I have been using v1.2.3 for months and decided to try out 2.0 beta for the first time. Grabbed the b9 dmg and right after installation QR crashed. Rebooting didn't help. (Yes, all my archives are online and reachable.)

After hours of trials and errors, QR finally opened after the "Actions" folder under ~/Library/Preferences/QRecall had been emptied. As a result, QR did not convert excluded items defined in my actions into QRecall Capture Preferences. I then tried to add them manually in the archive settings, only to find the "+" button broken. It did absolutely nothing when clicked.

Not to be detered, I tried to use drag-n-drop (from finder) instead, and was delighted to find that worked. The joy was shortlived, however, as I soon realized the "-" button was broken, too, and there was no way to remove an excluded item. Can't edit them out from the plist file either as they are now encoded therein.

Next I tried to use the new QRecall Capture Preferences service, only to find it nowhere to be found, not even in System Services Configuration (the one at "System Preferences - Keyboard - Shortcuts - Services"). Reinstalling didn't help.

I finally took the drastic step of reverting my system back to a stage before QRecall was installed, and installed v2 beta 9 without installing v1.2.3 first. The QRecall Capture Preferences service was there, finally, though I had to enable it manually in System Services Configuration.

Time to test it out. I set several folders on my system partition to "Do not capture contents" with the "Exclude from all archives" option enabled, and then back it up to a new archive. It went smoothly, but several excluded folders were still backed up despite the setting. I soon realized the extended attribute wasn't really set because those were privileged folders (owned by root). QR really should ask for permission to set the XA, or at least give a warning about not being able to set the XA. It did neither.

I gave up at this point as my leisure time was up. I'll try again later.

A few suggestions:

1. The ability to save a folder without capturing its content has been one of my most wanted features. Restoring the system partition with QR has been a pain without this feature as I always have to spend much time recreating the excluded system folders with the right ownership and permissions.

The new QRecall Capture Preferences service is thus a great addition, but it needs to be able to work on privileged folders, and I hope the same functionality can be extended to per-archive exclusions.

2. The "Exclude from all archives" option is confusing. I first thought it meant excluding from all archives instead of just this archive, only to realize soon that this is not a per-archive exclusion, so the "Do not capture" setting can't be archive specific. I had to dig out the release notes to know its true meaning. I would suggest something like "Override archive setting" instead.

3. I don't know how difficult this is, but I truely hope there is a way for v1 and v2 betas to co-exist on a system, so I could try out the betas without messing with existing archives and backup routines.

Thanks for the great work. V2 does look promising.

Ming-Li Wang,

Thanks for taking the time to beta test QRecall. You certainly get points for persistence.

Ming-Li Wang wrote:Not to be detered, I tried to use drag-n-drop (from finder) instead, and was delighted to find that worked. The joy was shortlived, however, as I soon realized the "-" button was broken, too, and there was no way to remove an excluded item. Can't edit them out from the plist file either as they are now encoded therein.

Fixed.

Next I tried to use the new QRecall Capture Preferences service, only to find it nowhere to be found, not even in System Services Configuration (the one at "System Preferences - Keyboard - Shortcuts - Services"). Reinstalling didn't help.

It would appear that your initial install of QRecall 2.0 failed spectacularly. If you still have the QRecall.log for that time period, please forward it to support@qrecall.com. (You'll want to compress it first, as it can often be rather large.)

The QRecall Capture Preferences service was there, finally, though I had to enable it manually in System Services Configuration.

That, unfortunately, is now standard for OS X. New services are disabled by default; you must explicitly tell OS X which services you want to use.

Time to test it out. I set several folders on my system partition to "Do not capture contents" with the "Exclude from all archives" option enabled, and then back it up to a new archive. It went smoothly, but several excluded folders were still backed up despite the setting. I soon realized the extended attribute wasn't really set because those were privileged folders (owned by root). QR really should ask for permission to set the XA, or at least give a warning about not being able to set the XA. It did neither.

Sorry about that. When I went to check this out, I even found a note in the code: "TODO: Handle xattr set failure here." Obviously, I hadn't gotten back to that.

Anyway, I went ahead and implemented a warning dialog that will now pop up if QRecall can't set the capture preferences for an item.

It was never my intent to allow the QRecall service to set the capture preferences for items not owned by the user, although it's theoretically possible to do via an authorization request, and I'll add that to the wish-list.

A few suggestions:

1. The ability to save a folder without capturing its content has been one of my most wanted features. Restoring the system partition with QR has been a pain without this feature as I always have to spend much time recreating the excluded system folders with the right ownership and permissions.

