Zombie folder alias in /Volumes

[plinden]

I have a strange issue that I can't seem to fix. There is an alias in /Volumes that refuses to go away. This was left behind from a mounted network drive at work, after I shut down without unmounting it.

The file is locked and I can't unlock it using chflags in Terminal even though I'm the owner. I've tried unsetting the system flag and deleting the folder while in single user mode, it comes back when I reboot.

It's been like this for weeks, and initially I just ignored it, but I'm pretty certain it's causing slowdowns when running software that accesses /Volumes. For instance, SuperDuper can take upwards of five minutes to start up in my main account. It's instantaneous in other accounts, presumably since they won't try to access the contents of the alias. If I go to /Volumes in Finder (command-G) and Get Info on the file, it sends Finder into pinwheel hell.

Has anyone had this happen?

 

[Hal Itosis]

This was left behind from a mounted network drive at work, after I shut down without unmounting it.

The file is locked and I can't unlock it using chflags in Terminal even though I'm the owner. I've tried unsetting the system flag and deleting the folder while in single user mode, it comes back when I reboot.

Sounds like some sort of autofs trickery perhaps.
Have either of these files been tweaked:

/etc/auto_master
/etc/autofs.conf

?

 

[plinden]

The auto mount config files haven't changed. I searched in all the system directories for something containing the name of the alias, but found nothing (at least in super-user accessible files).

The alias is present in my bootable SuperDuper clone so it would copy back if I reimaged my Mac from it. I think my only fix is to reinstall OS X and individually reinstall my applications and copy my home folder over.

 

[Hal Itosis]

We should at least look at a listing in Terminal:

ls -Orbitlake /Volumes

I'd be curious to see how Terminal displays the inum and type of that "alias".


BTW, apparently other such files can be created in /etc/ besides the two default ones i mentioned (e.g., /etc/auto_smb). Perhaps you should check:

ls -l /etc/auto*

to be sure.

 

[reubs]

I have a strange issue that I can't seem to fix. There is an alias in /Volumes that refuses to go away. This was left behind from a mounted network drive at work, after I shut down without unmounting it.

The file is locked and I can't unlock it using chflags in Terminal even though I'm the owner. I've tried unsetting the system flag and deleting the folder while in single user mode, it comes back when I reboot.

It's been like this for weeks, and initially I just ignored it, but I'm pretty certain it's causing slowdowns when running software that accesses /Volumes. For instance, SuperDuper can take upwards of five minutes to start up in my main account. It's instantaneous in other accounts, presumably since they won't try to access the contents of the alias. If I go to /Volumes in Finder (command-G) and Get Info on the file, it sends Finder into pinwheel hell.

Has anyone had this happen?

I think this should fix it...

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/2965649/

 

[plinden]

I think this should fix it...

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/2965649/

Nope - like I said, I've tried deleting it as super user and as root, and get permission denied. This usually means the system flag is set, and when that happens you need to boot into single user mode to unset the system flag with the "chflags noschg" command. Even though this does allow me to delete it, it returns on rebooting.

Hal Itosis is probably correct in that there's some automounting issue, but the cause is well hidden. I've checked the config files and there's nothing relevant that I could find. I'll keep looking though.

I'm not familiar with the -Orbitlake options, but Terminal doesn't show the file as being an alias, and its owner has changed to root after the last time I deleted it in single user mode:

$ ls -Orbitlake /Volumes
total 5
2601509 lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  admin  -         1 Jun 18 17:29 Macintosh HD -> /
      7 dr-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel  -         1 Jun 18 17:29 uhome
      2 drwxrwxr-t  36 root  admin  -      1292 Jun 18 17:31 ..
  26277 drwxrwxrwt@  4 root  admin  hidden  136 Jun 19 15:59 .
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,add_subdirectory,directory_inherit,only_inherit

But Finder does (see screen shots).

When I connect to work's VPN, I don't get the delay on starting SuperDuper or doing a GetInfo - meaning the delay is likely some network connection issue. The network drive doesn't appear though - the server containing the mount point has changed since I first noticed this, so that may be related.

There's one unanswered question on Apple's discussion boards that appears to be identical to mine.

