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MobileMe Sync Issue

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.

12 Responses to "MobileMe Sync Issue"

  1. 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.

    1. [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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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!

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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 🙂

  7. 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.

  8. 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

    1. Click "Advanced…" in the "Sync" tab of the MobileMe preference pane. Select your computer and click "Stop Syncing Computer…" or whatever it says.

  9. [...] few days ago I wrote about a MobileMe Sync issue under Snow Leopard. Ever since trying to troubleshoot that issue - knock on wood - things have been operating smoothly [...]

  10. [...] Here’s another case of a similar issue…Except that he’s had high CPU use, and a st.... [...]