When I write a blog post, I try to put some generally useful information along with the "required" stuff. And when it came to writing the v3.10 post, I just couldn't come up with anything worth writing about; everything was discussed in the previous posts.
But today, we've got our first Beta of v4.0 (trumpets)!
A little tidbit first, though.
Flooding the Zone
As I've discussed in the past, we've noticed situations where folders with a lot of files in them are extremely slow to deal with.
We've seen this on pre-BigSur systems with the mdworker folders, which can have millions of folders and files in them.
We've also seen it with people who had Fitbit installed: their drivers crashed constantly on later OS versions and filled their folder with crash logs.
Today, we've found a new case. A user with Sequoia 15.4.1 on Intel, completely up to date, reported SuperDuper was running slowly. Our new trace capability showed quite clearly that the folder we were working on was
~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/database/search/Spotlight/SpotlightKnowledgeEvents/index.V2/journals/12/cs_default
And that's a folder I don't have. When the user navigated to it at first, he said it was "empty"...which was weird. But later, he noticed that there was a spinner at the bottom of the Finder window. I asked him to wait, and >24 hours later, he finally got a list of files.
6,166,838 of them.
That's right. 6,166,838 files. Generated by Spotlight. In one folder. Growing daily.
So, the new "WTFIH" feature, in introduced in v3.10, is proving useful. What's going on with that user's Spotlight, though... yikes.
Back to Beta
This first Beta version is primarily focused on Tahoe compatibility. Things are looking good, and bootable backups work as expected.
Of course, we've been polishing and improving a number of things over the past few months as well.
For example, we added the number of files being deleted from the destination to the "runtime statistics" in the Status View. Of course, we've always know that we were "deleting files" (after all, that's part of a Smart Update when files are removed from the source), but left it out of the stats so we didn't panic users.
We've added it in (for now) to see how people react. It's useful in that deletion is a (surprisingly) slow operation, and if we're deleting a folder of stuff, it may look like SuperDuper is "stuck" when it's not.
This new count allow users to see that something is happening...and hopefully they won't think it's something scary.
Window (?) Menu
We also made another change that we've been resisting for some time, but actually makes sense.
The Window menu has a Show Log command that was designed to show the logs for the current copy window (i.e. the "Main Window"). That's easy enough.
But when the Scheduled Copies window is active, each schedule (and you can have any number of them) has its own log, and it always felt like you weren't getting the "log for the window", but rather the log "for the selected copy", and so there's a Show Log that operates on the selection...as opposed to the window.
People, though, would often use Window > Show Log, the "wrong" log would come up (from the main window), and get confused.
So, now, it brings up the log for the main window, if it's in front, or the selected schedule, if that's in front.
I think that meets user expectations better, even if it's a bit conceptually weird.
Liquid (Gl)ass
There are obviously a kajillion (= 100 bazillion) changes in Tahoe, and the most visible one is the new Liquid Glass theme.
You may notice that SuperDuper does not implement it.
There are some controls in SuperDuper (such as the Copy Now button with the snapshot selector) that don't render well in the new, ass-ified theme. Apple's own use of a similar control (the PDF selector in the Print menu) looks better when it's not the default button (because the blobs aren't weird and oversized), but you can see things going wrong when you click on the pop-up, where the highlight exceeds the button size, has a "waist", etc. Blergh.
We're trying to find a solution, but until then, enjoy the fact that your window has more space for content that isn't covered up by weird translucent blobs.
I guess I have opinions about Liquid (Gl)ass...
Waking the Neighbors Redux
Another thing we've found during the Developer Beta period is that scheduled copies will sometimes bring up the main window, start the backup, but never be able to launch the actual copy process.
This seems to have to do with "Dark Wake": if the system is in, basically, "Power Nap" and is running dark processes, and SuperDuper starts, we're unable to run properly/completely, because the system doesn't transition out of Dark Wake, and there are special requirements and entitlements needed to run in that mode.
As a workaround, SuperDuper will turn on the screen, if it's off-but-awake...until we find a better solution.
More to Come
That's part of what we've been working on, with more to come. And I'll have more to say about that as the summer winds on...but until then
Enjoy, and let us know if you have any problems, suggestions, issues, or just want to say hi.
