ChronoAgent Releases Release notes detailing bugs, changes and enhancements.

ENHANCEMENTS AND CHANGES:

• Added report back to clients whether or not Full Disk Access has been granted.
• All secure network communication now uses the latest version of OpenSSL.
• Increased the default copy buffer size for all copy operations.
• Application-wide change to use modern terminology used in latest macOS versions.
• Trial keys are no longer registered with our backend server.
• The unregister process will now ignore errors returned by the backend server.
• Improved the performance of executing shell tasks that required reading back output from the task.
• Updated the Full Disk Access assistant to present different steps on macOS Ventura and newer, accounting for the slight changes in the User Interface of System Settings on modern macOS.
• Updated the uninstaller’s unregister process result codes.
• Updated OLH (which was neglected for several revisions).
• Updated hard coded links to our website now use https instead of http.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug whereby wrong system information was being passed when trying to register the app.
• Trimmed the amount of log messages being generated in the Release build.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a problem that could could cause changes to a volume’s “Ignore Ownership” setting to fail.
• Fixed a problem on macOS Ventura whereby the ChronoAgent System Settings pane would not open when choosing “Open ChronoAgent Preferences…” from the system menu bar.

ENHANCEMENTS AND CHANGES:

• Disabled caching when using non-Carbon APIs.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug whereby the “Low” Security setting was not functioning properly in certain circumstances.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug in the volume info cache whereby it wasn’t really collecting information about local volumes. The bug was introduced after the first update to v2.

ENHANCEMENTS AND CHANGES:

• Added logic to detect certain types of fsEvent database problems associated with updating fsEvents on the same volume from different OS versions.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug whereby the ‘Low’ ‘Encryption strength’ setting would not accept connections from ChronoSync 10.0.0.
• Fixed a number of low-level file handling issues.

ENHANCEMENTS/MISCELLANEOUS:

• Apple Silicon Native
  • ChronoAgent v2.0.0 is a Universal binary Application.
• Updated OpenSSL Library.

CHANGES:

• Employed new Spotlight disabling strategies.
• Employed new volume ejection/dismount strategies.
• Added support for new Archiving features of ChronoSync.
• Enhanced some diagnostics when copying or moving files.
• Added real-time monitoring of mounted volume attributes.
• Fixed various cosmetic issues in the user interface.
• Improved App Installer.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug whereby attempts to suspend Spotlight indexing on a volume was actually
  disabling Spotlight for that volume.
• If the fsEvents database reports no activity since the reference event, a test file is created
  then deleted on the target volume and fsEvents is queried again. If it still reports no activity, the fsEvent query is reset and designated as such. A log message is generated warning the
  user that there may be a problem.
• Fixed in-app update problems when invoked from within the System Preference pane.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug that prevented the agent from starting up on some M1 equipped systems.

ENHANCEMENTS/MISCELLANEOUS:

• Altered the logic so that sub-second timestamps have to differ by 2ms or more for a file-pair to be considered different when comparing package file contents.
• Added the ability to construct an APFS volume group w/valid firmlinks on macOS 10.15.5 systems that don’t support manual firmlink creation.
• Modified the ChronoAgent Status Preference pane IP Address reporting so it is now obtained from the local IP address list.
• Modified Snapshot mount points to now use 0755 permissions.
• Applied fallback logic to all error conditions that occur when attempting to obtain attributes for an item.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug whereby interpreting millisecond timestamps attached to files on APFS filesystems was subject to a scaling error when converting between time representations. This could result in unnecessary file data copying.
• Fixed an error handling bug when collecting attributes to force a rescan of the directory contents instead of causing an immediate fatal error.
• Fixed a bug when collecting attributes for directory contents and identifying items that should remain invisible to apps and be ignored.

ENHANCEMENTS/MISCELLANEOUS:

• Improved compatibility and reliability when mounting disk images.

BUG FIXES:

• None.

ENHANCEMENTS/MISCELLANEOUS:

• None.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a problem that would cause files moved to a synchronizer’s archive to become locked.

ENHANCEMENTS/MISCELLANEOUS:

• Modernized file lock/unlock routines.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug whereby obtaining information for the current network interfacecould cause a crash if no information was returned by the OS.

