[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I was very disapointed to read this today. The Finder seems to choke when copying files from firewire or USB devices now. Seems that is not fixed in Panther?

"Is the "all-new" Finder now multithreaded? Is it written in Cocoa?

The new Finder is still Carbon, but it's worth noting that it's a Mach-O binary. Mach-O binaries are native to the Darwin core, and while all Cocoa applications are Mach-O, only some Carbon applications are. With regard to programming and structure, there's little new in Panther's Finder, and in terms of multithreading, it's no more multithreaded than Jaguar's."

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/pantherreader2.html

[diamondsw]

The Finder doesn't choke today dealing with FireWire or USB devices. The filesystem is multithreaded, and has been since Mac OS 8.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by diamondsw:


The Finder doesn't choke today dealing with FireWire or USB devices.

Oh, I MUST be imagine it for the past 2 years. Cuz I swear that if I am copying 30 Megs or more from my USB ORB drive the finder totally locks up with a spinning wheel and doesn't even update the progress bar.

Silly me.

[Riemann Zeta]

ORB Drive? Those never worked to begin with--they were only on the market for about a year. You should get better performance if you upgraded.

[Stratus Fear]

I copied several gigs between my iBook and iPod in 10.3 yesterday and didn't have any beachball spinning problems...

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by Riemann Zeta:
ORB Drive? Those never worked to begin with--they were only on the market for about a year. You should get better performance if you upgraded.

Again, funny, mine works 100% in OS9 and if I hook it up with SCSI.

Another example, moving 200 files from one folder to the other on the hard drive with also tie up the Finder till it is done.

Don't think you guys have much of an argument saying the current Finder is multithreaded and fast. Countless threads here complaining about the same thing since 10.0. Yes 10.2 is better but if this is as good as we are going to get then we are screwed.

[Toyin]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
Again, funny, mine works 100% in OS9 and if I hook it up with SCSI.

Another example, moving 200 files from one folder to the other on the hard drive with also tie up the Finder till it is done.

Don't think you guys have much of an argument saying the current Finder is multithreaded and fast. Countless threads here complaining about the same thing since 10.0. Yes 10.2 is better but if this is as good as we are going to get then we are screwed.

It seems like you're using your experience with your ORB drive to create a blanket statement. I can copy to and from my external firewire drive and still use the finder fine. I back up my files to the external drive regularly. I can also burn CDs and use my DVD-RAM and still use the finder (which I couldn't do in OS9)

Is the Panther finder perfect? No, but having used the WWDC build briefly, I felt it was much better implementation than 10.2.

[::maroma::]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
Again, funny, mine works 100% in OS9 and if I hook it up with SCSI.

Another example, moving 200 files from one folder to the other on the hard drive with also tie up the Finder till it is done.

Don't think you guys have much of an argument saying the current Finder is multithreaded and fast. Countless threads here complaining about the same thing since 10.0. Yes 10.2 is better but if this is as good as we are going to get then we are screwed.

Regardless of whether the Finder is multithreaded and fast, the problems you are experiencing seems extreme. I can tell you that I've never had a problem copying large amounts of data from Firewire or USB drives, be it removable or not. I will say however, that moving 200+ (or whatever) files from one folder to another IS slow (the icons kind of "march" to the folder one by one it seems).

We're all hoping for a perfect Finder. Hell, we're all hoping for a BETTER Finder. But let's reserve the blatant judgments until the final release.

[danengel]

I'd like to know from the people who have been using the Panther Finder for a while: Does it still suck or has it become usable?

I don't care if it's not the Classic Finder anymore, I only wish these 1000+ little annoyances were gone.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
I was very disapointed to read this today. The Finder seems to choke when copying files from firewire or USB devices now. Seems that is not fixed in Panther?

"Is the "all-new" Finder now multithreaded? Is it written in Cocoa?

