Preference Syncing Issue

[UA Mike]

I am having issues syncing my preferences to my 2nd mac. The preferences file is in my Google Drive (which is mirrored for offline use). When I point Alfred to the correct folder, it restarts as per the procedure, but then I get the message that the preferences package is missing. When I click continue, my preferences are not loaded, but Alfred still knows where the location of the file ought to be.

Both macs are using the same version of Alfred (5.1.2). The 1st mac is running the pre-release version of Sonoma and the 2nd mac is quite a bit older running Ventura, if that makes a difference.

[Vero]

@UA Mike Thanks for giving some details on the issue you're seeing. 

Taking a look at your first screenshot, am I correct to assume that your "2TB New NVME" drive is an external drive? If so, that's not an appropriate location for your preferences. External drives take time to connect and mount at startup so will not be available quickly enough at startup.

 

Set the preferences to a location that is available at startup, not thereafter, and see whether the error goes away.

 

Let me know how you get on

[UA Mike]

@Vero The 2TB New NVME is my startup disk and is not an external drive. What other troubleshooting steps can your recommend?

[Vero]

@UA Mike On your second Mac, could you please follow these steps:

 

- Copy the Alfred.alfred preferences from your sync location to a folder you name Alfred in your home directory (/Users/michael/Alfred/)

- Go to Alfred's Advanced preferences and set the above as your sync location

- Restart your Mac and see if everything launches as expected

 

Are the contents of your preferences complete? Did you get any error message on startup?

 

This will help establish if the preferences are at fault, or the Google Drive location.

 

If it's the GD location, it's possible that your prefs folder isn't really set to be available offline: You may want to try setting the folder in which you store your preferences to be online then offline again, just in case Google Drive isn't respecting your settings.

[UA Mike]

@Vero I completed the above steps, but still get the Alfred startup error pictured

[Vero]

@UA Mike This means that the issue is outside of Google Drive.

 

If you don't restart your Mac, and simply quit and relaunch Alfred, do you get any preferences startup error? I assume that you won't, as the location of your preferences is already accessible.

 

Next, could you please follow these instructions to reset the sync location to defaults?

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/advanced/sync/disable-sync/

 

This will cause Alfred to use the default preferences in ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/ which may still not tell us much if this is also stored on your 2TB New NVME drive.  Is this drive your Mac's internal one? Plugged by USB-C or otherwise?

[UA Mike]

8 minutes ago, Vero said:

If you don't restart your Mac, and simply quit and relaunch Alfred, do you get any preferences startup error? I assume that you won't, as the location of your preferences is already accessible

I actually get the same error.

 

9 minutes ago, Vero said:

Next, could you please follow these instructions to reset the sync location to defaults?

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/advanced/sync/disable-sync/

Completed this, but now I see several errors like this on the top of Alfred Preferences:

[Vero]

@UA Mike Could you please provide an answer to this question?

 

31 minutes ago, Vero said:

Is this drive your Mac's internal one? Plugged by USB-C or otherwise?

 

[vitor]

The red message makes me think maybe somewhere along the way the permissions in your preferences got set wrong. Probably some syncing error outside your control.

Select your preferences and do ⌘i (or right-click → Get Info). At the bottom you’ll see a Sharing & Permissions area. Expand it. Could you share a screenshot of that section?

[UA Mike]

@Vero It's an internal drive - the machine is a hackintosh in case you were wondering. I started to wonder whether that fact had anything to do with what I was experiencing, so I tried using another Macbook and was encountering the exact same issue. So then I started to think it had something to do with 'Mac 1' or Google Drive. I decided to start syncing with Dropbox instead and the problem was fixed instantly! Both Google Drive and Dropbox are set to mirror rather and on-demand syncing, so I can't really explain it.
 

@vitor Attached the screenshot for the file in Google Drive and also included the same info for the working version that is in Dropbox. I played around with the permission settings, but that didn't fix my issue. A couple of weird differences between the two files is that they're showing different "open with" apps and also the file sizes are different.

 

I'm puzzled as to why I have issues with GD but not Dropbox. I use GD to sync a bunch of other app preferences, such as Keyboard Maestro and haven't experienced the same thing. Any explanation you might have at this point would only be to satisfy my own curiosity 😃 

[vitor]

There’s something funky with that version which is set to open with TextEdit. There’s a good chance that deleting that one and replacing it with the good one from Dropbox will fix it. If it breaks again, it would mean Google Drive (or something in your system) would be altering the preferences bundle in some weird way. But I don’t recall every seeing that happen and tons of people sync with Google Drive.