ENHANCEMENTS/MISCELLANEOUS:

• Improved shell task execution reliability to better handle errors and exceptions.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a long-standing bug whereby the results of running external commands and tasks could be misinterpreted because of failing to read the entire output/result from running that command affecting operations such as mounting Disk Images or Blessing bootable backup targets.
• Fixed a Catalina-specific bug whereby file system observers would fail to detect deep file system changes if the root folder being modified resided on your boot system’s ‘Data’ volume causing live triggered syncs not to run after deep file system changes were made.

ENHANCEMENTS/MISCELLANEOUS:

• Added support for macOS 10.15 (Catalina).
• Added Internet-based registration/unregistration functionality.
• Added support for new InterConneX client capabilities that allow package file counts and data size to be more accurately reported to the user when manipulating package files.
• Modified Full Disk Access detection logic for macOS 10.15 (Catalina).

BUG FIXES:

• The preference pane is now displayed in Dark Mode if that UI setting is enabled by the user.

ENHANCEMENTS/MISCELLANEOUS:

• Now bounces ChronoAgent by completely exiting the program and letting launchd restart it.
• New logging mechanism including millisecond timestamps, thread ID and threadname (if present).
• Now sets the maximum concurrent operations to 80 instead of allowing macOS to manage that limit.
• Enhanced Security.

BUG FIXES:

• Now correctly standardizes the /private/opt path.
• If a bounce is initiated while still attempting to perform a DDNS update, the bounce is rescheduled until the update is finished.
• Fixed a bug whereby remote checksum calculations initiated by a client for Verify Copied Data or the Validator was not properly ignoring alias files or resource forks (if ignored by the caller).
• Fixed a potential bug in the port mapper by preventing premature disposal.
• Fixed a potential crashing bug in the DDNS IP checker.
  Fixed a potential crashing bug in the DDNS updater.
• Fixed a bug whereby if the most recent crash log associated with ChronoAgent were deleted, but older crash logs existed, ChronoAgent would report “crash detected” on its nextstartup/bounce.
• Fixed a bug whereby if reclaiming a child session, the reclaim error message would state “Session dropped/reclaimed by ‘n/a’” because child sessions do not have a host name associated with them.
• Fixed a bug whereby a Mach port was being leaked every time the ChronoAgentserver obtained a list of network interfaces.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug whereby Finder Tags attached to files were not being decoded into a format that the Finder Tags rule could understand. Thus the rule always failed to detect specific flags.
• Fixed a bug that could cause folder enumeration errors on a mounted disk image over a remote ChronoAgent connection if the disk image was APFS formatted and stored on an HFS file system.

ENHANCEMENTS:

• Optimized for the New APFS Under Mojave.
• Full Disk Access assistant to grant ChronoAgent permission to fully access your files.
• Mojave Dark Mode support.
• Full support of the ‘Freeze file system’ option in ChronoSync.
• Faster connection startup.
• …& much more!

These enhancements are delivered along with numerous bug fixes, tweaks and improvements. See the details of all the changes in the “ChronoAgent v1.9.0 Enhancements, Changes and Bug Fixes” tech note.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed an incompatibility problem with older versions of ChronoSync.

ENHANCEMENTS:

• At the end of the installation, we now ask the user if they would like to open the System Preferences so that they can configure ChronoAgent. This prompt will only occur on initial installation.
• The Registration panel will now require an e-mail address to be entered.
• A “New Folder” button is now available when specifying a custom user path for InterConneX clients.
• Reduced the possibility of seeing the “The specified InterConneX user path is invalid” error message by checking the path multiple times over a fixed time period before giving up and reporting the error.
• When opening the preference pane, we now impose a brief delay before attempting to resize our panel to fit the main window.
• If ChronoAgent crashes then ChronoAgent Monitor will now only display a “ChronoAgent Crash Detected” error. Previously, it would display both an “Abnormal Startup” error, as well as a “ChronoAgent Crash Detected” error.
• If ChronoAgent detects that there is no computer name defined for the system then ChronoAgent Monitor will now display an error, alerting the user to the problem.
• We now deauthorize any authentication that is still active when our preference pane is being closed.
• There is now only a ‘Close’ button when displaying a user notification for errors.
• Eliminated some subtle shading in the background of some text controls on the Registration panel.
• Removed an extra line-break in the English version of the “Read Me” file.
• Updated localizations.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug where the ‘Trial’ button would sometimes become enabled when the user was already in Trial mode. Now the button stays disabled while the user is in Trial mode.
• Fixed some bugs associated with logging session info statistics that are displayed in ChronoAgent Monitor and ChronoMonitor that were associated with sub-channels on open sessions and could result in erroneous connection counts and ‘unknown’ connections being displayed.

