Lion: files disappeared

Joined
Jul 24, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I usually keep a catch-all file on my desktop. I hate a messy desktop so I throw them in there and categorize everything every once and a while. I have done this on all of my Macs since 1986.

I have a new 27" iMac, with Lion.

So I had my usual catch-all file, and then I had some "files in use" around it, in particular my freelance work.

I was working away, writing an email and downloading a packet of jpgs of 18th century Russian military paintings when I was called to dinner.

When I came back an hour later, the catch-all file had disappeared and none of its contents respond to any amount of search...but the files that were on the desktop but not in that file are fine.

1. What happened?
2. What can I do?

From the Mac help forums I have
1. made my user Library appear, and then
2. got rid of the plist desktop and plist finder and
3. then the cache.
But no change.
I can't find the files anywhere, and I have looked in the trash too in case you want to ask that. Any help you can give me I would greatly appreciate. Most of all I would like to know what happened so I can avoid this happening again.

Thanks very much ,n advance :)

Grace
 
Joined
Sep 21, 2011
Messages
726
Reaction score
28
Points
28
Location
London, Londonshire, England.
Your Mac's Specs
13" Late 2011 MBP,iPad '3' 32gb,iPhone4 32gb
Do you use Time Machine? If so you could just dig them out from there.
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
7,295
Reaction score
301
Points
83
Location
Wisconsin
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini (Late 2014) 2.6GHz Intel Core i5 Memory: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3
Look in the Trash? (no good if you emptied it after dinner)
 
OP
G
Joined
Jul 24, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I haven't set up time machine. It' s new machine and shortly after I bought it I herniated two discs in my back and just now, s,x weeks later, am able to sit up enough to really start using my computer (desktop iMac)

Yes, I checked the trash. That was the first thing I did.

Now I have discovered that all of my music is gone as well. I have it all in my ipod so technically I have not lost my music...but where has it gone!

I checked my memory
Hard Drive 999.35 capacity
847.22 Left

so then 152.13 GB is being used

What I have left is
86.93 in video
13.46 doc and PDF

So there is something like 65GB unaccounted for. I guess some of that goes for programs....does this even mean anything to anyone??
 
Joined
May 19, 2009
Messages
8,428
Reaction score
295
Points
83
Location
Waiting for a mate . . .
Your Mac's Specs
21" iMac 2.9Ghz 16GB RAM - 10.11.3, iPhone6s & iPad Air 2 - iOS 9.2.1, ATV 4Th Gen tvOS, ATV3
Try repairing permission using your install dvd and see what that brings up. Don't worry about the log files but once done restart the Mac and see if you can dig them up via Finder or Spotlight.
I really can't say i have seen or heard of such mayhem in the forums so the first or one of the first steps in trouble shooting is to repair permissions.
If you havnt made a Lion hard copy i.e.; DVD or thumb drive then just use disk utility via Applications>Utilities . .

Report back as there is a wealth of knowledge here. Might not get a great deal of response atm as its bed time here in Aust and the other side of the world its work gfor most.

PS have you rang  and talked to the Tech staff using you 90 day free phone support. They might have had others ring in with same problem. Just a thought

Cheers
 
Joined
Dec 18, 2004
Messages
12
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Cambridge, UK
Your Mac's Specs
Powerbook 12" G4 OSX10.4.3, 768mb RAM, La Cie 160gb Mini Ext HD, La Cie d2 Ext DVD Burner
I have been having a similar problem to GraciousFord, having upgraded to Lion at the end of October I have noticed that my hard-drive has randomly been freeing up space. I have only installed Lion on my late 2007 Macbook which at the time of Install had about 80gb free. After leaving the computer on one evening I noticed the next day the free space had jumped to just over 90gb and has since jumped a couple of times and is now at 109gb free. I have my iTunes library on an external drive and have all other important files on other drives. I have not yet been able to work out how the space is being created as I can't say for sure that file x or file y has disappeared.
The few folders I use have the identical files (or any extras) when compared to the Time Machine back-up carried out immediately before the Lion install.
I am just hoping that this isn't the pre-cursor to something very bad!!

Any insight would be appreciated.
Ronan
 
Joined
Dec 14, 2011
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Hey !

I come from france and I think I've kind of the same problem.
I bought my new mbpro 2 weeks ago, it's a 17" 2.5ghz and 4 gb ram.

My documents file disapeared... And I didn't make any back up, no time machine etc.

So I was working on Autocad this morning, everything worked well, I had a litlle break to eat something, and then when I came back, my documents files were gone. The only file which is still here, is the root of the file I was working on on Autocad. But everything else disappeared.

Spotlight or the finder can't find any file which where in this.
There is nothing is the trash, but some files I deleted like four days ago are still in it, which means it really has nothing to do with the trash.