The new Finder is still Carbon, but it's worth noting that it's a Mach-O binary. Mach-O binaries are native to the Darwin core, and while all Cocoa applications are Mach-O, only some Carbon applications are. With regard to programming and structure, there's little new in Panther's Finder, and in terms of multithreading, it's no more multithreaded than Jaguar's."

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/pantherreader2.html

The only USB devices I have to copy files from is my digital camera. It work's flawlessly in the Finder.
My Panther testing drive is an External FW drive. I have been booting from it since WWDC release of Panther. The second partition of the 160gb ext. FW drive is my backup to my main internal 80gb drive and other Macs on my home LAN.
I copy many GBs from and to this drive and use it as my OS.
Derive what conclusions you may from my experiences and how they compare to your statements, which most of which was copied from Think Secret.

[parsec_kadets]

I find it odd that you assume that the Panther Finder is bad and will have the same problems you're having now when you haven't even tried it yet. ThinkSecret is a rumor site. Whatever they say should be taken with a grain of salt. A lot of what they are reporting is what someone else told them. They may trust those people, but does that mean you should? I'm not sure if the Finder in Panther is multi-threaded or not, but I'm not going to assume it isn't just because ThinkSecret said so. I've read several of your posts in the past and I've never seen you say one good thing about OS X ever. I'll give you the bennefit of the doubt though and assume there is something you like about it, even though I have no idea what that is. In any case, you should be mature enough to know what beta software means. Hell, when I first got my hands on Panther the Address Book would crash every time I opened it. You didn't see me on the forums complaining at all. Until Panther comes out, complaining that the Finder is going to suck because it's not multi-threaded is nothing more than FUD.

P.S. If you really hate OS X as much as I think you do you should just switch to Windows and leave the rest of us alone.

[Cadaver]

Before making sweeping statements, let's not forget:

Panther = beta

Let the product be released before we complain about it

[raviruddarraju]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:



Don't think you guys have much of an argument saying the current Finder is multithreaded and fast. Countless threads here complaining about the same thing since 10.0. Yes 10.2 is better but if this is as good as we are going to get then we are screwed.

I agree, don't really have much of an experience using for external drives. But, finder has a hell a lot of problems while doing file transfer over the network with different platforms. Specifically: During the file transfer, if the network goes down, beachball start spinning and I have had to restart several times to recover. I hate that part of the finder. It has been that way for ever...at least for me.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by raviruddarraju:
I agree, don't really have much of an experience using for external drives. But, finder has a hell a lot of problems while doing file transfer over the network with different platforms. Specifically: During the file transfer, if the network goes down, beachball start spinning and I have had to restart several times to recover. I hate that part of the finder. It has been that way for ever...at least for me.

This has been fixed in Panther. However, I never have trouble copying files to my AFP server in Jag and I copy a lot to it.
If the network goes down that often, you should get a new sys admin.

[superlarry]

Originally posted by raviruddarraju:
I agree, don't really have much of an experience using for external drives. But, finder has a hell a lot of problems while doing file transfer over the network with different platforms. Specifically: During the file transfer, if the network goes down, beachball start spinning and I have had to restart several times to recover. I hate that part of the finder. It has been that way for ever...at least for me.

this is my major problem with the finder right now: samba and ftp networking have been terrible, and i'm almost guaranteed to have to force restart every time i use them (samba's gotten better in the last couple releases). even if the network doesn't go down i have trouble - copies will stop, or the whole computer will go down when i try to unmount the share. i'd like a finder that can handle the loss of a network resource and still let me browse files, and an OS that won't go down with the finder.
note that otherwise i think OSX is the greatest :cD

[asxless]

Originally posted by diamondsw:


The Finder doesn't choke today dealing with FireWire or USB devices. The filesystem is multithreaded, and has been since Mac OS 8.

Uhh... The _filesystem_ is multithreaded..." I think the multithreading question/comment had to do with the _Finder_ application not the underlying _filesystem_.