 

[jpma]

try repair permission on disk utility on all drives.

 

[plinden]

Repairing permissions won't make any difference (and it doesn't - I did do it even though I knew it wouldn't work, but I've been wrong lots in the past).

To reiterate, I can delete it in single user mode. It comes back on rebooting.

I've edited the thread title to make it clearer.

 

[Hal Itosis]

I've checked the config files and there's nothing relevant that I could find. I'll keep looking though.

I was hoping we'd get to see ls -l /etc/auto* (to compare with mine):

 [SIZE="2"] [COLOR="Blue"]
ls -l /etc/auto*[/COLOR]
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    67 Feb 11 17:44 /etc/auto_home
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   194 Feb 11 17:44 /etc/auto_master
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  1759 Feb 11 17:44 /etc/autofs.conf
[/SIZE]

Tell me that yours looks exactly like that. ^

I'm not familiar with the -Orbitlake options, but Terminal doesn't show the file as being an alias,

Yeah, there are some sneaky filesystem tricks going on in /Volumes (by design). Finder always shows mount-points as aliases, whereas Terminal sees them as directories. The interesting bit here is also the inode number (7 in this case):

 [SIZE="2"]
total 5
2601509 lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  admin  -         1 Jun 18 17:29 Macintosh HD -> /
      [B][COLOR="Magenta"]7 d[/COLOR][/B]r-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel  -         1 Jun 18 17:29 uhome
      2 drwxrwxr-t  36 root  admin  -      1292 Jun 18 17:31 ..
  26277 drwxrwxrwt@  4 root  admin  hidden  136 Jun 19 15:59 .
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,add_subdirectory,directory_inherit,only_inherit
[/SIZE]

That tells me it's definitely a case of one of these fancy automounting deals.
"uhome" huh... you sure /etc/auto_home hasn't been modified? (or any other /etc/auto*)

Did you follow that link i snuck into post #4? (very similar symptoms)

Maybe have a look at fstab too:

 [SIZE="2"] [COLOR="Blue"]
ls -l /etc/fstab*
[/COLOR]-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  150 Feb 11 16:13 /etc/fstab.hd[/SIZE]

...though, it is supposedly being ignored in SL. (i think regular old "/etc/fstab" was still functional in 10.5).

 

[Hal Itosis]

BTW —since you said: "I searched in all the system directories for something containing the name of the alias" —i suppose that means you've already run something such as this:

sudo grep -r -l -F uhome /private/etc

?

 

[plinden]

Fixed it - I found the following file:
/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/mounts/netapp2:%2Fuhome.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>dir</key>
        <array>
                <string>/Volumes/uhome</string>
        </array>
        <key>generateduid</key>
        <array>
                <string>82582FD5-BB73-43A4-906D-01F4FD8FF61F</string>
        </array>
        <key>name</key>
        <array>
                <string>netapp2:/uhome</string>
        </array>
        <key>vfstype</key>
        <array>
                <string>nfs</string>
        </array>
</dict>
</plist>

I removed it, rebooted, and the mount/alias is gone.

This is interesting. It looks like we could drop a plist in that directory and get automounting on booting.

I was concentrating on the /etc directory and only decided to expand my search after giving up on /etc

By the way, my /etc/auto* file were indeed unchanged.

Edit: And this has fixed my slow SuperDuper launch, so it must have been related.
Edit 2: And iMovie was taking ages to launch, so this has fixed that.
Edit 3: And thanks Hal Itosis. You encouraged me to keep looking instead of reinstalling OS X.

 

[Hal Itosis]

Fixed it - I found the following file:
/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/mounts/netapp2:%2Fuhome.plist

Nice one.

That's certainly buried in a deeply hidden hard-to-access place.
That particular folder also does not exist by default!!!
I'll try to remember the "mounts" folder in dslocal from now on.

Lesson learned.

 

[karystxr]

Something simillar happening here.

I caught myself wondering around this volume folder and I tried to delete it.And it's magic!
It's just comes up again with exactly the same size as before! When I look inside it has picked some random files and keep them as a back up even though I do keep a back up in my external.
What am I missing here?
I read all the other posts and I am not sure I can figure the solution.