TNCS-0050 – ChronoSync v10 Enhancements, Changes and Bug Fixes
Created: March 02, 2022
- Apple Silicon Native
- ChronoSync v10 is a Universal binary Application.
- New Minimum OS
- ChronoSync v10 Requires macOS 10.12, Sierra, or newer.
- Return of Google Cloud Support
- Existing connection profiles work but will need to be re-authenticated.
- Added Direct iCloud Support
- All-New Support for Big Sur and Monterey Bootable Backups
- The Bootable Backup Setup Assistant uses the ASR tool to create a cloned image on the destination volume as part of the bootable task
creation process. - After the full system clone is made, only the data volume is backed up.
- When an OS version change is detected, ASR will be automatically employed to re-image the destination without disrupting any existing
Archiving of the user’s data. - When the user manually configures a bootable backup, the Volume Group Converter will provide the option to re-image the destination (using
ASR).
- The Bootable Backup Setup Assistant uses the ASR tool to create a cloned image on the destination volume as part of the bootable task
- New Archive Management
- Archives for new Sync Tasks are located in a document-specific folder relative to “_Archived Items”.
- Old documents still store archives just beneath “_Archived Items”.
- The location of “_Archived Items” may be changed on a per-target basis. It can reside at any location that is reachable by the Target’s File manager.
- Added ‘Actions->Archive->Maintain Archive’ to run just the maintenance step of a synchronization. This is useful if the maintenance will free up
disk space, which may be necessary to complete the synchronization. - Added ‘Actions->Archive->Cleanup Archive” tool, to reclaim the specified amount of disk space from the archive.
- When duplicating sync tasks via the Organizer window, the option to retain the archive will actually copy the entire archive to a new, document
specific location.
- New Sync Task Document File format
- ChronoSync v10 will prompt to update the file format the first time you open a sync task document.
- Scheduled syncs that have not been upgraded work fine.
- The “File->Save as” window allows saving in either the new or old format.
- Eliminated Most Blocking UI Logic
- Improved Sync Engine
- Updated OpenSSL Library
- Updated SFTP Library
- Various UI Enhancements
- New Data Encoding for Scheduler Database, Connection Profiles and other Application data
- New Version Numbering Scheme
ENHANCEMENTS & CHANGES
- Implemented the “No Bootables” readiness test that checks if you’re trying to make a 12.3 (or later) bootable backup on an Apple Silicon machine. If so, it will generate an error and not let you proceed.
- The Bootable Backup Assistant will not present any source volumes that have a signed OS installed on them if running on Apple Silicon and macOS 12.3 or later.
- The ‘ShouldBeBootable’ readiness warning, that is triggered when the user has chosen a System volume as their source target but not a Bootable operation, is now considered an error if CS is running on Catalina or later.
- The active-boot-volume-to-file-server readiness warning only evaluates if we are directly accessing a local file system for our source.
- When changing the sync operation from non-bootable to bootable, we now force the re-selection of targets. This avoids several loopholes that existed whereby the sync task would not be properly constructed if the user chose targets before changing the operation to bootable.
- Now more accurately determines the mount point for a ‘System’ volume in an APFS volume group, even if it has multiple mount points due to pending software updates.
- Error messages generated by the post-synchronizer (responsible for making destination volume bootable) will now be included in notification emails.
- Enhanced the logic that determines if a bootable system is installed on a volume.
- Filename case changes are now factored into bootable backups.
- Added more diagnostics when comparing volume specifiers.
- The Analyze panel now provides better feedback when one of the targets is attempting to mount a volume.
- The Folder-to-Disk-Image Assistant now defaults to APFS when configuring the disk image on Mojave and later.
- Added checks to make preserving folder timestamps within a package more reliable on filesystems that are unreliable in this regard e.g. some SMB file servers and ExFAT volumes.
- Significantly reworked the sequence in which a target attempts to mount volumes.
- Employed new volume ejection/dismount strategies.
- Employed new Spotlight disabling strategies.
- Enhanced some diagnostics when copying or moving files.
- Fixed various cosmetic issues in the user interface.
- Added periods to some tooltips that were missing them.
- Updated online help.
BUG FIXES
- Fixed a bug whereby attempts to suspend Spotlight indexing on a volume was actually disabling Spotlight for that volume.
- Fixed a bug in the Bootable Backup Assistant whereby it would sometimes show the boot volume as a selectable source twice.
