Only seems to partially work...

I guess I'll be the first to post a support question...

I'm evaluating Hazel and think it has a very useful potential. However, when testing it, it doesn't seem to want to apply the rules to all files matching files in the folder.

I have a rule for the Desktop folder that says if the content is Disk Image or the extension contains "dmg", move the file to a specific folder.

It worked when I downloaded BitRocket.dmg, but when I download Hazel.dmg, it doesn't do anything with it. This seems weird to me. Even when I force the rule to "Run Now" the Hazel.dmg stays.

As another test, I moved the BitRocket.dmg file from the destination folder back to the Desktop folder to try the "Run Now" on it. When I do, all the .dmg files stay.

Am I missing something here?

Odd. Not sure what is going on with the Hazel.dmg file.

As for the other test, Hazel has some code in there to detect a loop. So by putting the file back tripped the loop detection. In such a case, it will not process it for a while. This is to prevent cases where someone sets up two folders with rules moving files back and forth. This can cause a nasty infinite cycle.

As for the Hazel.dmg, email me using the form on the site. We can maybe go over some specific diagnostics. I may also have you email the Hazel.dmg as well just in case it's somehow corrupted.

Thanks.

Well, here is an odd twist. I installed it on my Mac Pro and it's working fine. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to register that a file that matched the rules was added to the folder, but it enevitably moves the file to the correct destination. The other computer is a MacBook.

Now that I know that there is a delay sometimes, I'll check the MacBook again and make sure it wasn't just me being impatient.

I'll let you know...

What kind of delay are you seeing? In the case of adding a file to a folder, if it takes more than a few seconds then something may be wrong.

Another thing is that when you edit rules, they don't actually get written out to disk until after some delay (which could be up to a minute). The "Run Rules Now" function forces the rules to get written out immediately. So, it's possible that if you set a rule that it will take a little while for the background process to see it. Once they are written out, though, Hazel should react pretty quickly to a file being added.

But yeah, let me know either way.

Thanks.

On the Mac Pro, it seemed that there was about a second or two, sometimes even 4 to 5. But not more than 5 secs for sure.

On the MacBook, I was using the "Run Rules Now" function a few times. Each attempt did nothing to the Desktop folder at all.

Hmm, I'm concerned about it not working on the MacBook. If you have the time, I'd recommend emailing me so I can drill down further into what's going on.

Thanks.

Mr_Noodle wrote:What kind of delay are you seeing? In the case of adding a file to a folder, if it takes more than a few seconds then something may be wrong.

Another thing is that when you edit rules, they don't actually get written out to disk until after some delay (which could be up to a minute). The "Run Rules Now" function forces the rules to get written out immediately. So, it's possible that if you set a rule that it will take a little while for the background process to see it. Once they are written out, though, Hazel should react pretty quickly to a file being added.

But yeah, let me know either way.

Thanks.

I'm seeing around a 4 minute delay before a file gets moved from my Dropbox folder to it's destination. This has been the case for the last few files I dropped or saved into it. I last edited the rules about an hour ago, so I think they should be written out. If I run the rules manually it moves straight away. This on a 1.33GHz G4 Powerbook and is not particularly a problem for me, but it sounds like it's longer than you think it should be.

blodwyn wrote:I'm seeing around a 4 minute delay before a file gets moved from my Dropbox folder to it's destination. This has been the case for the last few files I dropped or saved into it. I last edited the rules about an hour ago, so I think they should be written out. If I run the rules manually it moves straight away. This on a 1.33GHz G4 Powerbook and is not particularly a problem for me, but it sounds like it's longer than you think it should be.

For a file move into the folder, it should be on the scale of a few seconds. I have the same speed Powerbook and get that type of response.

I'd say launch Console and watch the messages when you drop a folder. You should see a message that it's processing it soon after you drop it. Also, let me know if you see any errors.

One last thing, do you have any rules preceding the rule that moves the file?

Mr_Noodle wrote:
blodwyn wrote:I'm seeing around a 4 minute delay before a file gets moved from my Dropbox folder to it's destination. This has been the case for the last few files I dropped or saved into it. I last edited the rules about an hour ago, so I think they should be written out. If I run the rules manually it moves straight away. This on a 1.33GHz G4 Powerbook and is not particularly a problem for me, but it sounds like it's longer than you think it should be.

For a file move into the folder, it should be on the scale of a few seconds. I have the same speed Powerbook and get that type of response.

I'd say launch Console and watch the messages when you drop a folder. You should see a message that it's processing it soon after you drop it. Also, let me know if you see any errors.

One last thing, do you have any rules preceding the rule that moves the file?

I'll watch the console as suggested. I have about 8 rules set up to move a file depending on a combination of filename and extension contents. The last 3 are generic to catch the .doc .xls and .ppt files that fall through the other rules. I haven't tested whether it makes a difference to the delay which rule triggers. I'll do a bit of characterization tomorrow and post back.

I have the same problem, this time with a rule which should move torrent files to their own directory. I have tried Name "contains" and "ends with", using "torrent", ".torrent", all to no avail.

I have also tried the rule as first last and only active rule - still nothing. The file name in question are usually fairly long, 30 or 40 characters, if that makes a differnece,

Cheers

RM

rimoff wrote:I have the same problem, this time with a rule which should move torrent files to their own directory. I have tried Name "contains" and "ends with", using "torrent", ".torrent", all to no avail.

I have also tried the rule as first last and only active rule - still nothing. The file name in question are usually fairly long, 30 or 40 characters, if that makes a differnece,

Cheers

RM

The "Name" attribute is the part of the file without the extension. You want to use either the "Extension" attribute ("Extension is torrent") or the "Full Name" ("Full Name ends with .torrent").

Let me know if that fixes it.

blodwyn wrote:
Mr_Noodle wrote:
blodwyn wrote:I'm seeing around a 4 minute delay before a file gets moved from my Dropbox folder to it's destination. This has been the case for the last few files I dropped or saved into it. I last edited the rules about an hour ago, so I think they should be written out. If I run the rules manually it moves straight away. This on a 1.33GHz G4 Powerbook and is not particularly a problem for me, but it sounds like it's longer than you think it should be.

For a file move into the folder, it should be on the scale of a few seconds. I have the same speed Powerbook and get that type of response.

I'd say launch Console and watch the messages when you drop a folder. You should see a message that it's processing it soon after you drop it. Also, let me know if you see any errors.

One last thing, do you have any rules preceding the rule that moves the file?

I'll watch the console as suggested. I have about 8 rules set up to move a file depending on a combination of filename and extension contents. The last 3 are generic to catch the .doc .xls and .ppt files that fall through the other rules. I haven't tested whether it makes a difference to the delay which rule triggers. I'll do a bit of characterization tomorrow and post back.

I've copied an extract from my console log below. Basically it takes several minutes for a file to be processed by one of my rules, whether it's the first or the last rule. According to the console log, Hazel only processes the directories every 5 minutes, so this seems reasonable, but not in line with the few seconds that you suggest.

