt

Hello, the sparsebundle on it's own is not enough. But if you have a backup of your home folder, then we should be able to find the rest what is needed.

Each protected folder needs 3 pieces of info:

1 the disk image which contains the data
2 the mountpoint folder which will be used to display the data
3 the Espionage database which contains the path to the first two, the name of the first two and the password of the disk image

So to make espionage recognise your folders you have to move all this data to a new machine.
The 1 and 3 are all in one folder:

yourhomefolder/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3

On the backup disk, find the backup session you want to restore from (directly on the backup disk, not through time machine), the Libary folder will again be hidden, you select "Go" menu from the Finder's menus, and in the popup window start to type Library, Finder will fill it out for you till the end, just click OK and you will enter into the library, then again just continue till you find the com.taeoeffect.Espionage3 folder

Once you put this folder into the same path on the new Mac, launch Espionage and all your folders should be present in Espionage folder list.

It might still complain about missing mountpoint folders, then just create an empty folder for each protected folder, click onto small "i" near the folder name in Espionage folder list and use the mountpoint drop down menu to point Espionage to the newly created folder, after that it should start to work,

Let me know how it went,

Cheers
Zsolt

Hello Scott, I'm glad this did the trick. It is not 100% nice solution as we do not know what exactly the problem with the original folder was. Usually it is some kind of a permission problem. But the sudden unmount was never reported before. Failing to recover properly that yes.
But I can see that you understand it quite well, so I guess we do not need to be worried.
If you have any specific question, please let me know.
And no, there are no error logs, we do write some stuff into console, but I never found anything useful there. You might want to search for diskutil entries, as that is the process doing the mount and unmount part.
Cheers
Zsolt

Hello Scott, did you try to create a new folder and see if it behaves the same?
Cheers
Zsolt

Hello Stevens, dragging a file from the protected folder creates a copy, because MacOS always does a copy when you drag a file from one volume to another (for example if you drag a file from your internal disk to a usb stick or external hard drive). The unlocked folder is in fact a mounted disk image volume which is shown "through" the unlocked folder, but nevertheless, it is another volume.
To change the default behaviour you do exactly what you did.
But the reason I asked is different. If you can "save" your files from the protected folder by copying them into a regular folder, then the simplest way to fix your problem is to copy all the data out of the protected folder, delete the folder from espionage and simply add it anew.
It is a bit of a quick and dirty solution, but it should work. I assume you will not have the same problem with the newly added folder, because it will create the disk image new, reset the permissions and that should make it work.
On the other hand, if you want me to troubleshoot the problem in detail, then we would need a zoom session and I can then take a look into it and try to figure out what went wrong.

If you are fine with the quick fix, then:
- create a new emtpy folder on your internal disk
- unlock the folder in espionage
- drag all the files into the new folder
- ctrl click onto folder in espionage folder list, and select force remove from database
- this will dump the disk image containing the data onto your desktop together with the password file for the disk image
- now drag the new folder to espionage and let it encrypt
- once done, check if all works fine
- if yes, you can trash the disk image and the password file

let me know how it went
Cheers
Zsolt

Hello Stevens, in it's essence, Espionage is just administering MacOS disk images. It creates them, encrypts them, assign name and password and manipulate the mountpoint for them, but at it's core, the data is kept in MacOS encrypted disk image. So the error you are describing is an error the disk image is returning and _should_ nothing to do with Espionage. I know this does not make your life any better, but just to be clear on this.
It is probably some kind of a permission issue. Does the same happen when you try to copy a file out of the protected folder, say, you drag a file from the protected folder into a regular folder, for example into your  Documents folder?

Thanks
Zsolt

Hello, the problem is that you cannot encrypt a folder on an external volume. What you can do is move the folder to the boot drive, encrypt it and then move the resulting disk image onto the external volume. The mountpoint folder can stay on the internal drive or you can move that one too to the external.
It is only the encryption process which does not work. Once encrypted, the folder will work normally even if it is on the external volume.
If you need assistance with that, please let me know.

Excellent, thanks for the feedback.
Now, we had these before, failed restores, but we could not nail the reason for it, it is probably a permission issue but we are not sure. What we have on the to do list, though, is to stop moving the disk image into trash, and removing the folder from Espionage even if the restore fails. We will first complete the restore and if we have it confirmed as sucesfull, then we will do the cleanup.
It will be implemented in one of the future versions, till then, you will have to bear with me :-)
Thanks for your patience and sorry for the inconvenience.
Cheers
Zsolt

OK, we need the disk image password, and to get it, we have to revert to a previous version of Espionage database

In your homefolder/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3 folder there should be a backup folder. This one contains backups of database3 files which are done by Espionage automatically.

To start Espionage with one of the older databases, do the following:
- quit espionage V3
- go the the folder mentioned above (Note that your home Library folder is hidden since Lion, to enter into it from Finder, switch to Finder, hold down the option key and select Library from the list of "places to go".)
- rename the database3 file which is in the Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3 folder (not in the backup folder) to database3-current or such, this is your latest i.e. current database. Now copy one of the backups from the Backup folder, pick one which has a time stamp before the problem occurred, into parent folder, and rename it to database3.

Now start Espionage by doubleclickng it in the Application folder, unlock it, and see if the folder you wanted to restore is listed, if yes, click onto small "i" near the folder name, this will take you to the folder information window, click onto "copy password" button.

Now doubleclick the disk image you retrieved from trash, when asked for pass, paste the one from the clipboard, if all goes well, the disk image should mount, and you should be able to copy your data out into a regular folder.

Let me know how it went
Cheers
Zsolt

Hello, can you please check if you have a disk image in the trashcan/recycle bin, if yes, move it out onto your desktop or any other location.
Is the folder you wanted to restore, still present in the espionage folder list? Probably not, but pls confirm.
Thanks
Zsolt

Hello, sorry for the laaate reply, it seems that forum notifications were not set up properly on my side, so your post went by unnoticed, do you still have the problem?

Hello Norm, I did not advise you to launch Advanced Mac Tuneup. We are fighting with spam all the time, and it might be that you got an email which was not written by us. Feel free to open a support ticket with us, or send me an email directly to taoeffect@macmesupport.com and we can continue to communicate that way, to be sure you are getting emails from me.

In the mean time we will try to figure out what is going on with the forum.

Cheers
Zsolt