Not reading Alfred.alfredpreferences

[mbutleruk]

Hi,

 

Despite my best efforts i cannot get Alfred to reliably read the preferences file. I have followed all the steps outlined in the 'Persisting Alfred Preferences' post, but Im afraid they haven't worked. I've also uninstalled and reinstalled the app a number of times but that hasn't helped either.

 

I've checked the contents of Alfred.alfredpreferences and all my settings are present and correct, but nine times out of ten if I reboot Alfred doesn't apply my settings (workflows and power pack registration are retained but no other settings).

 

I'm running Alfred v2.5.1 (308) on OS X Yosemite 10.10.1. My Mac is a 13" MacBook Pro with Retina.

 

Alfred is without a doubt the most useful app on my Mac, but this problem is becoming really annoying.

 

Any help at all would be gratefully appreciated.

 

[Vero]

Despite my best efforts i cannot get Alfred to reliably read the preferences file. I have followed all the steps outlined in the 'Persisting Alfred Preferences' post, but Im afraid they haven't worked. I've also uninstalled and reinstalled the app a number of times but that hasn't helped either.

 

Are you syncing your settings? If so, where are they synced?

 

What settings specifically aren't being saved?

 

If you can provide a bit more details, I'll be happy to help you out

[mbutleruk]

Hi Vero,

 

I'm not syncing my settings (I did try this briefly but it made no difference).

 

None of the settings on the Features or Appearance tab are saved. On the General tab the startup option is retained but the hotkey isn't.

 

Any help you can provide would be gratefully received

[Vero]

Hi Vero,

 

I'm not syncing my settings (I did try this briefly but it made no difference).

 

None of the settings on the Features or Appearance tab are saved. On the General tab the startup option is retained but the hotkey isn't.

 

Any help you can provide would be gratefully received

 

This is likely to be a permissions issue, so first, launch Disk Utility and repair permissions on your drive.

 

If Alfred still can't save preferences, reset Alfred to defaults by quitting Alfred and deleting these files:

http://support.alfredapp.com/kb:reset-alfred

 

Let me know how you get on

[mbutleruk]

HI Vero,

 

Thanks for that.

 

I've tried both of those and still have the same issue.

 

I may be wrong ( it wouldn't be the first time), but it looks like the preferences are saved OK, it's reading them back that is the problem. If I examine the contents of the Alfred.alfredpreferences file the settings inside are correct, but Alfred is either not reading them or not applying them.

 

Thanks again for your help.

[Vero]

HI Vero,

 

Thanks for that.

 

I've tried both of those and still have the same issue.

 

Could you launch Activity Monitor and check you're not running two instances of Alfred? (e.g. Alfred v2 and Alfred v1) where you might be popping up the search box for v1 after saving your settings in v2?

 

Also, could you try temporarily creating a second user account and seeing if your settings are correctly saved and used on this second user profile? This will at least help us establish whether the issue is specific to your main user account or a broader problem on your Mac.

[mbutleruk]

Hiya,

 

Okay I've checked in Activity Monitor, definitely only one instance of the application is running.

 

I tried a second user account a few days ago, and got the same problem immediately.

 

This has only appeared since moving to OSX Yosemite, so it's more than likely that the OS is playing a part in the problem.

 

Thanks again for you help.

[Vero]

Hiya,

 

Okay I've checked in Activity Monitor, definitely only one instance of the application is running.

 

I tried a second user account a few days ago, and got the same problem immediately.

 

This has only appeared since moving to OSX Yosemite, so it's more than likely that the OS is playing a part in the problem.

 

Thanks again for you help.

 

If you have the time, reinstalling Yosemite from scratch (rather than upgrading) could resolve issues like this. If you're encountering the issue on another profile too, it's likely to be a deeper-rooted issue with Yosemite that would most likely cause issues with other apps, even though you've noticed it in Alfred first.

 

Let us know how you get on

[mbutleruk]

Hiya,

 

I thought that too, so I did a clean install of Yosemite about 3 weeks ago I'm afraid.

[Vero]

Hiya,

 

I thought that too, so I did a clean install of Yosemite about 3 weeks ago I'm afraid.

 

Could you pop an email to info@alfredapp com? I'll get Andrew to also take a look into this, and see what we can do next

[mbutleruk]

Hi Vero,

 

I'll do that now, thanks again for your assistance

[nonissue]

I'm having a similar issue. I haven't done a clean install of the OS, but am running yosemite and am syncing with dropbox. I don't have any issues on my Mac Pro running OSX10.9.5, and the issue isn't persistent, it's intermittent. 

[Vero]

I'm having a similar issue. I haven't done a clean install of the OS, but am running yosemite and am syncing with dropbox. I don't have any issues on my Mac Pro running OSX10.9.5, and the issue isn't persistent, it's intermittent. 

 

What sync folder are you using in Dropbox? As we said above, we recommend avoiding the ~/Dropbox/Apps folder as it causes issues for some users.

 

Also, mbutleruk above was experiencing issues with other apps on his Mac, chose to reinstall Yosemite from fresh and says that the sync issue is now resolved for him (along with issues he was having with the other apps).

[mbutleruk]

Vero is absolutely right.

 

I started having issues with other apps (including Dropbox itself) so did another clean install of Yosemite. Since then Alfred is working perfectly (and so is every other app). 

 

The only thing I've done differently this time is I've switched from running the built in Apache and MySQL to using Mamp Pro 3 instead (I'm a web developer so I run websites on my Mac). I seem to remember that getting the built in Apache to work properly on Yosemite involved messing around with some pretty low level permissions, so I think this may be what was causing the problem.