QRecall crashes under El Capitan

I'm experimenting with El Capitan on a new volume. I downloaded a fresh copy of QRecall from the site, but it's unusable: if I click the "Open Archive" from the Quick Start window-- or select "Open Archive" from the [File] menu, nothing happens...the file selection dialog never appears.

If I invoke QRecall by opening the archive file directly, QRecall comes up and immediately crashes.

Any solutions for this? I'm running El Capitan 10.11.1, admittedly on my Hackintosh, but QRecall has been running fine on this system for years.

David Ramsey wrote:If I invoke QRecall by opening the archive file directly, QRecall comes up and immediately crashes.

Try sending a diagnostic report, which will include your crash logs. If you can't send a report, just email a copy of your QRecall* crash log files in ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ and your log files in ~/Library/Logs/QRecall/ to support@qrecall.com.

(If they are large, you may want to compress them.)

Actually, it's starting to look as if El Capitan will mark the end of my many years of Hackintoshing. I've never had to spend this much time trying to get a stable and reliable-- hell, bootable-- system up before. The tools may improve to the point where it's workable, but for now, I'm giving up: I've sent all afternoon trying to get El Capitan to boot reliably, and at this point just don't have the energy any more.

In the meantime, QRecall remains dead stable and reliable under Yosemite, but if I have trouble on whatever El Capitan system I eventually wind up with, I'll let you know.

As it turns out, the system boots perfectly as long as I don't have any USB 3 devices plugged in. This is part and parcel of the way Apple has changed how OS X enumerates the USB ports. If I don't plug in a USB 3 device, the system works perfectly.

(I can plug in a USB 3 device after booting, but it's not recognized.)

I've sent the QRecall logs as requested.

David,

My bad. I failed technical support 101 and forgot to ask you what version of QRecall you were running.

QRecall 1.2 is not compatible with El Capitan. It sort of runs, but changes in the OS X 10.11 filesystem and security policies mean that it is incapable of correctly restoring system files and some applications.

If you're still running QRecall 1.2, you need to jump on the QRecall 2.0 beta. Most of the major new features, along with notes on upgrading from 1.2 to 2.0, are described in the release notes for QRecall 2.0.0b6.

The beta is quite stable at this point, and rapidly approaching a final release. I only have 23 items left on my "must fix before release" list.

James,

Perhaps you should make a more widely available announcement about this. I've been using v1.2.3 with El Capitan since it came out, with no discernible problems except for a glitch yesterday that triggered a massive recapture with almost 100% duplicate data that I thought was the result of a network glitch. If this version isn't capable of accurate restoration, though, it's definitely time to switch to the v2 beta.

Ralph,

That's a great idea. I'll draft something soon.

Well, I get further with the beta (2.0.0b1

. Now clicking the "Open Archive" button gives me a file selector window.

However, when I select my existing archive, it won't open:

QRecall 2015-10-28 17:12:21 Warning Unable to open document Crucial Backup.quanta
QRecall 2015-10-28 17:12:21 path: /Volumes/Backup/Crucial Backup.quanta
QRecall 2015-10-28 17:12:21 docType: com.qrecall.repository
QRecall 2015-10-28 17:12:21 cannot create file
QRecall 2015-10-28 17:12:21 ErrDescription: Permission denied
QRecall 2015-10-28 17:12:21 flags: 0x0002
QRecall 2015-10-28 17:12:21 access: 0x01b4

I assume that since I am trying to restore from a new installation, my user ID is different. Wouldn't think I'd need write permission to open an archive, but there you go. I'm reluctant to start mucking with the permissions on the file, especially since I see it has extended permissions. What's my next step?

David Ramsey wrote:I assume that since I am trying to restore from a new installation, my user ID is different. Wouldn't think I'd need write permission to open an archive, but there you go. I'm reluctant to start mucking with the permissions on the file, especially since I see it has extended permissions. What's my next step?

I don't know if your UID is different or not, but you'll need read and write access to that entire archive package to effectively use QRecall. When you open a legacy (1.2) archive for the first time, QRecall 2.0 will need to make some changes. I suspect this is what's causing the permissions error. Send a diagnostic report if you want me to look into it.

Short answer: if you want to use this archive, you will need to make sure the user with QRecall installed owns it. Usually I recommend placing QRecall archives on a volume that has ownership and permissions turned off, especially if you plan to use the same archive with multiple users. It just simplifies the whole permissions thing.

Changing the permissions is simple enough.

Last question: will simply trying to restore data from this archive with QRecall 2 render the archive unusable by earlier versions? Or am I safe as long as I don't actually store more data into the archive?

David Ramsey wrote:Last question: will simply trying to restore data from this archive with QRecall 2 render the archive unusable by earlier versions? Or am I safe as long as I don't actually store more data into the archive?

You can continue to use the archive with versions of QRecall prior to 2.0 as long as you don't do anything to modify the archive using QRecall 2.0. This includes capturing, merging, compacting, or repairing the archive. Once you do this, the archive can't be opened in QRecall 1.2.

Browsing, recalling, and verifying the archive with version 2.0 will not change it's compatibility.

Hi
i have a smiliar problem that's cost me a day's worth of unsuccessful troubleshooting.
QR ver 1.2.3.8,check for updates returns that this is newest.

Been backing up System Yosemite for several months.
Shame on me for not doing any test restores.
Shame on me for not doing dual backup to a QR competitor's application.

Finally the Mac Pro boot volume is causing problems to the point that a reformat restore is needed. Intent is to restore to a new virgin drive, not the problem drive.

My System Yosemite boot volume is incapable of allowing for the restore, but I attempted it anyway Source drive ---> target and it copied about 12000 files then stopped. Rebooting and trying again just resulted in QR crashing and crashing over and over.

Backup plan. I have a MacBook Air with System El Capitan and QR already installed. So I took the external source drive and external target drive, and with the MacBook Air in the middle, and QR would not open the Source backup file. Same situation David Ramsay encountered. So, i double clicked on the backup source file, and QR crashed. Next i dragged the source file icon onto the QR icon in the dock, and crash. Booted up Safe mode and tried again, CRASH

Next I moved the two external drives to a plain Jane virgin System El Capitan Mac Mini, installed QR and tried from there. Same as above. No open backup file, and crash, crash, crash.

David, you identified the problem last October; now it's almost February. A ton of man-hours awaits me to reconstruct everything from scratch. Finding out what the fix is, will be most appreciated.

Addendum, edit
The source volume checks out fine with Disk Utility Disk First Aid, it was new to begin with
and is error free.

Jack,

I'm really sorry to hear you've had so much trouble. The sad fact is that QRecall 1.2 is not fully compatible with Yosemite, and exhibits serious bugs on El Capitan.

QRecall 2.0 addresses all of these issues. While technically still in beta (hammering out the last few bugs), it's pretty stable and much more compatible with 10.10 and 10.11. Here's what I'd suggest:

Download and install the latest QRecall 2.0 beta.

Open the archive with 2.0 and restore your Yosemite volume. QRecall 2.0 can transparently read an archive created with 1.2.

Because QRecall 1.2 doesn't completely capture the Yosemite system files correctly, reinstall Yosemite using your Install OS X Yosemite app, over the volume you just restored. This will replace all of your system files with a fresh copy.

That should get you back on your feet. QRecall 2.0 should see a final release candidate in a new few weeks.