The new QRecall Capture Preferences service is thus a great addition, but it needs to be able to work on privileged folders, and I hope the same functionality can be extended to per-archive exclusions.

To set the capture preferences for an item you don't own, use the sudo and qrecall command line tools:

sudo qrecall captureprefs exclude /Path/to/excluded/item

2. The "Exclude from all archives" option is confusing. I first thought it meant excluding from all archives instead of just this archive, only to realize soon that this is not a per-archive exclusion, so the "Do not capture" setting can't be archive specific. I had to dig out the release notes to know its true meaning. I would suggest something like "Override archive setting" instead.

I'm afraid it's going to be confusing either way.

Essentially, the "exclude item" setting is QRecall's version of OS X's "exclude item from backup" attribute, designed principally for Time Machine. When you configure your archive, you can choose to honor or ignore OS X's "do not backup" flag, and you choose to honor or ignore QRecall's "exclude item" setting.

So, basically, you have two ways of marking items to be excluded from a capture (OS X's and QRecall's) and you have the choice of excluding those items from the capture, or ignoring the settings and capturing either, or both, sets.

I'll try to make this clearer when I get around to updating the help. And I might change the name of the "Exclude from all archives" setting to something like "Setting cannot be ignored," or something like that.

3. I don't know how difficult this is, but I truely hope there is a way for v1 and v2 betas to co-exist on a system, so I could try out the betas without messing with existing archives and backup routines.

If it was easy, I'd do it myself. (Probably the most frustrating part of QRecall development is not being able to use QRecall all the time.) The main problem is that QRecall installs system services that are identified by name, and only one service with that name can be running. And for security, QRecall insists that all installed components must be the same version. This makes it an all-or-nothing deal.

Thanks for the great work. V2 does look promising.

Thanks. I look forward to you trying it again soon. The next (b10) release should include the fixes I mentioned here.

It would appear that your initial install of QRecall 2.0 failed spectacularly. If you still have the QRecall.log for that time period, please forward it to support@qrecall.com. (You'll want to compress it first, as it can often be rather large.)

That's my guess as well, but I reinstalled several times, and tried my best to do it as cleanly as possible. A little more detail:

I've kept the habit from my Windows days of keeping a detailed system setup diary when setting up a new system--a plaintext file recording all the tweaks and software installations in the order they take place, along with software license codes and other notes. The installation process is organized in stages, with a fresh new system with nothing but the most basic, essential tweaks made and no software installed as stage A0, and it moves from there to A1, A2, A3 ... and so on. At the end of each stage, a system image (.dmg file) is made (by booting into the rescue partition or a live USB drive I keep for this purpose).

This way, I could revert the system back to an earlier stage if something goes wrong in a later stage. Some of those .dmg files are eventually discarded to save space when the system seems to be running without issue, but some are kept so that I can try new software at will.

When I first installed QR 2.0 beta 9, I did it on my then current, running system. When QR crashed after launch, I suspected failed installation because QR 1 was running at the time. I then tried to quit all QR processes in Activity Monitor, but one process was very persistent. I then booted into my live USB drive, removed all QR launchers in the various LaunchDaemon/LaunchAgents folders, and booted back into the system without QR running. Reinstalled beta 9 and it still crashed.

I then reverted the system back to A3, A2 and finally A0 (disk image for A1 has been discarded). Because QR v1 was installed in stage A1, A3 & A2 got the same treatment after restoration so they booted without QR running. And yet beta 9 crashed right after installation as well. And the QRecall Capture Preferences service was never installed. The only time I could install b9 without issue was when the system was reverted back to the bare minimum A0.

Sorry, no logs were kept, but I'm pretty sure the problem is reproducible on my system. If it happens again with b10 (if I have time to try it), I'll keep the log.

To set the capture preferences for an item you don't own, use the sudo and qrecall command line tools:

sudo qrecall captureprefs exclude /Path/to/excluded/item

Great. Thanks.

If it was easy, I'd do it myself.

OK. I'll see if I can run my saved systems in a VM (Virtualbox).

Ming-Li Wang wrote:Sorry, no logs were kept, but I'm pretty sure the problem is reproducible on my system. If it happens again with b10 (if I have time to try it), I'll keep the log.

No big deal, but if you do install the next version and it crashes, send a diagnostic repot (Help > Send Report). The report will include any QRecall crash logs, which would also be helpful.