Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

JT3Jon

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 20, 2008
64
0
I'm going through a very weird and frustrating problem. I'm transferring data from my Mac to my PC's 2nd internal drive, and I'll occasionally get the following error: "The operation cannot be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)" Edit: now I'm getting error code -41 & -36.

Most of my data is transferring fine, but some folders simply will not transfer! I've gone through my permissions and made sure they are set to "everybody read/write," and still will get this error!

Any ideas whats going on or how to fix it?
 
Last edited:
I'm transferring via ethernet from the mac to the PC.

The error code seems to change depending the the folder, but some say ""The operation cannot be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)" Sometimes I get error code -36 & -41. Sometimes I get the error "file cannot be read or written."

Whats also odd is I just tried the same folder multiple times, and on the 3rd time now it appears to be transferring! Any advice? In the mean time I guess I'll just keep trying over and over until the files transfer!
 
Its through a netgear gigabit ethernet switch.

Whats weird is everything I've tried in the past 10min is now transferring fine. Very strange!! Hopefully this streak continues, but I would like to get to the bottom of this problem if possible...
 
well, its back. a folder consistently will not transfer because of "unexpected error -41" :(
 
It can be as small as 100kb but I try to transfer large folder from 3gb to 30gb. Im transferring sample libraries, which are made up of hundreds of thousands of small audio files each being around 1mb each.

once I run into a problem on the folder level, I'm going deeper and transferring individual files (which SUCKS). But maybe I have a bad file or something causing the whole not to transfer?
 
1. Right-click, then archive the folder. (Or is it called "Compress"?)
2. Copy the archived zip-file over.
3. Unzip on PC.

If #1 fails, there's a problem with a Mac file. It might be busy, permissions, corrupted, whatever.

If #2 fails, there's a problem with something else. It might be the network, a cable, the target PC, whatever.

If #3 fails, there might be a problem with some weird characters in filenames, or any of a bunch of other possibilities. The filenames issue has hit me before, but it's not the only possible error.
 
Thats a great idea to try .zip files!! I'll try that, thank you.

As for the network, I tried connecting directly and I still get the errors.

Thank you both very much for your help in troubleshooting this issue!! Its really much appreciated!!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.