Rules only apply half the time

I'm wondering if you guys could help me out here. I recently purchased Hazel and have been creating rules, one of which watches my Downloads folder and moves files that contain a certain string in the name to another folder. The rule works sometimes, but often it just doesn't work. Has anyone else had this problem, and know what might be causing it? Thanks in advance.

When you do a Preview of your rules, do they match the files like how you'd expect? If so, then check the logs ("Info"->"View Log") and see if there was an error in the move.

Also, if you post a description of the actual rule here I can see if there's anything amiss in the logic.

When looking at the preview, all of the files match the correct rule. In fact, if I go to the Hazel menu bar item and apply rules on the Downloads folder, it works perfectly. I think something's wrong with the folder watcher agent. When I check the logs after a fail, I see absolutely nothing written for that instance.

Could you post a description of the rules and specific details on how they are not working? Thanks.

Sure. Here is the rule:

Sometimes, when I download a lecture (say, week2.pdf), the rule applies correctly.

Other times, the file will simply stay on the desktop and not move. If, however, I run the rule manually on Desktop from the menubar, the file does indeed move to the folder.

When this happens, I get error messages in the log such as these from this excerpt:

2008-06-08 16:30:31.015 (null)[0] File week2.pdf is busy. Skipping for now.
2008-06-08 16:30:45.030 hazelfolderwatch[13141] File .DS_Store is busy. Skipping for now.
2008-06-08 16:30:45.032 hazelfolderwatch[13141] File week2.pdf is busy. Skipping for now.
2008-06-08 16:30:53.036 hazelfolderwatch[13141] File .DS_Store is busy. Skipping for now.

Is this a common problem?

Look like a timing issue. If Hazel scans too soon after you've downloaded a file then it considers it busy. Otherwise the rule processes it normally.

The "(null)[0]" in this message seems unusual:

2008-06-08 16:30:31.015 (null)[0] File week2.pdf is busy. Skipping for now.

… compared to:

2008-06-08 16:30:45.032 hazelfolderwatch[13141] File week2.pdf is busy. Skipping for now.

Hazel logs "File .DS_Store is busy. Skipping for now." messages here fairly often without causing any noticeable problems for the rule that triggers them. When I seen it with files other than .DS_Store (e.g. week2.pdf in your example) usually indicates the rule hasn't been properly processed.

Does this mean then that I wasted my money on Hazel? After all, apparently the application does not work as advertised. I'm not sure why this problem would affect my machine but not be a common problem for users. Any suggestions?

Do you continually get the busy message on the pdf file or does it stop after some time? If it keeps happening without end then either some program is either keeping that file open or set the busy flag on the file without unsetting it when it was done with it.

If the file becomes "unbusy" at some point, then check out the sticky thread here on how to turn on debug mode. This will produce more output to see what is (or is not) happening. Post or email me what you find there.

Thanks.