I just lost four years of work in Versailles' architectural school.
I didn't have the chance to use timemachine...

I'm trying to recover lost files with a software called stellar phoenix, but I'm not sure at all it's going to work.

Here's a capture of what I see in my documents file. In , there should be L.1, L.2, L.3 et M.1... #ENSA-V was about 50 GB of work, 3d renderings, pictures, blueprints etc...

I'm desperate, I posted on a french forum, but looks like no one can help!
Looking to hear from you,

Manon


PS: I installed bootcamp windows 7 on my macbook pro and total finder. Do you think there is a chance that it could be total finder's fault? Maybe a cut without pasting would have deleted everything?

------- > screen capture
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
7,295
Reaction score
301
Points
83
Location
Wisconsin
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini (Late 2014) 2.6GHz Intel Core i5 Memory: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3
Files just don't disappear on their own when you get up from the computer for a few minutes, days, or weeks. Somebody has to tell the computer to delete files.

Did you do a cut and not a paste in TF before you left the computer to its own devices? An intelligent programmer would insure that the files remain where they were originally until the paste operation is executed.
 
Joined
Dec 14, 2011
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Thanks for your answer.
Well, I didn't cut anything without pasting it, but it's maybe a total finder's bug or something. Could it be a problem with the intern harddrive or a virus ?
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
7,295
Reaction score
301
Points
83
Location
Wisconsin
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini (Late 2014) 2.6GHz Intel Core i5 Memory: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3
Can't be a virus, as there are none that affect the Mac OS.
 
Joined
Dec 14, 2011
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I'm posting here because my problem happened again tonight... And it happened also like two weeks ago.
It's so weird. I'm sure now it's not a cut command or because of me deleting files without being aware of it.
Everytime it's happening when "autocad" is oppened, and it's deleting everything in my document folder, except the file which is opened.

So there are three possibilities :
1) it's a bug of autocad, - but I haven't heard about such troubles occuring with cad for mac so, I don't really know.
2) it's a bug coming from "total finder", but for the same reason as mentioned before I'm not sure it could be that.
3) it's due to a hard drive problem? - but can a hard drive delete all the time the same location folder without deleting the file which is opened in cad? It should be deleting other files too, no?

I'm a bit lost here, cuz it's happening almost every two weeks... Hopefully I save my files with timemachine kinda often now...

What are my options?
Should I bring it back to Apple? Will they give me a new macbook pro or change the hard drive? I'm not sure what they will do if they haven't heard such troubles with autocad for example.

+ I've to tell you, I replaced my optical drive by a ssd? (it's working really fine, and my issue happened before I changed it) so I'm not sure it'll be ok with them checking my mb pro, they could say I made a mistake while installing the ssd...?

What would you suggest?

Waiting for your answers,

Cheers from France,

Manon


PS: I've reinstalled the system - mac os x lion- on my SSD and all my others folders music, pictures, documents are on my macintosh hd - the one which is bugging-.
I've made a clean install when I installed the system, I thought it would solve the problem, but it looks like it didn't :(
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
7,295
Reaction score
301
Points
83
Location
Wisconsin
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini (Late 2014) 2.6GHz Intel Core i5 Memory: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3
I doubt it's a hardware problem, thus no replacement of parts or the entire computer would be in order. If it's a problem with AutoCad, Apple is under no obligation to do anything whatsoever.
 
Joined
Mar 10, 2012
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Points
1
We're having a similar problem in our household, and it has happened on multiple occasions - but only on one machine! We currently own 3 iMacs and 2 MacBook Pros.

One iMac and MBP are dedicated to my wife's schoolwork. After upgrading to OS X Lion, all of her documents disappeared. The folders were still there, but every document vanished. Since she had everything backed up with Time Machine, we assumed some sort of user error, or perhaps a weird iCloud problem. She restored her files and things were okay. I don't recall exactly when it happened, but it was at least 6-7 weeks ago.

She had been doing classwork Thursday evening - when she went to work on it again today (Saturday), all of her documents have disappeared again! All of her folders are still there, but the documents have vanished. The Hard Drive is showing ~80 Gb used of her 1Tb total. The computer has not been touched since Thursday night.

None of our other machines have this problem. The only difference is that she used "Secure Empty Trash" on the iMac, since it is used to store sensitive files. She DID empty the trash Thursday evening before she was done for the night.

I'm not sure if others who are having this problem (such as manon.jkl) use the Secure Trash option?
 

kjk


Joined
Apr 9, 2012
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Points
1
FILES GONE - Lion

I know Wisconsin just stated that files do not disappear before your eyes, but mine just did. I do not use Time Machine, I've been using Macs since 1990. And, I know how to use a computer.