2006-09-08 09:16:19.125 hazelfolderwatch[3055] Processing directories: ("/Users/anon/Desktop/ ")
2006-09-08 09:18:18.180 hazelfolderwatch[3057] Processing directories: ("/Users/anon/Documents/DropBox")
2006-09-08 09:18:18.355 hazelfolderwatch[3057] Excel Test 2.xls moved to /Users/anon/Documents/Excel/Excel Test 2.xls.
launchd[2329]: com.noodlesoft.Hazel.hazelfolderwatch-234881026-1169304: open("/Users/anon/Desktop/DropBox", O_EVTONLY): No such file or directory
Sep 8 09:18:21 anons-PB launchd[2329]: com.noodlesoft.Hazel.hazelfolderwatch-234881026-1169304: open("/Users/anon/Desktop/DropBox", O_EVTONLY): No such file or directory
2006-09-08 09:21:19.913 hazelfolderwatch[3061] Processing directories: ("/Users/anon/Desktop/ ")
2006-09-08 09:23:18.126 hazelfolderwatch[3062] Processing directories: ("/Users/anon/Documents/DropBox")
2006-09-08 09:23:18.233 hazelfolderwatch[3062] Hotline Roster 09-11-06.pdf moved to /Users/anon/Documents/somefolder Documents/Hotline Roster 09-11-06.pdf.
2006-09-08 09:23:18.572 hazelfolderwatch[3062] Hotline Roster 09-11-06.xls moved to /Users/anon/Documents/Operational Files/Hotline Roster 09-11-06.xls.
launchd[2329]: com.noodlesoft.Hazel.hazelfolderwatch-234881026-1169304: open("/Users/anon/Desktop/DropBox", O_EVTONLY): No such file or directory
Sep 8 09:23:21 anons-PB launchd[2329]: com.noodlesoft.Hazel.hazelfolderwatch-234881026-1169304: open("/Users/anon/Desktop/DropBox", O_EVTONLY): No such file or directory
2006-09-08 09:26:24.923 hazelfolderwatch[3071] Processing directories: ("/Users/anon/Desktop/ ")
2006-09-08 09:28:18.114 hazelfolderwatch[3074] Processing directories: ("/Users/anon/Documents/DropBox")
2006-09-08 09:28:18.334 hazelfolderwatch[3074] Quote Test.rtf moved to /Users/anon/Documents/Quotes/Quote Test.rtf.
launchd[2329]: com.noodlesoft.Hazel.hazelfolderwatch-234881026-1169304: open("/Users/anon/Desktop/DropBox", O_EVTONLY): No such file or directory
Sep 8 09:28:21 anons-PB launchd[2329]: com.noodlesoft.Hazel.hazelfolderwatch-234881026-1169304: open("/Users/anon/Desktop/DropBox", O_EVTONLY): No such file or directory

blodwyn wrote:launchd[2329]: com.noodlesoft.Hazel.hazelfolderwatch-234881026-1169304: open("/Users/anon/Desktop/DropBox", O_EVTONLY): No such file or directory
Sep 8 09:23:21 anons-PB launchd[2329]: com.noodlesoft.Hazel.hazelfolderwatch-234881026-1169304: open("/Users/anon/Desktop/DropBox", O_EVTONLY): No such file or directory

Did you have a DropBox folder on your Desktop and did you move it to Documents? If so, it might be confusing things as launchd (which is an apple process) has lost track of it. This also might be the reason that the background process is not getting triggered when you drop a file in.

Let me know if this is the case and I'll see if I can fix it in the next maintenance release.

Mr_Noodle wrote:
blodwyn wrote:launchd[2329]: com.noodlesoft.Hazel.hazelfolderwatch-234881026-1169304: open("/Users/anon/Desktop/DropBox", O_EVTONLY): No such file or directory
Sep 8 09:23:21 anons-PB launchd[2329]: com.noodlesoft.Hazel.hazelfolderwatch-234881026-1169304: open("/Users/anon/Desktop/DropBox", O_EVTONLY): No such file or directory

Did you have a DropBox folder on your Desktop and did you move it to Documents? If so, it might be confusing things as launchd (which is an apple process) has lost track of it. This also might be the reason that the background process is not getting triggered when you drop a file in.

Let me know if this is the case and I'll see if I can fix it in the next maintenance release.

Bingo! Yes I did move it. I deleted and recreated the reference to the folder in Hazel when I moved it so I thought it would be OK.

blodwyn wrote:Bingo! Yes I did move it. I deleted and recreated the reference to the folder in Hazel when I moved it so I thought it would be OK.

For now, I recommend the following:
- Select the folder in Hazel.
- Uncheck everything (all options and rules).
- Quit System Preferences.
- Restart, go into Hazel and re-enable everything.

Wait a minute for the changes to flush and then see if that fixes it.

I've been looking into a way to try and have Hazel "heal" itself in these cases but it seems that launchd has gotten a bit touchy and sometimes crashes. For now, I'd recommend the above procedure. Let me know how it works out.