Seriously folks, it is quite easy to bog down the OS X Finder (Jaguar). Large file copies (or duplications) in and of themselves, are not usually enough to create a spinning beach ball. But starting a large file copy (or duplication), then asking the Finder to Get info on a modestly large folder or to arrange the icons in a folder with more than a few dozen files or to mount a networked drive, etc. virtually guarantees one. Whether this is due to poor multithreading, Carbon vs Cocoa frameworks, or any of the other frequent excuses, it is clear the the OS X Finder (Jaguar) has trouble chewing gum and walking at the same time

BTW this happens while running 10.2.6 on my antique PowerBook 500Mhz and my wife's Twin GHz PowerMac with a very light load on both CPUs (<20%) using ONLY the built-in hard drives. If I add a FireWire drive things get worse. Simply ejecting a FireWire drive can hang the OS X Finder (with a spinning beach ball) for several minutes while the drive activity light flashes intently. Ironically this delay is consistently much longer on the twin GHz Powermac than on my PowerBook 500MHz.

Lastly, the same Macs running the OS 9.2.2 Finder are much more responsive (e.g. releasing the FireWire drive almost immediately). A lot of things are much better in OS X but the Finder is not one of them

-- asxless in iLand

[alex_kac]

Just for a note here. On Jag I would have some issues with copying lots of data over the network - especially airport.

On Panther...nil. I'm copying gigs of data daily over airport (yes...painful) and 100TX ethernet wired and even if I sleep and come back up or lose a connection...I never have an issue.

[Anand]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
Again, funny, mine works 100% in OS9 and if I hook it up with SCSI.

Another example, moving 200 files from one folder to the other on the hard drive with also tie up the Finder till it is done.

Don't think you guys have much of an argument saying the current Finder is multithreaded and fast. Countless threads here complaining about the same thing since 10.0. Yes 10.2 is better but if this is as good as we are going to get then we are screwed.

What are you using a 233 iMac? I have never seen this behavior on a G4 machine. Believe me, I have problems with the OS X finder - try selecting items at the bottom of the list in column view with the font set at antything greater than 12 point and see what I mean!

But what you are describing is new to me. I personally have 4 macs - a 800 iMac, a 933 G4, a 1 Ghz Ti book and a 1.6 G5 - and none of them having any problem like you describe.

[CharlesS]

This snippet that you posted has a very high content (98% Daily Value).

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
"Is the "all-new" Finder now multithreaded? Is it written in Cocoa?

The new Finder is still Carbon, but it's worth noting that it's a Mach-O binary. Mach-O binaries are native to the Darwin core, and while all Cocoa applications are Mach-O, only some Carbon applications are.

The Finder has always been a Mach-O binary. The Jaguar Finder is a Mach-O binary. I'm fairly certain that even the 10.0 Finder was a Mach-O binary...

With regard to programming and structure, there's little new in Panther's Finder,

Just because it's still a Carbon Mach-O binary, there's very little difference in programming or structure?!

I suppose that iTunes is no different from QuarkXPress 6 in programming or structure, because they're both Carbon, because hey, all apps are the same thing if they use the same API, right?

Where's the giant rolleyes smiley that I see in here every so often? I want to use it...

and in terms of multithreading, it's no more multithreaded than Jaguar's."

Did these guys look at the code? How the hell would they know this?

Didn't Jobs specifically say that the new Finder was more multithreaded in the WWDC keynote?

[Taipan]

Hi!

I know I'm not much of a help, but why would anyone use USB for an external drive? I don't get it...

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Taipan:
I know I'm not much of a help, but why would anyone use USB for an external drive? I don't get it...

Because they are looking for something to complain about.

[brainchild2b]

The ORB drive is the devil. It does the same type of stuff on windows.

"It's like totally the drive dude."

[CatOne]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
I was very disapointed to read this today. The Finder seems to choke when copying files from firewire or USB devices now. Seems that is not fixed in Panther?

"Is the "all-new" Finder now multithreaded? Is it written in Cocoa?

