Since updgrading to Tiger we have encountered a very serious, bizzare problem with Finder. Hopefully someone else has encountered this and knows what to do. We are currently at 10.4.3 but this problem started with earlier versions.
Under unknown circumstances Finder gets into a mode that loses files. If a user tries to copy or duplicate a file, the file is erased. It is not moved to the trash, it is just gone. Further, the most common manifestation of this problem is associated with the Addressbook. The Addressbook.data file, unbeknownst to the user, apparently gets deleted and then recreated empty. All the user sees is that all their addresses are gone. If I rename the 'beforesave' file (which is in tact at that point) to 'data' from Finder the file is erased. What I do instead is use a terminal session to rename the file and that works fine.
However, that is not the only manifestation but the other is more rare. That is when users try to manipulate files using Finder the files start dissappearing. Clearly this is a Finder problem. Does anyone have any clues? TIA.