Preferences persisted but always ignored on Mavericks

[woofy31]

Hey Andrew,

 

I just did a clean install of OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 and did a fresh clean install of Alfred 2.1.1, too (no workflows, plain fresh and clean), and whenever I try to change a setting or import any skin, on next launch the setting is reset and the skin is gone I have tried repairing disk permissions with no luck, then tried changing the permissions myself with no luck either, then tried enabling sync and set to sync in non-dropbox folder then in dropbox and none worked either

 

I can't do anything without Alfred, so what is happening? Could it be that Alfred is not fully compatible with Mavericks?

 

After trying to "debug" the problem, I noticed the several things:

1. inside the "Alfred.alfredpreferences" package, the file "prefs.plist" found in ./preferences/appearance/options correctly shows that "hidehat=true" & "hidecog=true", which means the settings are persisted

 

2. however, as soon as I quit and relaunch Alfred, both the hat & cog are visible again, even though the previously mentioned file still shows "hidehat=true" & "hidecog=true", which means that Alfred is not reading the settings it just saved even though the settings are correct in the files on disk..

 

3. next test: importing a skin; after importing any skin, it gets saved to the "prefs.plist" found in ./preferences/appearance of the "Alfred.alfredpreferences" package, and gets applied right away

 

4. but, after half a minute or so upon applying the theme, when I open alfred the theme has changed to the default and inside Alfred's preferences window the theme is gone, even though it still shows up in the previously mentioned "prefs.plist", which means again that Alfred doesn't read its own settings after it persists them??

 

So the conclusion is this: Alfred saves every setting I make, every change I make, but as soon as I quit/relaunch it all settings from disk are completely ignored. Why isn't Alfred reading the settings it saved? Maybe it's related to Maverick's new & more aggressive preference caching?? Because if a clean Alfred installation on a clean Mavericks installation doesn't work, then it's clearly that Alfred isn't Mavericks-ready yet...

 

I really need Alfred to work, because I refuse to see it become wasted money

 

P.S. while reading the forums, I noticed one other person say this exact phrase: "It seems as though Alfred was saving the settings to that location, but then not reading them back from there." - this confirms that Alfred is not reading back the settings it saves on Mavericks

Edited December 26, 2013 by ursanrazvan

[Tyler Eich]

For what it's worth: I've been running Mavericks since the day it was released. Alfred 2 was on my system long before that. I've had no hiccups.

 

If you run Alfred from a new user account, can you replicate this behavior?

 

For reference, here's the thread you mentioned in your P.S.

 

Also, thanks for all your debugging information 

[woofy31]

OK, so I've tried using another account, and it looks like it's working... but what does this mean? Because it can't be a permissions problem since I've repaired/removed/reset permissions and didn't help   And I don't really like the idea of creating another account and re-licensing all apps, and moving every app data to a new account - it would take me ages to do that ((

 

[later edit] I just can't understand what is wrong on this account.. I've set all permissions (in library/preferences, in library/appsupport, even in Applications folder) to be exactly the same as in the new account where Alfred worked, and yet on this account it just doesn't load the saved settings.. can anyone tell me what the problem could be? Because I've tried setting up the new account, but it takes me forever to re-license all apps and reconfigure them again..

Edited December 26, 2013 by ursanrazvan

[Andrew]

OK, so I've tried using another account, and it looks like it's working... but what does this mean? Because it can't be a permissions problem since I've repaired/removed/reset permissions and didn't help   And I don't really like the idea of creating another account and re-licensing all apps, and moving every app data to a new account - it would take me ages to do that ((

 

[later edit] I just can't understand what is wrong on this account.. I've set all permissions (in library/preferences, in library/appsupport, even in Applications folder) to be exactly the same as in the new account where Alfred worked, and yet on this account it just doesn't load the saved settings.. can anyone tell me what the problem could be? Because I've tried setting up the new account, but it takes me forever to re-license all apps and reconfigure them again..

 

Which Dropbox folder are you syncing to? As I have seen a few reports of the Dropbox Apps folder doing funny things with settings where Alfred doesn't have access to them. Try setting up syncing to a completely new folder inside of Dropbox (and waiting for this to fully sync into and out of on any other Macs before setting this up).

 

What I also think could be happening is if you setup Alfred on a fresh install of Mavericks before Dropbox had time to sync the Alfred data out, then there are tonnes of clashes which are unresolvable by Dropbox.

 

Don't worry too much, I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this soon

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[woofy31]

Hey Andrew, and thank you for getting back to me

 

Well, the thing is that I have tried using both non-dropbox sync (default location), as well as dropbox-sync after it has finished syncing, and even tried using another dropbox folder, and nothing worked.. I must have tried every imaginable scenario, but it seems that there's something really wrong with this account (which was created by OSX after install)... so from where I stand, the only solutions I have are:

 

[a] creating a new account and moving every app data, relicensing all apps, reconfiguring all apps, which is a daunting & time-consuming task

setting the same must-have settings in Alfred every time I start the OS and taking my mind off of setting custom themes or installing new workflows, and making sure that the Alfred process never quits until I shutdown the OS..

 

Obviously I've decided to go with , hopefully I'll get used to setting the same settings over and over everytime the OS starts - ultimately I guess it'll become a mechanical reflex.. and maybe when I have more time I'll do [a] piece by piece..

 

I was really eager to install Mavericks, but instead it gave me a bitter taste.. hopefully this will resolve itself over the time, who knows, maybe with an Alfred update or the next OS update..

Edited December 27, 2013 by ursanrazvan