O'Grady's PowerPage

Tag: Carbon Copy Cloner

  • Carbon Copy Cloner updated to 3.5

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    On Saturday, Carbon Copy Cloner, the shareware favorite for drive cloning operations by Mike Bombich, reached version 3.5. The new version, an 8.6 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:

    – This version of Carbon Copy Cloner requires Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, OS X 10.7 Lion, or OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, and is fully qualified on each of those OSes. We will continue to provide user support and bug fixes for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard users on CCC 3.4.x for a while longer.

    – Recovery HD support has been overhauled to better support the concept of “one Recovery HD partition per volume”, rather than one per disk. If you have multiple backup volumes with different OSes (e.g. Lion and Mountain Lion), CCC can associate a Recovery HD with each one and apply the appropriate OS to each Recovery HD partition.

    – We have leveraged code signing within CCC for nearly five years. For GateKeeper compliance on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, however, CCC is now signed with an Apple Developer Certificate.

    – Most of the binaries in the CCC bundle are now 32/64-bit Intel-only binaries.

    – Fixed an issue that appeared in 10.7.4, specific to Macs running Lion with a 64-bit kernel, in which the /Volumes folder on the destination volume would be locked rather than hidden. This resulted in external volumes being unmountable when booted from the backup volume.

    – Performance of deleting scheduled tasks is much improved.

    – CCC previously encountered some performance problems when simultaneously saving very large numbers of scheduled tasks (e.g. > 29). These problems should now be resolved. This is most applicable when updating CCC, or when CCC has been moved and all tasks must be re-saved at the same time.

    – Updated graphics for High Resolution support on the new MacBook Pro (Retina).

    Carbon Copy Cloner 3.5 retails for a US$39.95 shareware registration fee. The application requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 or later.

    If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback to offer, let us know in the comments.

  • Carbon Copy Cloner updated to 3.4.5

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    Late Tuesday, Carbon Copy Cloner, the shareware favorite for drive cloning operations by Mike Bombich, reached version 3.4.5. The new version, a 6.5 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:

    – Fixed a minor timing issue that would prevent CCC from finishing the submission of an email notification when a scheduled task was configured to sleep or shut down the Mac.

    – Fixed an issue in which non-ASCII characters would be improperly displayed during the backup task (this was only a cosmetic problem).

    – Fixed an issue in which CCC would occasionally not retain the user’s last choice in the preset configurations menu.

    – Growl notifications should be a bit more consistent on Lion.

    – In anticipation of Mountain Lion’s requirement that I use Apple’s code signing certificate to sign my application, this version of CCC will migrate entries in the CCC private keychain to a new keychain. I have leveraged codesigning in CCC for almost 5 years and recently started to rely on it to have access to keychain entries without annoying the end user for permission to do so. Switching code signing certificates at this point invalidates the keychain item access control lists that I previously applied, forcing me to migrate the keychain or face losing access to those keychain items. When you launch this new version of CCC, you’ll see a progress panel that indicates that CCC is migrating the keychain. This should be fast and eventless. If you see a dialog from the system asking you to grant CCC access to a keychain item, however, it is imperative that you click on “Allow” to give CCC access to those keychain items.

    – In earlier versions of CCC, when an encrypted disk image’s passphrase keychain entry was updated by the scheduled task helper application, access to that keychain item would be limited to only the scheduled task helper application. Subsequent ad hoc attempts to back up to the encrypted disk image (e.g. in CCC’s main window) would result in a request to grant CCC access to the keychain item. This update fixes that access limitation.

    – Fixed a bug in which CCC would not properly set the modification date on files copied to SMB shares hosted by some versions of Windows. This would result in CCC wanting to recopy every file to the destination on subsequent backups.

    – Reverted to the pre-3.4.4 behavior of automatically running a scheduled task upon wake if the task missed a scheduled run time during sleep. If you would prefer that CCC automatically skip tasks missed during sleep, drop me a line on the Help Desk, there is a hidden setting that will accommodate this preference.

    – In previous versions, CCC might report that a source or destination folder on a network volume does not exist, when it plainly does. CCC now appropriately handles the permissions limitation that led to this errant message.

    – Fixed an issue in which extended attributes may be recopied to some non-HFS destinations every time a backup task runs.

    – Fixed a couple issues that could result in a crash.

    – Fixed an issue in which CCC would hang on launch if there is a corrupted scheduled task configuration file present. Now that corruption is detected and these files are removed.

    – Fixed an issue in which the “Reschedule all future events for this time of day” setting did not work for tasks configured to run weekly or monthly.

    – Fixed an issue in which weekly and monthly tasks scheduled with a start date prior to the Daylight Saving Time switch and a start time within the “lost hour” would run multiple times a day.

    – Scheduled tasks can now mount the underlying network volume for a source volume that is a disk image.