The new Finder is still Carbon, but it's worth noting that it's a Mach-O binary. Mach-O binaries are native to the Darwin core, and while all Cocoa applications are Mach-O, only some Carbon applications are. With regard to programming and structure, there's little new in Panther's Finder, and in terms of multithreading, it's no more multithreaded than Jaguar's."

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/pantherreader2.html

Hmm... Well, as a test in Panther I just copied a folder with 1 million files (yes, that's 1 MILLION) files... 4 KB each.

While that was going on (copy took about 45 minutes), I did a lot of other stuff, and didn't really notice much (except disk was slowed a bit). So... what's the problem again?

[raviruddarraju]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
This has been fixed in Panther. However, I never have trouble copying files to my AFP server in Jag and I copy a lot to it.
If the network goes down that often, you should get a new sys admin.

Network doesn't go down often, I keep taking my laptop all over the place between wireless & wired networks. I don't always remember to unmount everytime, and I don't think I should be expected unmount everytime I go offline. So, this leads to problems.

[msuper69]

Comment retracted upon further review.

[SupahCoolX]

Well, just for the record:
I backed up 12GB from my iBook's hard drive to an external Firewire drive last night with nary a hiccup. No problem whatsoever, and I'm even using 10.2.8- the bastard child of OSX!

[ApeInTheShell]

Firewire drives do not freeze in the Mac OS X Finder. The Finder will occasionally quit, but there is no beachball of death.
If i were you, i would consider buying a well known brand or consult consumer reports.
Why did you title this, "Panther...but now it sucks in Silver?"
There is no mention in this post or even a screenshot of a silver finder.

[asxless]

Originally posted by CatOne:
Hmm... Well, as a test in Panther I just copied a folder with 1 million files (yes, that's 1 MILLION) files... 4 KB each.

While that was going on (copy took about 45 minutes), I did a lot of other stuff, and didn't really notice much (except disk was slowed a bit). So... what's the problem again?

It depends on what "a lot of other stuff" is. Was that "a lot of other stuff" _using_ the Finder? Or was it "a lot of other stuff" that did not need the Finder?

For example in Jaguar, even when the Finder is 'busy spinning the beach ball' I can still do "a lot of other stuff" as long as that other stuff is not asking the Finder to do anything. That only means that the Finder has not 'taken over' and that the OS X multi-tasking is working just fine. FWIW the Finder rarely uses much CPU even when it is 'busy spinning the beach ball'. So there is a lot of CPU resource available for "a lot of other stuff".

BTW For those of us who do not have Panther to play with, some info on the performance of the Panther Finder when doing multiple tasks (e.g. copying files AND Get Info AND/OR ejecting FireWire dirves, etc.) would be useful/interesting. But if that violates your NDA, don't do it. I can wait until the final release and test it myself at a store.

-- asxless in iLand

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by msuper69:
I'm with the original poster on this one. The current Jaguar Finder is single-threaded and that sucks.

The Jaguar Finder is not single-threaded. You can do more than one thing at a time - try it. You can copy files and still browse around, copy another file, whatever.

Just because the multi-threading isn't as extensive as you want does not make the Finder single-threaded.

[msuper69]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
The Jaguar Finder is not single-threaded. You can do more than one thing at a time - try it. You can copy files and still browse around, copy another file, whatever.

Just because the multi-threading isn't as extensive as you want does not make the Finder single-threaded.

Must have been having a bad day.

I hereby stand corrected and admit that I'm a moron.

[Gul Banana]

Jaguar, 1 GHz G4:
Select large folder, duplicate. Select other large folder, get info -> beachball.

Panther, 800 MHz G3:
Select large folder, duplicate. Select other large folder, get info -> no beachball.

SMB and FTP also no longer hang or crash the computer.. so there definitely are improvements to the Finder's internals. It might not spawn any MORE threads, but they block a lot less.

[asxless]

Originally posted by Gul Banana:
Jaguar, 1 GHz G4:
Select large folder, duplicate. Select other large folder, get info -> beachball.

Panther, 800 MHz G3:
Select large folder, duplicate. Select other large folder, get info -> no beachball.

