Alfred 5.5.2257 remove workflow not working with iCloud

[Silas]

After updating to Alfred 5.5.2257 (Sonoma 14.4) I am unable to remove workflows when my syncing directory is set to an iCloud folder.

 

Steps to reproduce:

1. Set sync folder to iCloud
2. Add workflow from gallery
3. Remove workflow (it will disappear from UI)
4. Close and reopen Alfred preferences
5. Notice the workflow reappears

 

Workaround:

1. Set sync folder to local disk
2. Remove workflow
3. Remove alfredpreferences file from iCloud
4. Set sync folder back to iCloud

 

I know iCloud syncing is not recommended, feel free to close this as wontfix. I just wanted to report it in case other people were debugging the same issue.

[Vero]

@Silas Welcome to the forum

 

First, could you please check whether you're using Optimised Storage on your Mac? This iCloud feature must be disabled if you'd like to use it for syncing your Alfred preferences, as enabling it means that macOS can arbitrarily decide to make your preferences online-only, making them unavailable to Alfred. 

 

Once you've done this, temporarily create a new sync location in your user directory under ~/Alfred/ (provided this is a local, unsynced path on your Mac) and set this as your sync folder in Alfred's advanced preferences.
 
Next, try deleting a workflow again and see if it's successfully removed when the preferences are reopened.

 

Let me know how you get on.

[Silas]

@Vero Yup, I have Optimized Storage disabled.

 

Removing the workflow when the syncing directory was set to ~/Alfred/ worked.

 

Here are the exact steps I did:

1. Switch syncing directory to ~/Alfred/
2. Delete alfredpreferences from iCloud directory
3. Add workflow from Alfred Gallery
4. Remove workflow
5. Close and reopen Alfred preference, workflow is gone
6. Install workflow again
7. Switch syncing directory back to iCloud directory
8. Remove workflow
9. Close and reopen Alfred preference, workflow still exists
10. Attempt to remove workflow again
11. Close and reopen Alfred preference, workflow still exists

So it consistently doesn't persist the workflow removal action when the syncing directory is set to an iCloud folder.

[Silas]

It's possible this is a Sonoma 14.4 iCloud issue, looks like they might have changed stuff in the latest release (see unrelated bug regarding iCloud).

 

Unfortunately I don't have an older version of MacOS, so I can't test this theory.

[Gill]

I'm having a similar experience. It also affects snippets. I can add workflows and snippets, no problem. But I cannot remove them. I'll upgrade to Sonoma 14.4.1 tonight to see if the problem isn't resolved.

[Vero]

@Gill Welcome to the forum

 

Could you please let us know which sync service you're using? Could you also check that your preferences are set to always be stored offline if you're using a sync service that can offload preferences to be online-only? 

 

More details on this here:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/advanced/sync/#always-offline

 

We can take it from there to help you work out why Alfred can't make certain preference changes.

[MaxC]

I'm having the same issue. Since recently cannot update or delete workflows (maybe just one workflow, I'm not sure. It's definitely affecting the OpenAI workflow). I'm using an iCloud directory on Sonoma 14.4.1. When I open Alfred preferences file in finder (via Show package contents) and try to delete workflow manually, I get the same -43 error code mentioned here: https://www.alfredforum.com/topic/21535-update-workflows/?do=findComment&comment=111878.

 

I deleted each file separately in Finder, and was able to delete every single file. The error only occurred on "images/about" directory inside the workflow (even though this directory was empty, since I manually deleted each file from it). https://github.com/alfredapp/openai-workflow/tree/main/Workflow

 

To workaround this issue I used rm -r to delete the directories in the terminal. Then I was able to reinstall the new version of the workflow. This worked, however, the same issue comes back when I try to update the workflow.

 

Alfred 5.5 [2257]

Edited April 16 by MaxC

[ric]

Not sure how useful a "me too" is, but I have Alfred preferences in iCloud (with optimise off) and can not update nor remove workflows.

Moving the prefs file outside the iCloud directory fixes the issue

Putting the prefs file back into iCloud and the problem recurs

[vitor]

It’s important to reiterate that Alfred’s Preferences are essentially a folder bundle of files. Alfred needs those files to be available at all times, and if a sync service is doing something funky to them or purging them, there’s only so much that can be done. iCloud Drive in particular has historically been unreliable (and Sonoma 14.4 in particular brought new bugs) which is why Alfred warns about it when setting it as the sync location.

When disabling Optimise Mac Storage, make sure you wait before trying again, because it can take a while to download what you have online. You should also reboot your Mac, because the iCloud daemon can be unreliable.

Also note you can backup your preferences with a workflow which allows you to keep you settings local while also periodically saving them to cloud storage.

[MaxC]

There was a brief happy moment right before Sonoma 14.4 when iCloud became surprisingly reliable, then they broke it again.

 

For now I added Alfred preferences copying into my hourly cron script, which I use for situations like these.