[headbirth]

I've been noticing missing files and files that have reverted to a previous version on occasion. Is this related to Journaling? or omething else?

[tooki]

HFS+ journaling does not journal the contents of files, so it has to be something else.

Besides, the journal is only ever used if the machine crashes, so if you've always shut down cleanly, the journal should not be involved at all.

tooki

[headbirth]

It wouldn't mistakenly think the system has crashed and replace the file with an older version?

[Chuckit]

That isn't how the journal works. It's at a lower level than that, so that wouldn't be it. If you really think it's the journal, though, you could try turning it off and see if the problem goes away.

Do you have any third-party software (e.g. Retrospect or whatever that is) that might be causing this?

[tooki]

Originally posted by headbirth:
It wouldn't mistakenly think the system has crashed and replace the file with an older version?

As I said above, HFS+ journaling does not journal the contents of files. It's not keeping an older version, so there's no way it could revert you to it. (HFS+ journaling ONLY journals changes to the directory.)

And no, there's no way it could think the system crashed.

Here's how journaling works:

1. Some program needs to save a change to disk and executes the commands to do so.
2. Rather than making the change directly, the filesystem first writes a journal (think of it as a post-it note) to itself, outlining what changes it's going to make.
3. Then it actually makes the changes.
4. When the changes have been successfully saved, it deletes the journal.

Now, if the process gets interrupted somewhere during step 3 (any interruption like that will require a re-mounting of the disk), then when the disk is re-mounted, the operating system sees that the journal is still there, meaning that whatever changes are outlined in the journal may not have been successfully completed. To make sure that the disk is not left in that in-between state, it rolls back all the directory changes listed in the journal, thus returning the disk to a consistent state. The journaling does not, and cannot, affect the contents of files.

tooki

[kcmac]

Good explanation tooki.

I never did really understand what journaling was for although it is enabled on my pb.

[headbirth]

Thanks for the Journaling info ... I was a little foggy on that as well. It's not something that's repeatable and only has happened a few times.

I'll check into my third party products, which there are only 3 or 4 of and see what turns up.

Thanks!