Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2010 17:34
Posts: 4

Tuxera NTFS and error code -36

Hello,
I just bought Tuxera NTFS for Mac. Unfortunately everytime I try to copy something from the drive to the disk it says:
'The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “backups” can’t be read or written.
(Error code -36)'
Tried to copy the same data to another drive formted with FAT and it works fine. Tried to copy it to another drive formated NTFS and it does not work, so the problem isn't the drive itself nor the source data.
I have MacOSX Snow Leopard and I'm trying to copy it to a 300Gb NTFS drive on my WD external device.
Thanks.
Kind regards,
Joao Aroso

Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 09:24
Posts: 530

Re: Tuxera NTFS and error code -36

Hi Joao,
First some initial questions:
Which version of Tuxera NTFS for Mac are you using? 2009.10 or 2009.12-RC?
The way I understand it, you're getting this error when copying from a non-NTFS drive to an NTFS drive mounted with Tuxera NTFS for Mac. (Check that it's mounted by Tuxera NTFS by choosing 'Get info' in the Finder with the affected NTFS volume selected.)
Do you get this error message right away, or does it happen some time into the file copy?
And could you just confirm that you're able to reproduce the problem with two different NTFS drives, thus ruling out hardware error?
Could you send me a file listing of the files that you're trying to copy? You can generate such a list easily by starting the Terminal (Applications->Utilities->Terminal) and typing ..with source_directory replaced by the location of the 'backups' folder that you're trying to copy to the NTFS drive.
This will create a file called listing.txt in your current directory containing the file list.
If you don't want to post it in public, then please send it to the support email address mentioned in your purchase confirmation email.
Regards,
- Erik

Hi,
I'm using the stable version not RC.
Yes, I'm trying to copy from Journaled to NTFS mounted with Tuxera (i hope. How do I check if it is mounted with Tuxera)? On the format it says Windows NT Filesystem (Tuxera NTFS) but on the system preferences in the Tuxera icon it doesn't appea on the list of tuxera mounted drives.
It's right away, it does not start transfering.
Yes I'm able to reproduce the error in several NTFS drives.
The listings .txt is huge, but I tried wih another simple forlder containing only .avi files (my Movies folder) and it is the same.
Kind regards,
Joao Aroso

This is why most people don't buy software. Where is the support service?

Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 09:24
Posts: 530

Re: Tuxera NTFS and error code -36

Hi,

The most reliable way to check this is to type the following in the Terminal:This will list all mounted file systems and their types. If a filesystem is mounted with Tuxera NTFS for Mac, its typename will be 'fusefs_txantfs'.

What I'm trying to get at is whether you have any 'unusual' characters in the filenames.
Are you unable to copy even the smallest, simplest files to the volume?

Sorry about not replying faster.
If you look in the confirmation email that you got sent to you when you bought the software, you'll find a priority support email address.
This forum is for public use, and when we must make priorities we'll first deal with the issues reported to the priority support email address.
Regards,
- Erik

Well I appologize for the comment above, didn't realize there was a support e-mail.
I'll try the support e-mail to continue this conversation, I believe it's better.
I do not have the drive right now, I'm at home, tomorrow I'll try the command mount on the terminal to check that.
Thank you.
Kind regards,
Joao Aroso