ENHANCEMENTS:

• High Sierra compatible.
• Implemented multi-channel session protocol, introduced in ChronoSync v4.8.0, to better support concurrent operations.
• Added explicit support for APFS volumes and volume operations.
• We now display an alert if the user attempts to stop the agent while there are still active connections.
• We more efficiently compile and display ChronoAgent statistics in the ChronoAgent Monitor menu.
• We now display a system notification when a trial key has 7 days left, 1 day left, or has expired.
• The Installer now cleans up some outdated values from the preferences.
• Manual updated for v1.8.0.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug whereby the ‘lastCrash’ value of the running summary was not being properly determined.
• Improved startup by adding logic to recover from slow network services startup.
• Fixed a potential problem by ensuring we always retrieve the password from preferences instead of using a cached version.
• Fixed a potential crashing bug in the installer & uninstaller that was due to us over-releasing the display-name string.

MISCELLANEOUS:

• Eliminated overzealous authd system log messages triggered by the ChronoAgent Monitor.

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed a bug whereby ChronoAgent was failing a WAN-IP check because we were attempting to access the dynamic DNS service webpage using http:// instead of https://.

• Official Sierra-compatible release.
• Added the ability to mount disk images on ChronoAgent Macs.
• Added the ability to preserve or strip Resource Forks to increase flexibility when backing up to non-native macOS file systems.
• Fixed some minor problems with Extended Attributes, specifically Finder Tags.
• Fixed a bug on Sierra where the ChronoAgent Preference Pane icon could be displayed in the Dock.

• Implements a stronger security model for encrypted communication with ChronoSync and InterConneX clients.
• Increased performance when using SmartScan.
• Works better with ChronoSync’s ‘Attempt reconnect on drops’ and ‘Optimal host routing’ features.
• Implemented an all-new Trial Mode evaluation system whereby trial keys can be requested from our server.
• A warning is now generated when ChronoAgent detects that the InterConneX User Path no longer exists.
• Fixed a user/group ID mapping bug where mapping could be temporarily disabled in some circumstances.
• Eliminated some erroneous error messages.
• Stability improvements.
• Fixed a handful of user-interface layout issues.

• Now provides a more complete list of active interfaces in the Status Panel.
• Provides better feedback to a client (i.e. ChronoSync) when copying package files.
• Improved wake and agent restart Bonjour service broadcast reliability, especially under Yosemite.
• Relaxed all internal constraints regarding the maximum length of file paths.
• Fixed a bug that would perform a full copy rather than a merge for files in a package that were HFS-compressed.
• Fixed a bug that could cause post-sync volume ejection to fail if the Synchronizer Document performing the task is open.

• Implemented support for package merging.
• Optimized retrieving and setting of File Info data.
• Fixed a problem that could prevent logging into the agent after Mac startup.

• Improved SmartScan comparability with ChronoSync 4.6.0.
• Added Japanese localization and help.
• Improved accessibility by increasing Voice Over support in the ChronoAgent Preference panes.
• When blessing a volume after a bootable backup operation, we now create a boot.efi, if necessary.
• When blessing a volume after a bootable backup operation, we now render a text label for the firmware-based OS picker.
• Performed minor UI tweaks to better accommodate localized labels.
• Fixed a potential bug by adding logic to address a possible thread-safety issue that occurs when trying to start multiple, concurrent secure sessions.
• Fixed an issue with the help button on the Advanced panel being overlapped and un-clickable on pre-10.10 systems.
• Fixed a bug whereby newly created symbolic links would have a UID equivalent to the intended GID.

• ChronoAgent is now 64-bit, Intel-only, and requires macOS 10.8 or newer.
• You can have ChronoAgent automatically configure the port-mapping functionality of your router. This is useful for making ChronoAgent available over the Internet by opening a port in the router’s firewall and forwarding all traffic on that port to the ChronoAgent.
• Contains a built-in Dynamic DNS client that can connect to several of the more-popular services.
• Limit ChronoAgent’s ability to access files by specifying which volumes it is allowed to access.
• Virtually all icons and supplemental artwork in the program have been optimized for high resolution (Retina) displays.
• You can optionally post to the local Notification Center. Keep track of any connection errors that may occur with ChronoAgent.
• Performance-boosting enhancements.
• Various Bug Fixes.

