Yosemite - Hazel not automatically running rules

Hello,

I was using my rules perfectly under Mountain Lion. Thought I would upgrade to Yosemite.

Now, Hazel doesn't automatically run rules when a file is dropped in the folder, I have to force it to run.

Is there a problem with Hazel and Yosemite?

Any workaround would be appreciated!

Can you provide more details? What kind of rules are you running? Any details about the folder Hazel is monitoring?

I think I have solved my issue.

Prior to moving to Yosemite, my watched folder was Dropbox. Since going to Yosemite, Hazel does not automatically fire on the Dropbox folder. I had to work off my user folder instead. Same rules, different folder seems to work perfectly. I guess that Yosemite treats Dropbox differently?

Dropbox can be a bit screwy, especially if it is a special folder like a shared one. In such cases, it will suppress file events that apps like Hazel rely on.

I just found this thread after experiencing the same problem with Yosemite, Hazel, and Dropbox folders. Is there any hope of updating Hazel to fix this? Cleaning out dropbox folders (particular shared ones) is actually my primary usage of Hazel, so it's quite frustrating that it's no longer working.

It's up to Dropbox to not suppress the file events. The best Hazel can do is somehow detect it and then run every few minutes to compensate for the lack of file events but at the end of the day, it's Dropbox that needs to play better with others.

Mr_Noodle wrote:It's up to Dropbox to not suppress the file events. The best Hazel can do is somehow detect it and then run every few minutes to compensate for the lack of file events but at the end of the day, it's Dropbox that needs to play better with others.

Hm, I'm wondering if there's a good way for us to express this to Dropbox in a way that they'll be interested in working on the problem. I understand how this isn't ultimately a bug in Hazel, but if it ends up being a problem with Dropbox that mostly expresses itself when used with Hazel, users are going to end up unfairly blaming you. It might lend more weight to the complaint with Dropbox if it came from a developer like yourself rather than a random user, who might be easy to dismiss as not really understanding how things work.

I've emailed them before about other issues but they've been ignored. If I ever manage to bend the ear of one of their OS X engineers, trust me, I'll have a lot to discuss.

Mr_Noodle wrote:I've emailed them before about other issues but they've been ignored. If I ever manage to bend the ear of one of their OS X engineers, trust me, I'll have a lot to discuss.

Yikes. Well, good luck! For what it's worth, I'll try sending them a note expressing my frustration.

I ran into this issue, and figured out a workaround that seems to work consistently for me:

Create a folder outside Dropbox, then symlink it into your Dropbox:

Code: Select all: $ ln -s ~/path/to/folder/outside/dropbox ~/Dropbox/destination/path

Hazel rules configured on the source folder will properly trigger when changes happen from Dropbox, which will properly sync via the symlink.

I hope that helps anyone that runs into this issue!

segfault wrote:I ran into this issue, and figured out a workaround that seems to work consistently for me:

Create a folder outside Dropbox, then symlink it into your Dropbox:

Code: Select all
$ ln -s ~/path/to/folder/outside/dropbox ~/Dropbox/destination/path

Hazel rules configured on the source folder will properly trigger when changes happen from Dropbox, which will properly sync via the symlink.

I hope that helps anyone that runs into this issue!

Neat, I'll have to try that out.

segfault wrote:I ran into this issue, and figured out a workaround that seems to work consistently for me:

Create a folder outside Dropbox, then symlink it into your Dropbox:

Code: Select all
$ ln -s ~/path/to/folder/outside/dropbox ~/Dropbox/destination/path

Hazel rules configured on the source folder will properly trigger when changes happen from Dropbox, which will properly sync via the symlink.

I hope that helps anyone that runs into this issue!

Hm, having a little trouble with this, probably because my unix-fu is weak. Let's say I have a folder in Dropbox called "Shared" that I am sharing with a number of Dropbox users, but I want to configure Hazel to run some rules on files in that directory on my machine. As I understand it, I create a directory outside Dropbox -- let's call it "HazelShared" -- and then link that to "Shared"? When I try to create the symlink as you described, I just end up with a file inside "Shared" which links to "HazelShared", rather than a pair of linked folders. Am I doing something stupid?

You need to move the Shared folder out of Dropbox folder then rename it to HazelShared.
The link/alias you create within Dropbox will replace the Shared folder.

Since Dropbox does strange things, you can't use the ~/ shortcut in the link command. I've only had success with this trick by using the full path.

So in your case, guessing your username is 'ymatto', the command would be

Code: Select all: ls -s /Users/ymatto/Dropbox/Shared/ /Users/ymatto/path/to/HazelShared

You will know if it worked properly or not by the icon of the alias within the Dropbox folder. If it looks like a folder with the alias arrow, it is correct. If it shows a blank document icon with the alias arrow, the link is invalid.

Smudge wrote:You need to move the Shared folder out of Dropbox folder then rename it to HazelShared.
The link/alias you create within Dropbox will replace the Shared folder.

Since Dropbox does strange things, you can't use the ~/ shortcut in the link command. I've only had success with this trick by using the full path.

So in your case, guessing your username is 'ymatto', the command would be
Code: Select all
ls -s /Users/ymatto/Dropbox/Shared/ /Users/ymatto/path/to/HazelShared

You will know if it worked properly or not by the icon of the alias within the Dropbox folder. If it looks like a folder with the alias arrow, it is correct. If it shows a blank document icon with the alias arrow, the link is invalid.

Ah okay, I got it. By the way, I think you meant "ln" instead of "ls" -- and I think you reversed the order of your arguments. Doing that got it working.

ah, yes you are correct. The proper command if anyone else needs it would be

Code: Select all: ln -s /Users/ymatto/path/to/HazelShared /Users/ymatto/Dropbox/Shared/