MobileMe Sync Issue
Posted September 1st, 2009 @ 03:04pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Since upgrading to Snow Leopard, MobileMe syncs take a really, really, really long time.
95% of the time I'd check it would be syncing the preferences. I reset my prefs, having this computer over-write the cloud for just the preferences, and Console tells me this about 10 or 12 times:
9/1/09 2:37:57 pm PreferenceSyncClient[6047] Preference plist was NOT a dictionary.
9/1/09 2:37:57 pm com.apple.syncservices.SyncServer[5781] 2009-09-01 14:37:57.729 PreferenceSyncClient[6047:903] Preference plist was NOT a dictionary.
Then it tells me this:
9/1/09 2:57:28 pm mobilemesyncclient[6046] UNLOCK /Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Schemas/ (FAILED), httpStatusCode:-1, errorType:100 (domain=DMGeneralErrorDomain, code=100), transactionState:5, txnId:6DBBA8BD-xxxx-4CEA-xxxx-94Axxxx0612D, auto-retries=0, manual-retries=0
I have no "SyncServices folder in /Library/App Support/ and I have no "Schemas" folder in ~/Library/App Support/SyncServices/.
As of now, the menu bar sync spinner has stopped spinning but the MobileMe pref pane still says I'm syncing. The spinning gadget is still right there next to "Preferences."
From yesterday, when I ran top:
COMMAND %CPU RSIZE VSIZE STATE FAULTS PAGEINS mobilemesyncclie 0.5 38M+ 2456M- stuck 10420+ 44 SyncServer 0.0 9568K 2435M sleeping 28729 10 SyncDiagnostics 0.3 21M 2744M sleeping 7806 104 mobilemesyncclie 0.3 686M+ 5724M sleeping 1885632+ 242216+ mobilemesyncclie 3.1 144M+ 5736M sleeping 1950470+ 281751+ mobilemesyncclie 0.9 140M+ 5690M sleeping 1968433+ 291724+
Clearly that's a problem.
I'll see how things go and will add to this report as I find things out.
Donate Life
Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 3:36pm #
Well, it's an improvement, because in Leopard, it takes a really, really, really, really long time 😉
Seriously, this thing should be fixed, it's been bad for years, either taking way too long, bringing the CPU to its knees or usually both.
Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 8:09pm #
[quote comment="55225"]Seriously, this thing should be fixed, it's been bad for years, either taking way too long, bringing the CPU to its knees or usually both.[/quote]
Yeah. It's also not just a CPU issue, but all the paging that seems to be caused makes disk operations bad. Movies stutter and the computer feels like I'm trying to run Windows 95 on a 386 or something.
Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 4:19pm #
I'm seeing the same log message about the preference plist not being a dictionary. I'm not getting any MobileMe sync errors or seeing high CPU though.
Post an update if you find what's causing the plist errors - my anal side would love to clear these from the log.
Posted 02 Sep 2009 at 9:47pm #
I had to disable preference syncing on Snow Leopard due to all these problems (it never seemed to end, even if I left it for ages). Please let me know if you find a fix!
Posted 03 Sep 2009 at 2:28am #
I don't know about the schema problem, but as for the complaints about plists not being dictionaries, the most straightforward solution I found was to... delete all the plists in /Preferences that were not dictionaries at the top level.
In my case they were mostly old applications - I didn't even recognize most of the identifiers. The exception was Ecto, which uses an array at the top level instead of a dictionary in its plist. Go figure.
Posted 04 Sep 2009 at 1:57pm #
I am having the exact same problem on Snow Leopard. No high CPU load, no syncing problems, but it takes an excessive time and never seems to stop. Same error message in the log.
Posted 07 Sep 2009 at 2:38am #
Same here:
Preferences and Yojimbo Items (which uses MobileMe to sync) both takes minutes to sync (sometimes more than 30 mins), and I have observed the same behavior regarding the spinning sync icon in the menu bar: sometimes it does not reflect the actual sync state, and the MobileMe preferences window gives a different information.
I also have the same messages in the console, but I'm not sure this is reason why it's taking so much time.
Very annoying, cause SL was meant to speed things up 🙂
Posted 07 Sep 2009 at 8:31am #
I have solved the issue for me by re-registering my Mac under a different, new name, rebooting and then enabling and syncing each of the MobileMe items individually while watching the console output.
No error messages anymore and syncing is back to normal.
Posted 07 Sep 2009 at 5:31pm #
Bijan,
I'm not sure what you are saying by re-registering under a different name. The only name that I see is my MobileMe username which I can't change unless I create another MobleMe account... Can you explain? I too am having an endless sync after upgrading to Snow Leopard and would like to get rid of the spinning wheel.
Thanks!
DR
Posted 07 Sep 2009 at 5:40pm #
Click "Advanced…" in the "Sync" tab of the MobileMe preference pane. Select your computer and click "Stop Syncing Computer…" or whatever it says.
Posted 07 Sep 2009 at 5:52pm #
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Posted 19 Sep 2009 at 7:59am #
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