With that all out of the way, here's what is going on:

1. I opened an AI file from last week
2. Copy/Pasted some portions into a new file
3. Saved the new file to the same folder as the original file
4. Closed AI
5. Came back minutes later to locate the file and it was NOT in the folder I saved it

I did a search on the system and NO FILE OF THAT NAME WAS FOUND. As a matter of fact it is the ONLY new file I made today. I did a search on the system and that file is not to be found. I've tried various methods of finding the file. Recent files in AI does not display the file.

What's going on Apple????????????????
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
7,295
Reaction score
301
Points
83
Location
Wisconsin
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini (Late 2014) 2.6GHz Intel Core i5 Memory: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3
What's going on Apple????????????????

Sorry to say, but the only reasonable explanation to your dilemma is user error. What you described should have worked, therefore the only conclusion to be drawn is that you didn't actually do exactly what you described. Somewhere along the way, you must not have carefully observed where the file was going to or what you named it. Since it sounds like a simple copy and paste job, you could try again to be sure you're doing it the way you've described it. And files really do not disappear on their own. It's simply not possible. It takes user input to delete a file. It also takes user input to lose a file.

I'm drawing a blank on the acronym AI at the moment. Perhaps someone who knows what that is will have some more insight.
 
Joined
May 14, 2009
Messages
2,052
Reaction score
136
Points
63
Location
Near Whitehorse, Yukon
Your Mac's Specs
2012 MBP i7 2.7 GHz 15" Matte - 16 GB RAM - 120 GB Intel SSD - 500 GB DataDoubler Mac OS 10.9
Adobe Illustrator maybe?
 
Joined
Sep 27, 2012
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I just saw this problem too.

I just saw this problem this morning.

Last night my mac was fine. This morning when I turned on the computer, a few directories had just vanished. Fortunately I have a backup. But, it's very disconcerting to see files just disappear like that. I'm a computer scientist with a lot of experience in operating systems, and I see nothing that could have happened which would have caused this ... yet.

I'm looking through the mac logs to see what clues I might glean from that and I'm going to call mac support.

It's possible that the solid state device just failed or a driver hiccupped. I don't know.

But this is definitely scary.


I usually keep a catch-all file on my desktop. I hate a messy desktop so I throw them in there and categorize everything every once and a while. I have done this on all of my Macs since 1986.

I have a new 27" iMac, with Lion.

So I had my usual catch-all file, and then I had some "files in use" around it, in particular my freelance work.

I was working away, writing an email and downloading a packet of jpgs of 18th century Russian military paintings when I was called to dinner.

When I came back an hour later, the catch-all file had disappeared and none of its contents respond to any amount of search...but the files that were on the desktop but not in that file are fine.

1. What happened?
2. What can I do?

From the Mac help forums I have
1. made my user Library appear, and then
2. got rid of the plist desktop and plist finder and
3. then the cache.
But no change.
I can't find the files anywhere, and I have looked in the trash too in case you want to ask that. Any help you can give me I would greatly appreciate. Most of all I would like to know what happened so I can avoid this happening again.

Thanks very much ,n advance :)

Grace
 
Joined
Sep 27, 2012
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Alright - I was able to recover. I was able to pull it out of backup.

I feel bad though that others have had this happen to them. It's a pretty strange sensation to have your files suddenly disappear.

Yes - as others have mentioned. There is absolutely no replacement for using time machine and other forms of backup. It's a great product, and with the cost of hard drives being as reasonable as they are, there is no reason to worry about backup.

Cheers.


I just saw this problem this morning.

Last night my mac was fine. This morning when I turned on the computer, a few directories had just vanished. Fortunately I have a backup. But, it's very disconcerting to see files just disappear like that. I'm a computer scientist with a lot of experience in operating systems, and I see nothing that could have happened which would have caused this ... yet.

I'm looking through the mac logs to see what clues I might glean from that and I'm going to call mac support.

It's possible that the solid state device just failed or a driver hiccupped. I don't know.

But this is definitely scary.
 
Joined
May 25, 2013
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Points
1
files do disappear on their own!

And files really do not disappear on their own. It's simply not possible. It takes user input to delete a file. It also takes user input to lose a file.

it happened to me this evening, I was doing some javascript coding in Sublime Text, saving my progress from time to time, until all of a sudden I got an error message from Sublime Text saying the work can't be saved. When I checked for the reason, I noticed my whole folders where I was saving the files had disappeared!! so, in contrast to the others who experienced similar problem when they were away from the computer, I was actually in front of it and definitely not doing anything that might have accidentally triggered the deletion. it is the weirdest thing that happened to me! luckily my folder was on dropbox, so I could restore it from there, but still wondering how is this possible??
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
7,295
Reaction score
301
Points
83
Location
Wisconsin
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini (Late 2014) 2.6GHz Intel Core i5 Memory: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top