SMB and FTP also no longer hang or crash the computer.. so there definitely are improvements to the Finder's internals. It might not spawn any MORE threads, but they block a lot less.

Thanks for posting these results Gul. Looks like Apple has done more than just change the GUI afterall
-- asxless

[Socially Awkward Solo]

You guys are hylarious. Oh boo hoo, it is all the orb drives fault. The finder can copy one million 4k files just fine, I can copy to my firewire hard drive just dandy. You guys must be the same ones that do the beta testing for 10.2.8

Ok lets forget the Firewire and orb stuff. Moving files around on the internal hard drive is slow on a 450 MHz G4 and causes the spinning wheel. Moving stuff over airport can lock the suck up even though there is CPU power left.

The problem is real and I wish and hope it is fixed in 10.3.

[diamondsw]

Originally posted by msuper69:
Must have been having a bad day.

I hereby stand corrected and admit that I'm a moron.

If only Mr. Hand would admit that from time to time...

[sniffer]

Yep, the finder in Jaguar isn't to impressive when it comes to network copying, ftping, unmounting smb shares and such.

[SMacTech]

The good test of the Finder for me has been to download Panther from ADC while mounting all 3 CDs, do a select all of all files on each, drag to a desktop folder and continue working.
I can then continue using the Finder while it copies via FTP. Menumeters will show ~ 300KB - 550KB downstream and 30KB upstream. Files in each download folder will automatically update too, as each part is finished.
This will almost always fail in Jag, either caused by timeouts because of heavy server load of ADC members get the latest, or the Finder just plain choking.
Panther handles the above very well in the latest builds.
Speaking of the Finder updating live while in the background, it seems more apps are doing this as of 7B74. TextEdit, Preview, iPhoto, Safari do the live updating of the Finder.
Someone will ask, "does Terminal do this?", the answer is no. I did touch foo in terminal and no file showed up on the desktop. I went to iPhoto, exported a file to the desktop, that file showed up on the desktop and so did foo.
So it seems "live updating" of the Finder is improving.

[danengel]

Why can't we have polling? It is frowned upon, yes, but polling once per second doesn't even affect the performance of a clamshell iBook. It would be a very simple workaround for all apps which don't tell the Finder when they change something.

Most users have no more than 30 or so files in their folders, and even if it were 1000, you wouldn't notice the polling.

[eevyl]

Polling is bad bad bad, developers must avoid polling at all times if possible.

It causes continously CPU usage, which is a very bad thing� in a notebook, for exammple.

[danengel]

Originally posted by eevyl:
Polling is bad bad bad, developers must avoid polling at all times if possible.

It causes continously CPU usage, which is a very bad thing� in a notebook, for exammple.

Please, I can't believe this. If nothing has changed on disk, I guess the file system can tell this by just looking at some variables, without having to access the disk.

We have GHz+ CPUs nowadays, who cares about a few cycles? My Dual G4 doesn't, and my clamshell won't either (BTW: is that correct English? Or would I have to say "..., and neither does my clamshell"?).

[JKT]

IIRC, the frequency of polling in the 10.0 Finder was one of the reasons why it was so unresponsive and slow for so many users ( at the low-end especially). One of the smoke and mirror tricks that Apple used to speed up 10.1 was to reduce this timing, so to say it has no impact is a little false IMO.

[parsec_kadets]

Originally posted by danengel:
Why can't we have polling? It is frowned upon, yes, but polling once per second doesn't even affect the performance of a clamshell iBook. It would be a very simple workaround for all apps which don't tell the Finder when they change something.

Most users have no more than 30 or so files in their folders, and even if it were 1000, you wouldn't notice the polling.

If you did this then the hard drive would never have the chance to spin down. Then all of a sudden you would be complaining that Panther cut your battery life in half. Polling is a bad idea, especially since there are better ways of getting the same behavior. You should be asking why Apple doesn't use listeners instead.

