syncing ~/Library manually. no login / logout sync.

[yagmot]

we have a somewhat slow network, and we are trying to eliminate the the automatic login/logout sync and put the onus on the user to sync manually. i am able to sync everything but the ~/Library folder correctly, so for testing purposes i created a test group and test users to work out the problem.

the only thing i am trying to sync right now is the ~/Library folder with no exclusions (since some are already hard coded). i’ve added the managedclient.app in WGM to get all the nice manifests and am editing the preferences that way. all of these settings are set in the Always occurrence.

the server is leopard server 10.5.7 which has been upgraded from previous versions (i’m not sure how far back it goes, it was this way before i came in.) all of the computers (macbooks) i’m using have been re-imaged with our latest 10.5.7 image.

though it is probably not necessary, any time i make any changes to settings in WGM i have been doing the following to make sure everything is clean: delete the user’s home folder on the network. delete the user’s account and managed preferences folder locally.

at first i tried to sync ~/Library in the background. here are home sync settings in WGM:

background sync: false
background exclusions: empty
background items: ~/Library
login / logout exclusions: empty
login / logout items: empty
override background, login / logout: true
sync background, login / logout: don’t sync
sync prefs during sync home now: sync
sync prefs in background: don’t sync

log in, make changes to desktop background, appearance, create a new document etc. log out, log in again to confirm no login/logout sync. press sync home now. sync dialog says “there is nothing to sync.” changing sync prefs in background to ‘sync’ produces the same result.

that didn’t work so i set login/logout items to include ~/Library but not to sync automatically. again, here are home sync settings in WGM:

background sync: false
background exclusions: empty
background items: empty
login / logout exclusions: empty
login / logout items: ~/Library
override background, login / logout: true
sync background, login / logout: don’t sync
sync prefs during sync home now: sync
sync prefs in background: don’t sync

log in, make changes to desktop background, appearance, create a new document etc. log out, log in again to confirm no login/logout sync. press sync home now. sync happens properly.

open a finder window and navigate to the users home folder on the network to confirm changes. library folder has synced properly.

logout. login again. create new folder called ~/Library/Application Support/!someNewFolder and copy some files to it. press sync home now. sync dialog pops up then goes away quickly and i am presented with a dialog that says “preference files in your network home may have changed since your last sync. you must log out to fully synchronize these preferences.”

looking at the verbose fileSync log shows that the exclusion / inclusion list has not changed, and that “Library” is not in the exclusion list, but below where it starts the full scan, is shows “Library/” as a “flagged directory” and my !someNewFolder shows up in the scan. before i logout, i have a look at the home sync preferences, and no folders are checked. so log out as suggested.

after i login again, i look at the home folder on the network and notice that the new folder i created is not there. if i try to sync, the sync dialog says: “there is nothing to sync.” again, when i open the home sync preferences, no folders are checked.

i’ve repeated this same procedure 4-5 times and had the same result. some times it takes 2 syncs to break, some times 4-5; it varies. but it does always break.

i wanted to confirm whether or not this issue is specific to this computer or or a problem with the account. so i log out of this machine and log in as the same user on another machine (users are NOT allowed concurrent logins,) and everything syncs just fine there. i make some changes, sync, check the home folder on the server and everything looks good. log out and in again, doing this 2-3 times and then it just stops syncing. no “nothing to sync” dialog, but it starts and finishes very quickly. checking the verbose log, the exclusion / inclusion list looks the same. but this time under full scan, there is nothing.

doing the same procedure as above on another computer gives the same result. trying a different account gives the same result. deleting the users ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.homeSync.plist brings back the sync dialog, but none of the changes made to the ~/Library locally or on the user’s network home folder are synced. removing the user’s ~/.filesync file and ~/Library/FileSync folder makes no difference.

any idea what’s going on here? am i doing something really stupid?

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