- Fixed a bug in the Bootable Backup Assistant whereby it would sometimes show data volumes of volume groups in addition to the system volume.
- Fixed a bug in the Bootable Backup Assistant whereby it would sometimes show “as is” as a formatting option when the destination was not properly constructed to allow “as is” as a choice.
- Fixed a bug with the Restore operation whereby it would not connect to the target file managers when setting up the configuration sheet and thus an improper icon would be displayed.
- Fixed a grammar error in the Disk Image Assistant.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when deleting a rule.
- Fixed a bug that would cause a scheduled item to be added twice if created from the Document Organizer window.
- Fixed some bugs that could cause tickle threads to get created when reclaiming a lost connection.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when switching to the Analyze Panel.
- Fixed a potential problem whereby the app could not properly detect if the background scheduler was launched because the OS needs the main run loop to run in order to update its list of running applications.
- Improved the validation of contextual menu plugins (aka System Service) items added to contextual popup menus in Analyze, Archive and Trial Sync outline/table views (and a few other places). Such items will not appear if the involved targets do not support Finder interaction.
- Fixed a bug whereby sync task documents that were initially created when the user closed the sync task window and gave it a file name would not immediately show valid sync task information in the Organizer window.
- Fixed a bug whereby the window title of a sync task’s Log would not be correct if the sync task was a duplicated copy of another sync task and the log was being displayed from the Organizer window.
- Fixed a bug whereby attempts to mount the volume upon which a target disk image resides would fail.
- Fixed a bug whereby scheduled syncs would issue two concurrent attempts to mount target volumes in separate threads. Was only an issue if one of those attempts failed, in which case a crash could occur.
- Fixed a bug whereby some target volumes could incorrectly be identified as mounted when they were in fact not mounted.
- Added logic to ensure that container and sync task documents get saved on the main thread when run from the background scheduler.
- The Bootable Backup Assistant now explicitly waits for connection to be established with the destination target after creating the sync task document before moving on to complete the document configuration.
- The Bootable Backup Assistant now gracefully handles any exceptions raised while attempting to clear saved application states on the destination target.
- Added more thread fingerprinting when executing code on various operation queues.
- The Toolbar Pathname Controller now behaves consistently with AppKit’s handling of command-clicking window names.
- Added a missing period to Japanese text in the Document Organizer window.
- Fixed a crashing bug that could occur when attempting to connect to an SMB server using a supplied username & password.
- Fixed a bug whereby the read-only status of the Data volume in a targeted APFS volume group was not being properly determined. CS always thought such volumes were writable.
- Fixed a bug in the OS Version mismatch Readiness test whereby if the OS version could not be determined from the destination volume, but could from the source, a mismatch was not being reported.
- Fixed a bug in the signed source volume test whereby if the OS version could not be determined from the destination volume, an OS mismatch was not being detected and thus post-sync re-imaging would not be performed.
- The Volume Group Converter will now mark the associated synchronizer as ‘busy’ when running a clone operation. This prevents events such as volume mounts/dismounts from resulting in targets updating themselves while the clone operation is running.
- Fixed a bug whereby the Validator Setup Sheet’s Help button wasn’t wired to an action in non-English languages.
- Fixed a bug whereby the OS mismatch readiness test was still being performed when targets weren’t verified.
- Fixed a bug whereby the ‘bless’ utility was not being properly executed when the source was a signed system.
- Fixed a bug whereby if a sync was being started as part of a container task, but it couldn’t be started because it was busy, it would still retain its encapsulated state.
- Fixed an uncaught exception that could be raised when removing a rule from a rule group.
- 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.
- Attempted to harden code that deals with volume mount/unmount events so that they cannot cause a crash when a target is being instantiated.
- Fixed a bug whereby SmartScan would be attempted even if the corresponding file manager did not support SmartScan.
- Fixed a bug that could cause a crash if a target’s relative pathname was only one character long.
- Fixed some potential deadlocks that could occur when using the Bootable Backup Assistant and having volumes mount & unmount at the same time.
- Remote connections now produce more meaningful diagnostics.
- We now obtain a generic icon when an exception is raised on a remote connection rather than terminating the remote connection.
- Added diagnostics to the exception handler that traps exceptions raised when trying to run a scheduled item.
REVISION HISTORY
Mar-02-2022 – Created.