Preferences for Folder Action Scripts

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

Hi all,

I’ve upgraded to Yosemite and my folder actions won’t work for my regular login. I’ve created another admin account login and it works fine there. So I’m thinking I just need to clear the preferences that might have gotten corrupt when I upgraded. Can anyone point me to the right files to remove? Or Terminal something that I should run?

I’m just dangerous enough with a little bit of scripting knowledge but no expert, so explain in small words, please. :slight_smile:

I appreciate your help greatly.

Rosie

iMac
iOSX 10.10.2

#2

Hi Rosie,

I don’t usually see posts about login and folder actions. Are you sure it is folder actions that you’re trying to find out about? Actuually, I’m thinking that they don’t mix.

Need to read your post again.

gl,
kel

#3

What you might want to do is be more specific if possible.

gl,
kel

#4

Try doing this. Create a new folder action. Connect it to the same folder. See what happens. What happens?

#5

I apologize that I wasn’t specific enough. When I’m logged in to my main admin account, I can’t get any folder actions to populate or start new or old. I right click on a folder and click “Folder Action Setup” and then click Enable Folder Actions and the beach ball spins for a long time and nothing is available to select from. I tried to manually from that window add a folder and it won’t ever select one.

So, I created a new admin account thinking that would start me with fresh prefs maybe and did the same thing there and like magic it all worked perfectly.

With that, I have to think that it’s something that is in my normal user area stopping my folder action setup from behaving correctly. (maybe that’s a wrong assumption, but figured, I’d start there.)

So with that, can you give any suggestions?

Thank you again for even trying to help me figure it out. I guess I can try to set up everything under that new user, but I am all settled in on this login and would love not to. I’m getting ready to upgrade a whole department (9 other designers) up to 10.10.2 and want to have fixes worked out for what can go wrong.

We use folder action scripts to make PDFs automatically according to presets in InDesign as well as Press PDFs for our final proofs. This would be a major stopper if folder actions became unavailable. (hopefully, it’s just a fluke with my machine)

Let me know if you need any other info to help.

Rosie

#6

Hi rosie,

I found two plist in the Preferences folder of the current user’s Library folder:

If you want to trash these, then you can try that and start over again for the one user and see if it works.

But, you might want to wait. Maybe someone else has experienced this problem.

gl,
kel

#7

Hi rosie,

And btw, if some folder actions work, but others do not for the same user, then it might be a different situation. I think that each folder action might have its own plist in a different place. So, it depends on whether all folder actions for the user aren’t working or just some folder actions aren’t working.

gl,
kkel

#8

One last thing. Note that you can create your own folder action plist. You can use the watch folder from unix I think it was. If you’re interested, there have been posts especially from DJ Bazzie Wazzie that explained this. Interesting stuff.

I think Apple’s folder actions uses that same plist.

gl,
kel

#9

Try to run this script :

set pathToPrefs to path to preferences folder as text
set pathToApps to path to applications folder as text

tell application "Finder"
	open folder pathToPrefs
	try
		set aPrefPath to pathToPrefs & "com.apple.FolderActions.plist"
		open file aPrefPath using application file id "com.apple.TextEdit"
	on error errMsg number errNbr
		log "Error # " & errNbr & ",  " & errMsg
	end try
	try
		set aPrefPath to pathToPrefs & "com.apple.FolderActionsSetup.plist"
		open file aPrefPath using application file id "com.apple.TextEdit"
	on error errMsg number errNbr
		log "Error # " & errNbr & ",  " & errMsg
	end try
end tell

If the preferences files related to Folder Actions are in good health, the two files will be opened.
If you get one or two log describing an error, you will know which preferences file is corrupted.
It will be time to trash the corrupted(s) file(s).

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 7 avril 2015 21:52:36

#10

Hi,

About the watch folder unix thing. I was thinking that this is independent of Apple’s folder actions. So, this may be the way to go.

With new oses you never know what might happen with folder actions.

Yours truly,
kel

#11

Woot!! :smiley: /doing a happy dance.

That worked. Thank you both for taking the time to help me work through this. I’m double checking that all my scripts link up correctly, but now at least I can get to them through the setup.

It was so frustrating when it would just not do anything.

Hope you both have a fantastic day. :cool:

Rosie

:slight_smile: