Life with Satan's Own Backup: Synology Time Machine Backup goes bad

A few days after my carefully delayed update from Yosemite to El Capitan, Emily’s MacBook Air complained it couldn’t run its Time Machine backups to our Synology DS215j NAS. I can’t say if this was related to El Capitan or not, but I do wonder about El Cap’s relative deprecation of AFP (which Synology/Time Capsule needs).

The usual approach to this problem is to use the Synology web interface to run “File Station” and delete the .sparsebundle from there (don’t even think of trying to do this through the Mac Finder) then start over.

Instead I ran through a checkup of the NAS. I didn’t find anything — but did update my notes on the confusing configuration (every machine has a dedicated Synology username and quota). I tried various things to mount the old sparse bundle including disabling SMB, etc. Nothing worked, I couldn’t make use of the existing backup.

So then I installed a (long!) physical ethernet cable and tried Finder (AF) copying the .sparsebundle to a local drive so I could browse it efficiently. Every time I tried it quit at about 54GB with a message like “The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.” A different 60GB file copied normally.

I figured that was a bogus error message from a corrupt file, so I used Synology to copy the 200GB directory internally. It copied well, no sign of a file system problem. I deleted the original and I was able to Finder copy the Synology copy to my local machine. BackupLoupe could even browse it, because, you know. you can’t use Time Machine to access a backup unless you’re on the original machine (which is why it’s Satan’s own backup).

All very occult.  It’s probably something to do with extended attributes, AFP, and some kind of El Capitan bug.

Oh. And I started over. Of course.

Update 8/29/2020: Backup also failed when I upgraded the old Air from Sierra to High Sierra. Good thing I have alternatives to this TM backup.

See also:

• How to update Synology Cloud Station Server Clients (Cloud Station Drive) after Synology NAS 6.0 update
• Synology Time Machine backups: How to increase a user quota
• Replacing a Time Capsule with a Synology NAS - Time Machine for multiple machines
• Time Capsule & Time Machine: "Browse Other Backup Disks" doesn't let you access backups from a different device

iCloud MailDrop for distributing archival quality photos (sports teams, etc)

Inspired by an AWT post I did some testing to see how iCloud MailDrop handles a set of image attachments. I’ve blogged previously that archival/group distribution of large photo images is an unsolved problem.

It turns out MailDrop is a pretty interesting solution. You can use it to send 5GB of images at a time for a maximum quota of 1TB. Images are available for download for 1 month. That’s weirdly generous by Apple standards. Since iCloud accounts are now available to anyone this option is universally available. (Correction: AppleIDs are universally available, and they include access to Apple’s web based productivity apps, but non-Apple customers don’t get the rest.)

I tested using the iCloud web interface for Mail - Mail.cloud. I turned on MailDrop in preferences:

With this enabled I selected about 60MB of images from a folder of Mac background images using the Mail.icloud attachment interface. After selection there was a note that they’d be sent by MailDrop. It’s hard to predict when MailDrop is used, Apple says it happens when the “ISP limit is exceeded”. I’m guessing 20MB or so [1]; but it would be preferable to have a manual way to activate AirDrop. (I’m pretty sure it’s 15 to 20 MB — and Apple doesn’t know what the cap is for corporate email accounts.)

I received the images in Gmail. The result was surprisingly attractive …

The email was composed of thumbnails, if you click on an image you get …

Since there’s no authentication one can send the message to oneself and forwards. I don’t normally use iCloud mail, but I could use it for distributing sports team images by sending the email to my gmail account then redirecting it.

If you want to provide a package of images that can be downloaded all at one time you need to compress them first and upload the archive. When I use this feature to share sports team photos I’ll probably do both — attach the images separately and include an archive. I may also share the archive URL in a team web page.

Apple has been curiously quiet about this feature. It may be the best way to distribute archival images available anywhere.

Here’s an edited example of an image URL, emphases mine:

https://www.icloud.com/attachment/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcvws.icloud-content.com%2FB%2FAZOlwq83HR6i_J8Iqv1ETh96sCvWAQH591dTXxiV9rUgQPlOMjcbZQpT%...b2db-9ff6a7f032be-1%26ckc%3Dcom.apple.largeattachment%26ckz%3DApple-Webmail%26y%3D1%26p%3D42%26s%3DmfAJoJBJFepF6jaBPKqUJmnFHhI&uk=Oz_h26l5GHgaU53IUocfzg&f=NaturePatterns06.jpg&sz=5581904

- fn -

[1] It’s 20MB and there doesn’t seem to be a stable technique for lowering the threshold. This would be much nicer if it were manually adjustable. I’ll create a 15MB “filler file” to attach to emails I send to my gmail account, then I’ll resend from there stripping the filler file.

Photos 1.0.1 bug: Export Unmodified Original includes deleted images

Pretty simple bug: “Export Unmodified Original” includes deleted images. You have to empty trash to avoid this one. Happens when I select all images in “All Photos”.

Apple’s software quality continues to explore new lows. I’m still on Yosemite, it’s possible this doesn’t happen in El Capitan.

Microsoft OneDrive does archival photo sharing better than I thought (with one bug)

Yes, I’m being cautious.

In testing, however, I can do this:

• Create a folder that I can upload full resolution images to and ALSO make it shareable so other OneDrive registered users can upload to it.
• Create an album that is based on that folder.
• Share the folder-based album to people who do NOT have a OneDrive account.
• Update that folder-album using the web UI. (Switch to Files, choose Create Album from Folder. If folder actually exists then it updates - including deletes.

Unfortunately there’s a bug with the undocumented update feature. In addition to updating the album it creates duplicate albums with an iterating integer suffix. The duplicates are easy to delete. I can’t see how to submit a bug report for One Drive unfortunately.

The current behavior is very close to what I want for sharing images in our sports team. There are also album share to Facebook options.

I haven’t tested whether any ICMP metadata will be used by the albums. There don’t appear to be any Photos.app uploader plugins but I’m still using Aperture so I’d be exporting.

I have 1TB of OneDrive data thanks to my Office 365 subscription. That subscription, which supports installs of Mac apps as well as Access on my Win10 VM, has been a great purchase.

You cannot reclaim a personal email address used by a stranger's Facebook account.

I think Facebook knows this very well. They closed a discussion thread on this that’s over a year old, and you can’t start a new thread — Facebook will say the answer already exists. 

Their help documentation is incorrect:

If you try to do this you’ll be told the email is claimed, there’s no way to reclaim. You can use a password reset to lock the other person’s out of their account (assuming you don’t know the attacker’s password) but you will still be unable to reclaim your email address. (In my wife’s case Facebook messages were being set to her spam folder, so she probably missed the notification that the email address was being used.

We ran into the same problem with Skype, but there it is possible to take the account back.

Update: this is a very old problem - 2012. The abuse page links simply redirects to the email notifications that doesn’t belong to me page where the advice doesn’t work. I’ve tried Facebook’s “report a problem” page but I’m not optimistic:

Update 6/17/2016:

I found another Facebook page for this issue that has a different workflow:

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/255904741169641

It at least does not fail immediately.

Or, you can pretend you don’t already have a Facebook account. Use an incognito window and try this one:

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/537325953055459

Looks like every Facebook engineer has their own independent process…

Skype identity theft feature: anyone can use your email to create an account.

Skype doesn’t validate email addresses. Anyone can use any email address with a new Skype account as long as there’s no Skype account already associated with it.

This is not a new problem. It’s astounding that Microsoft has not fixed this.

Today Emily received notice of a new Skype account using her email address. I verified that the account existed.

To fix this I had to attempt to create a new Skype account with her stolen email address. That gave me a password reset option that went to her email. I reset the password and now she has a Skype account under her control. She doesn’t want that account, but we’ll need to keep it for now.

Obviously scammers are doing this for some kind of criminal activity — and that activity will be associated with your email address.

This is the most astounding example of rank incompetence I’ve seen in years. Microsoft has truly hit bottom. 

Update: Same thing with a Facebook account. Which is curious. Report that one here.

Using US National Grid System (USNG) GPS Coordinates on an iPhone - good luck with that

The boys and I are going mountain biking at the Cuyuna Trails near Ironton Minnesota. The map uses USNG - United States National Grid GPS coordinates.

For example: 2339-4834 is one coordinate. If we need emergency services we’re supposed to know where we are on the map and give them these coordinates. Way points on the map reference the coordinates.

I wondered — can I use these in my iPhone?

Unfortunately neither Apple nor Google Maps support USNG coordinate date entry. After some searching I found some suggested apps:

• Mobile App: a web app with an odd behavior — might be embedded javascript. They’re looking for someone to make it a real app. It seems to work — shows my current USNG coordinates. Might be a way to find where I am on the trail map.
• Apps | U.S. National Grid Information Center: 3rd party apps including Theodolite (iPad) and Pro Compass — that don’t actually seems to handle UNSG!

I also found “Map Tools”, but it is abandonware and has a nasty pricing scheme. (Incidentally, Apple App Store search is just atrocious.)

In the end the only app I could find that seemed to cover USNG and be well maintained was MilGPS. I bought it, though I’ll also test out “usngapp.org” — it does seem to work.

I wonder if USNG is either a dead end or a false start. (See also: 1-Introducing the United States National Grid.)

Update 7/1/2016

A comment mentioned the Gmap4 project. It is a pretty cool project, and the documentation has the best explanation of USNG I’ve found.

Gmap4 can dispay the USNG grid on Topo maps. Here is the Cuyuna area.

https://mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?usng=15T_VM_2310_4883&tilt=off&z=14&t=t4

I am the developer of this enhanced Google map viewer. This is a public service and part of my way to 'pay it forward'.

This link and the USNG support works fine on cell phones and other mobile devices. For geolocation tap Menu ==> My location.

Gmap4 homepage: https://mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.html

USNG support in Gmap4: https://mappingsupport.com/p/help_files/gmap4_usng_and_mgrs_coordinates.pdf