Mounting problems

[jrdub]

I'm on Leopard, using 2.5, which worked great for a time. It's scheduled to do an overnight backup. Lately, when I get to the computer in the morning there is an error screen with red writing indicating that the backup failed and it couldn't find one or more of my drives. However, all drives are properly mounted in finder and I can browse them fine. In fact, the drive I'm using is my Time Machine drive and TM runs hourly backups on it no problem. Here's the output from Console (all messages):

2/22/08 12:57:20 PM SuperDuper![8164] Exception raised during posting of notification. Ignored. exception: 'Unable to retrieve volume information' invoked observer method: '*** -[MainController handleSettingsLoadNotification:]' observer: 0x8511d0 notification name: 'SDSettingsLoadNofication'
2/22/08 12:57:21 PM SuperDuper![8164] Exception raised during posting of notification. Ignored. exception: 'Unable to retrieve volume information' invoked observer method: '*** -[MainController applicationDidFinishLaunching:]' observer: 0x8511d0 notification name: 'NSApplicationDidFinishLaunchingNotification'
2/22/08 12:57:33 PM SuperDuper![8164] LOGGED EXCEPTION: FSGetVolumeInfo failed., reason: Unable to retrieve volume information, userInfo: (null)

2/22/08 12:57:33 PM SuperDuper![8164] Unable to retrieve volume information

I uninstalled SD today using AppZapper which got the preferences and other related files. I reinstalled 2.5, re-registered it and it won't see any of my drives. All drive selections options are greyed out because it can't see any drives on my computer. I've found in the past this is remedied by a reboot but obviously that's not acceptable when I'm trying to run automatic scripts.

Thanks for any help you can provide! I really enjoy 2.5's features with TimeMachine integration.

[dnanian]

Hm. Delete the "SuperDuper!" folder in Library/Application Support, then run

crontab -r

in Terminal. Then, try running again and see if that fixes it.

[jrdub]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Hm. Delete the "SuperDuper!" folder in Library/Application Support, then run

crontab -r

in Terminal. Then, try running again and see if that fixes it.

Well, tried it, but to no avail. Still grayed out options for drives in main screen. Then when I try to schedule something it lists the scheduled copy as "Erase (null), then copy files from (null)" even though both drive selections in the main screen say "Macintosh HD".

For what it's worth, I recently changed the external drive from a FW to a USB connection. Same drive, just different way of connecting. But, like I said, TM has no problems running its backups hourly on the drive.

[dnanian]

Well, given what you've said above, it sounds like -- for some reason -- the code that returns the names of your drives is not working properly. Have you restarted your Mac?

[jrdub]

No, that's always just been a temporary solution. It inevitably happens again, usually a day or two later. Should I?

[dnanian]

If it works, and then your system eventually begins to fail, there's something wrong in your system/os/etc. The calls that are returning these values (from the OS) are failing to return legitimate values...

[jrdub]

Hmmmm, that's what I was afraid of. Perhaps it's time to do a clean reinstall of Leopard and use Migration Assistant to restore my apps and such. I've had other little quirky things happening too. Damn, that's a huge task. Thanks for your help, though. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know, otherwise.... off to the dungeon.

[dnanian]

You might want to try running in Safe Mode and see if that helps... but I don't know how long it takes for these failure symptoms ot show up...

[jrdub]

Well, like I said, usually a day or two. But safe mode would hamper other operations I've got going. That's alright. Thanks, though, for all the help. It's good to have clearer idea of what's wrong.