FEATURES:

• Added support for client-side FSEvent queries, increasing SmartScan performance.
• Now supports the modification of BSD flags on symbolic links if the underlaying file system supports this.
• Can now accept new connections at a faster rate.

FIXES:

• Fixed a problem that could cause a configured agent to temporarily forget its password on system startup.
• Fixed a bug that prevented SmartScan from offering any benefit to remote bootable backups that targeted a v1.4.x agent.
• Fixed a bug that could cause user/group mapping to become temporarily disabled when scanning a file system for changes.
• Fixed some thread safety issues when configuring the OpenSSL library for secure connections.
• Fixed a bug that could inadvertently close an existing connection if a new, secure session were initiated at precisely the wrong moment.

• Better performance and error handling.
• Minor UI tweaks especially when running on Yosemite.
• Update checks are performed on a secure connection.
• Various bug fixes.

• Fixed a bug where the agent would stop responding.
• Fixed a problem where agent Macs running OS 10.7 and newer might have problems being awakened to sync or staying awake to complete the sync.
• Improved temporary, hidden filename creation logic to work-around certain file system incompatibilities.
• Added better handling of file system nuances during the process of moving files to a synchronizer documents’ archive.

• Fixed a problem that could cause a crash when the agent is asked to collect information on all mounted volumes.
• Fixed a problem where incorrect permissions could be applied to read-only, locked files that are safe-copied.
• Modified the installer to ensure that all previously installed components are correctly replaced when updating the app.

• Implemented a fix for a bug in Mavericks that would cause a folder scan to fail with a fatal error if the folder did not have read permissions.
• Implemented a fix for a bug in Mavericks that would cause the application to crash when processing temporary files with a leading tilde character in their name.
• Fixed a bug that could cause un-necesary package aggregation if a folder containing packages had it’s contents change while it was being scanned.
• Fixed a bug that would not generate proper errors when an attempt to create a unique filename in a folder failed.
• Implemented more efficient unicode filename handling.

• Improved performance when aborting a sync.
• Improved sync scan performance especially when Package Files are included in the sync tree.
• Added logic to ensure all applicable threads get terminated when aborting a sync.
• Implemented installer changes to properly install on the system startup volume.

• Fixed a bug so that now files copied via InterConneX inherit the user and group ownership of the enclosing folder rather than be assigned ownership by the ‘default’ user. This technique is also applied to Symbolic Links.
• Updated the installer summary message to direct users to System Preferences in order to configure and enable ChronoAgent.

• Enforced security so non-admin users cannot access ChronoAgent preference panes beyond the Status pane without authenticating.
• Improved monitoring of real-time file system changes.
• Improved networking performance.
• Improved in-agent file copy performance.
• Added the ability to recognize reconnections attempts from ChronoSync 4.4.0 and later clients.
• Various bug fixes.

• All-new ChronoAgent Monitor to help monitor the status of and easily update ChronoAgent from the menubar.
• Enhanced License system preference pane to better report the license status if a demo license is being used.
• Added ChronoAgent Monitor settings and controls to the Advanced system preference pane.
• Added Mountain Lion Firewall and ChronoAgent Monitor information to the Help Center.
• Added support for remote file system observers and remote FSEvent queries for improved sync scan performance in future products.
• Added support for enhanced sync compression for use in future products.
• Added auto-reconnect logic for clients that support it.
• Replaced deprecated APIs with newer APIs.
• Fixed a bug preventing a port number greater than 56535 from being used. 65535 is now numerical port limit.

• Improved the efficiency of self-diagnostics.
• Fixed some incorrect translations in the French and German versions.
• Fixed a bug in the Preference Pane that would not allow a port value larger than 56535 to be specified.

• Fixed a rare timing problem that would falsely trigger a “File Not Found” error when syncing very large files.

• Fixed a problem on Mountain Lion where ChronoAgent would not keep the Mac awake while there was an active connection.

• New installer with better Gatekeeper integration in Mountain Lion.
• New code signature for better Mountain Lion compatibility.
• Uninstallers now do a better job of removing ChronoAgent related components.