I have the same problem, it seems. I have very many files originally generated under win xp sp3/ntfs. Upon switching to MacOs 10.6.2 I transferred all these files onto the Mac (10.6.2/Mac OS Extended (Journaled)), i.e the default file system. Since all of these files run equally well under both xp and Mac OS I kept my old directory structure by and large and continued to work under Mac OS, i.e. both generating new files in these directories and editing old ones. Since I wished to maintain the possibility to work under xp, I kept my old bootcamp partition for xp and also proceeded to install Parallels 5.0. Shortly after I realized that it would be desirable to access ntfs partitions, especially on external USB drives, from Mac OS, and so I installed Tuxera 2009.10.
So the fate my files had was 1) xp/ntfs then transfer 2) to mac OS extended journaled then 3) occasionally again access via (bootcamp) xp or 4) occasionally via Parallels xp and, finally, 5) occasionally via mac OS Tuxera ntfs.
Now, recursive copying of some of those directories does not work any longer, I get the error message 'This operation couldn't be completed since some data in <directory name> could not be read or written (error: -36)'. However, upon manually transferring these files by entering the troubled directory and cmd-A -- copy, the files do get copied, it just ist very boring and time consuming and certainly not ok this way.
Directories showing this behaviour inevitably are those where files under MacOS later on were written into/edited under, those having been transferred from xp onto the Mac but never touched since behave properly.
I noticed that under win xp (I still put my Mac OS back ups onto external Tuxera ntfs drives) all these directories are marked as (partially) protected. Upon removing this protection recursively the operation is carried out right away and without any errors, but upon rereading those directories, the protection is again there.
The 'rights' under xp, btw, are absolutely unrestrictive, sort of 'everybody can do everything'.
If Mac OS gets into ntfs partitions it leaves invisible files, only visible under xp: .Trashes, ._.Trashes, .DS_Store etc. Occasionally, I remember having deleted these files under xp, apparently to no effect.
By manually copying 'resistant' directories as outlined above, however, both under xp and under Mac OS, these '.files' are not included, to the best of my knowledge.
So either the information written into these files or some Unix/Windows incompatible file management must be the reason for this rather inconvenient behaviour.
Backing up all these via Time machine apparently works, btw.
Recently, I lost one entire directory, but I am not sure whether I did it myself and erroneously or whether it was lost for another reason, e.g. by loss during back up. Although I cannot imagine having deleted it by purpose, I also can't imagine Mac OS behaving THAT bad.
I should like to note also that one of my external drives (Tuxera ntfs) upon hooking it up to xp suddenly showed up as 'empty' (it would refuse to show deleted files with freeundelete or such), after having recovered from panic I hooked the very same drive up to Mac OS - and all my treasured files were there again.
So there ARE problems and I hope these informations help to resolve them.
Kind regards
Siggi Engelbrecht

Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 09:24
Posts: 530

Re: Tuxera NTFS and error code -36

To close this thread, we have solved this issue separately through an email conversation.
The problem was with AppleDouble files (prefixed with '._') existing in the set of files to be copied. These files have a special meaning on non-Apple filesystems as bearers of Apple-specific metadata, and currently the driver doesn't allow them to be explicitly copied to the NTFS partition. They shouldn't normally exist on HFS+ filesystems.
These files are normally hidden in Finder, so to manipulate them you would need to either enable the display of hidden files in Finder (TinkerTool can help you with this), or do the file manipulation through the command line (Applications->Utilities->Terminal).
If you have a lot of these '._' files in directories that you wish to copy over to an NTFS volume, please use the command line utility dot_clean to move the metadata into the correct place (extended attributes).
For dot_clean usage information, type the following command in the Terminal:

We are working to elminiate this restriction in the future, although you should still run dot_clean to merge the stray metadata files with the filesystem metadata, or there will be two possibly conflicting sources of Mac metadata for these files.

..having the same problem- 'ERROR CODE -36!!!..some data in the ' could not be read or written'..Trying to copy large folder of video files to PC Passport drive (391GB). I downloaded tinkertool and cannot see any hidden '.' files. The only 'hidden file I see is the .DS_Store file.
Just paid $30+ for this software and am dissapointed that I still have to download additional software or access additional code to solve what appears to be a VERY common issue with transferring files from Mac to PC.
Still stuck. Any solutions?

Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 09:24
Posts: 530

Re: Tuxera NTFS and error code -36

Hi,

Please contact our customer support email for priority support. See your confirmation email (the one containing your product key) for the customer support email address.
Regards,
- Erik

Hi out there,
at least in my case
dot_clean /Volumes/users/<my username> -v -m (or similar)
worked perfectly ok, just as suggested by the very supportive Tuxera people. You might want to be more restrictive about recursive directory clean-ups than I was, but I really don't have problems under Mac OS 10.6.2 and I don't have problems backing up my files and dirs cross platform onto Tuxera NTFS formatted hd's. I do not know about that tinker tool but I believe that the Apple provided tool 'dot_clean' is pretty good for that job. Check out the man pages under 10.6.2 in the terminal window in order to see further possibilities.
Siggi Engelbrecht

FYI this isn't a Tuxera issue. Try to copy the ._ files using MacOS to a FAT drive and that fails too.

I am having the same problem. I ran dot_clean on the source drive both with and without flags and it still doesn't help. OS is 10.6.2 and NTFS-3G is 2010.1.16.
I should note that doing a cp -R in Terminal seems to work but the problem still persists in Finder.

Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 09:24
Posts: 530

Re: Tuxera NTFS and error code -36

Do these files copy fine over to a FAT-formatted volume?
You don't need a physical hard disk to test this.. instead you can create a FAT-formatted disk image in 'Disk Utility'.
You should also, as always, make sure that there are no file system problems that are causing this behaviour.. chkdsk in Windows is the best tool to scan for and fix any problems with the file system.
See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265
Regards,
- Erik

I get the same error, when copying from external usb NTFS drive to my MBP. The file I want to copy is 30GB in size and created by an XP machine. I'm also using the January version of NTFS-3G on Snow Leopard 10.6.3. Let's see if the error remains after upgrading to 10.6.4, which I'm going to do today.
dot_clean doesn't help in this case, I suppose.
--
Ove S.

Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 09:24
Posts: 530

Re: Tuxera NTFS and error code -36

No, that seems like a completely different issue. Please start a new thread about it if you keep having problems with this after the update.
(Appending new problems to old threads is not a good thing when people want to search for solutions for their specific problem. It's harder to find relevant information.)
Regards,
- Erik

Error -36 has been around since the first version of OS X and can occur with any drive format, not just NTFS. Typically it is caused by unaccepted file names. For example, a file called 'Star Wuz (remake).AVI' would likely fail because of the () characters in the file name. When you try to copy a hundred files at one pop only to get stopped by the error, you will do well to try half of them, and if no error, try half of the remaining half. By this method, you will quickly force the badly named files into a corner. You can also search for ( in the folder using Finder / Spotlight. No guarantee parentheses are the cause, but they are often used in movie names.
There are different lists of acceptable file name characters for UNIX and Windows. I just stick to letters, numerals, underscores, dashes, and spaces. Dots are usually OK, but I hate to use them myself, since the extension already needs a dot.

Hey, where's the 'Edit' button for this forum? OK, new post.
Those files that appear hidden in Windows (if you have chosen to set Windows to reveal hidden files) after copying files from a Mac OS system are not actually hidden in the Finder. They don't exist as separate files in OS X. They are resource forks of files. Mac OS is a multi-fork capable operating system, although this implementation is less used now than in years past. They do not have any special meaning for most non-Apple computers. They are created as separate files when shared with a Windows computer. Some use is made of them on a Windows server that is setup to share files with Macs. Their use is not related to the file system. It is related to the file. They cannot be used in the UNIX File System, but not one Apple computer in a million uses the UFS. They are a part of the single file, not a separate file in Mac OS. Special editing software can change the resources of a resource fork. This was how applications for Mac OS could be customized out the wazoo by those of us handy with an app called ResEdit.
The .DS_Store file is not a resource fork as such. It is a hidden file for custom attributes of a folder. Every folder that has been touched by the Mac Finder has a .DS_Store file.

Error -36 happen with versions earlier than 7 of Paragon's NTFS for Mac and with Snow Leopards inbuilt NTFS driver after activating write support. In these cases the error appears sporadically (at different times and files) when copying many (small) files to a NTFS volume.
I did not experience that with neither Tuxera nor Paragon v7/8 anymore.
Problem with that error is that it seems to appear with all kinds of things and doesn't really help much to find the real culprit.