Edit: This has been discussed in other threads, but I thought I would explain just incase. A listener is better because it doesn't constantly "nag" the OS to tell it the contents of the disk. Instead it tells the OS "hey, I want to know whenever X happens." Then when X actually does happen the OS informs all interested apps. This happens all the time with keyboard and mouse input. Something similar could be done for disk activity. The question is, when are you letting people have too much information? (i.e. security concerns).

[Immortal K-Mart Employee]

Does windows use polling?

[arekkusu]

Help it suck less. Sign this petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/stopugly/petition.html

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
You guys are hylarious. Oh boo hoo, it is all the orb drives fault. The finder can copy one million 4k files just fine, I can copy to my firewire hard drive just dandy. You guys must be the same ones that do the beta testing for 10.2.8

Ok lets forget the Firewire and orb stuff. Moving files around on the internal hard drive is slow on a 450 MHz G4 and causes the spinning wheel. Moving stuff over airport can lock the suck up even though there is CPU power left.

The problem is real and I wish and hope it is fixed in 10.3.

I use a 450 MHz G4 and move LOTS of VERY large PSD files around all the time with no problem.
I also back up an entire user folder from an iBook to one of my internal drives over Airport every night, with a full recycle every week.

Now you may say "Oh boo hoo*, that's just your system" or something, but that's the point. It sounds like your system is zoinked. Maybe you should try a little trouble shooting instead of blaming the OS.

OT:
*I really don't follow your logic with this choice of words. Why would you suggest that other posters here, whose systems work, would be crying (boo hoo) over your system that doesn't? I don't get it.

[JB72]

Originally posted by parsec_kadets:
If you did this then the hard drive would never have the chance to spin down. Then all of a sudden you would be complaining that Panther cut your battery life in half.

I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to have an option to use a mild/moderate polling for desktop machines. Make it an option in the Energy Saver system pref.

[parsec_kadets]

Originally posted by JB72:
I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to have an option to use a mild/moderate polling for desktop machines. Make it an option in the Energy Saver system pref.

Did you even read the rest of my post? Right after that I explained that using a listener was better because it gives you the same results without constantly hitting the drive. Why has polling become some sort of magic word? Basically you people are using the same rationale that a CTO would. A CTO will pick a trade magazine, read some opinion article that says Kerberose is the greatest thing since sliced bread, then demand that all of his developers use it even though he has no clue as to what it does and the app doesn't even need anything remotely like it. Polling is not the answer so get off it.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by aaanorton:
Now you may say "Oh boo hoo*, that's just your system" or something, but that's the point. It sounds like your system is zoinked. Maybe you should try a little trouble shooting instead of blaming the OS.

Ironic how you can say I can say it is just your system then you say the same about mine

Anywho, this OS has had a clean install a million times over the past 3 years, same issue. I also see the same problems, lags and hangs on the 733 G4 and Dual 1.25 at work. But yes, they are all my system

[kennethmac2000]

Originally posted by danengel:
Why can't we have polling? It is frowned upon, yes, but polling once per second doesn't even affect the performance of a clamshell iBook. It would be a very simple workaround for all apps which don't tell the Finder when they change something.

There is no excuse for an app not telling the Finder when it changes something. The APIs to do it are there. All the developers have to do is use them.

[danengel]

If you did this then the hard drive would never have the chance to spin down.

I disagree. The filesystem would only have to look at its caches, which are located in RAM.

There is no excuse for an app not telling the Finder when it changes something. The APIs to do it are there. All the developers have to do is use them.

There are hundreds of command-line tools around which know nothing about the Finder. Polling would come in handy here.

[diamondsw]

Originally posted by danengel:
Please, I can't believe this. If nothing has changed on disk, I guess the file system can tell this by just looking at some variables, without having to access the disk.

You're back to the same problem - what updates that variable? I'm a long-time developer, and I know all too well what polling can do to performance. It's like the kid in the back seat saying "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?". Things work a lot better when the person in the front seat says "We're here.".