• Fixed the inability to establish secure connections in some instances.
• Updated the uninstaller to ensure all files and folders are removed.
• Changed ChronoAgent to no longer attempt to display a dialog at the termination of the demo period but rather revert silently to demo mode. This prevents some unwanted problems with the preference panel trying to show a dialog when not active.

• Improved performance of concurrent file copies.
• Improved responsiveness when aborting a large file transfer in a scheduled synchronization.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the system from going to sleep after inactivity.
• Eliminated 256 bit encryption option.
• Minor help tweaks.

• All-new networking code implemented to support data encoding over multiple platforms and secure connections using SSL.
• More efficiently handles multiple, simultaneous connections.
• Automatically cleans up partially copied files (i.e. files not completely copied when a connection is unexpectedly broken).
• Split the ChronoAgent Preference Pane user interfaces into four tabs, logically placing new and existing controls within them.
• Users logged in under non-administrator accounts can now modify agent settings (provided they can supply administrator credentials to the security dialog).
• Preference pane now resizes itself to fit the enclosing Preferences window.
• Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese have been added to the existing set of English, German, French and Japanese translations.
• Completely revamped Help Center with new content, user interface and translations.
• New implementation for detecting and automatically installing updates.
• Slightly altered the bounce behavior so that we explicitly stop the Bonjour service publisher before shutting down the server.
• Fixed a bug where preference changes weren’t being synchronized after being made.
• Fixed a bug whereby port availability was being checked even if the agent was running, resulting in an erroneous “Port in use” error.
• Fixed a crash that could occur if multiple connections were simultaneously accessing exactly the same set of files.

• Fixed a bug whereby errors that occurred while compressing files to an archive were not properly detected and reported back to ChronoSync.
• Added logic that better handles certain file replacement scenarios thus reducing the likelihood of errors when compressing files to an archive.
• Fixed a problem that could result in an agent crash if two or more synchronizations that targeted the same agent were run at the same time.

• Ensures Mac OS X 10.7 ‘Lion’ compatibility.
• Can now be configured from non-admin accounts.
• Several minor bug fixes.

• Significant performance enhancements.
• Support for file handling metrics (for reporting progress times).
• Several minor bug fixes.

• Performed various cleanups regarding memory management including fixing numerous small memory leaks.
• Eliminated some long, unnecessary pauses when aborting certain operations.

• Significant performance improvements.
• ChronoAgent now detects a network configuration change and takes the necessary steps to ensure it is available on the new network.
• Added ability to limit the volumes that are made accessible over a connection.
• Added support for wake-on-lan.
• Various installer enhancements.
• Implemented numerous changes to how agent connections are established and maintained.
• Enhanced communications test commands that now allow ChronoSync to detect if an agent is truly available on a remote machine rather than just determine if the machine itself is reachable.
• Fixed a bug where it was possible for a license file to be created with a blank line as the first line of the file causing the registration to fail.
• Addressed a problem whereby the server sometimes doesn’t come up due to a ‘port in use’ error and the CA goes dead after a network change.

• Implemented workarounds to numerous “Parameter Errors” some Snow Leopard users encounter when connecting to a server via SMB.

• Fixed problems that occurred when installing/using the program in some Directory Service environments.

NOTE: When using the program in a Directory Service environment, you should contact technical support if the default behavior isn’t adequate for your needs.

• Connections are established much quicker.
• Fixed some memory leaks which, in certain scenarios, could be significant.

• Minor installer modifications.
• Minor uninstaller modifications.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when copying large files over a secure agent connection.
• Added code to ensure the proper access permissions of the domain socket’s parent folder.
• Added code-signing so that there should not be anymore firewall problems with Leopard.
• Changed the way keychains are handled to ensure the keychain file is created with privileges that allow ChronoSync to access it.
•  

• Fixed a long stall that could occur on some user’s systems when opening synchronizer documents that connected to a ChronoAgent.
• Fixed some problems that occurred when the base language was not represented by a Roman text system. This problem could manifest itself as failure to load at startup, inability to communicate with ChronoSync and possibly random crashes.
• Addressed some permission issues in the installer.

Initial Release!!!

• Communicate directly with ChronoSync.
• Synchronize two Macs faster.
• Gain complete access to your destination Mac.
• Control file ownership permissions.