Reader Comment: Finder File Copying Data Loss... “catalyst that drove me off the platform”

2022-01-17 • SEND FEEDBACK |
Related: Apple, Apple Core Rot, Apple macOS, data integrity, diglloydTools, IntegrityChecker, macOS Finder, reader comment

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re: Apple’s Penchant for IGNORING Data Loss Risks Continues, Unabated: Finder Erroneously Shows Files as Zero Bytes
re: Copying Files with macOS Finder: Data Loss Bug
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Bryan M writes:

In 2017 you wrote a blog post on Finder failing to copy the contents of files and followed up with a piece in 2018 suggesting it may be related to Spotlight or one of its daemons. I’m curious if you have been able to reproduce this bug in more recent versions of MacOS.

In 2015-16 or so, I ran into this very same issue when copying the contents of memory cards to an SMB network share. What I observed was Finder would pre-allocate the files on the server, then go back and copy the file contents, but at some point along the way Finder would silently fail and give up, but not alert the user that the copy process had terminated. It wasn’t until weeks later that I discovered a majority of those files were empty and destroyed since those memory cards were reused.

Like you, I found this design to be completely unacceptable and was the catalyst that drove me off the platform. I’ve been contemplating coming back to the Mac, but would like some assurance this bug has been resolved before it’s even a consideration.

Hope you’re well and thank you in advance.

MPG: I don’t know if it is fixed, but I assume not.

These sorts of software bugs are a compelling reason to use IntegrityChecker Java, which runs on macOS, Windows, Linux, NAS, etc.