    – Fixed an anomaly with progress indication in which the progress indicator would jump wildly if the user ran a task with exclusions, then another task without exclusions.

    – Scheduled tasks will now reschedule themselves when the system time zone is changed. If a task was scheduled for 2PM Eastern time and you change the time zone to Pacific time, the task should run at 2PM Pacific time. This functionality is only partially available to Tiger users. Tiger doesn’t offer “time zone changed” notifications, so the currently-scheduled task will only be rescheduled upon wake, or when the task is reloaded.

    – Some of the postflight cleanup tasks that are required for making a clone of Mac OS X bootable were getting skipped when minor transfer errors occurred. These tasks will now run regardless of minor transfer errors, so the destination volume should be bootable even when minor errors occur (assuming there aren’t any other hardware compatibility problems).

    Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.5 retails for a US$10 shareware registration fee. The application requires Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later to run.

    If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback to offer, let us know in the comments.

  • Carbon Copy Cloner updated to 3.4.4

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    Late Tuesday, Carbon Copy Cloner, the shareware favorite for drive cloning operations by Mike Bombich, reached version 3.4.4. The new version, a 6 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:

    – Made several changes to the preset configurations. Both the wording and some of the settings have been changed in response to user feedback and typical usage scenarios.

    – New feature: CCC now provides support for archiving and cloning the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Recovery HD partition. Choose “Disk Center” from CCC’s Window menu to find this functionality.
    New feature: Scheduled tasks can now be configured to wake or boot the system when the task is scheduled to run.

    – New feature: For users with a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Installer application in /Applications, CCC’s Source menu now includes a handy “Create a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Installer…” choice that will clone the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Installation disk image onto a physical volume.

    – Window positioning of the scheduled task helper application is now retained on a per-task basis, so you can move these windows around on your screen and multiple tasks won’t be stacked on top of each other.

    – CCC will now mention the lack of a Recovery HD partition in the Cloning Coach prior to running the initial backup task.

    – The table of scheduled tasks in the Scheduler window are now sorted alphabetically by default.

    – Fixed a scheduler issue in which tasks scheduled to run on the first (any weekday) of the current month would be scheduled to run in the following month.

    – Fixed an issue in which CCC was not “remembering” the last preset that had been selected upon relaunching CCC.

    – Fixed an issue with the German localization related to the application of a particular setting in custom presets.

    – Fixed an issue in which a scheduled task had trouble mounting a disk image when uncommon permissions conditions were present (such as when a system is bound to an Active Directory directory service).

    – The “This volume will be bootable” message is back, though with a caveat that I have to insist upon from a support perspective. Many external hard drive enclosures still manage to screw up the boot process, and it’s impossible for me to determine if that is going to happen for any particular user from within CCC.

    – When backing up to a subfolder, CCC now overlays an icon of the underlying volume on the folder icon in the task status panel.

    – Scheduled tasks that specify a network volume as the destination are now aborted when CCC receives a sleep notification.

    – Growl notifications should now work properly on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion with Growl 1.3.

    – Email notifications now include the sender’s full name.

    – Fixed a couple minor bugs associated with email notifications.

    – Fixed an issue in which the scheduled task window would be unresponsive while CCC waited for a response from an email server.

    – Added support for sending email to servers that use a self-signed certificate. This support is disabled by default, see the documentation for details on enabling this functionality.

    – Resolved a problem in which an errant filter would protect items in folders that were to be deleted, resulting in CCC reporting that it couldn’t replace a particular folder or application.

    – Fixed a minor 5-second shutdown hang associated with CCC scheduled tasks.

    – Numerous tweaks to the advice that CCC offers for various error conditions.

    – Fixed some Mac OS X 10.7 Lion-specific problems with the mounting of sparsebundle disk image files that are hosted on a network volume.

    – If you’re running an ad hoc task in CCC (e.g. click “Clone” in the main window), CCC will ask before deleting anything from the _CCC Archives folder. To avoid problems that would affect automation, this warning is not provided for scheduled tasks.

    – CCC is more proactive about dealing with the 4GB file size limitation of FAT32 volumes. Files larger than 4GB will now be excluded by default, and you’ll get a warning of this exclusion before running the task.

    – Fixed a hang that would occur at the end of a scheduled task while CCC tried to unmount the destination volume (network volumes only, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion only).

    – Made some cosmetic changes concerning ZFS support.

    – Mail account settings on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion are now properly imported and populated into the email notifications tab of the scheduled tasks window.

    – The path to a disk image file is now properly provided as the fourth argument to postflight scripts.

    – Fixed a 30 second hang that would occur while saving changes to scheduled tasks on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. For every OS, though, saving scheduled tasks should be considerably faster.

    Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.4 retails for a US$10 shareware registration fee. The application requires Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later to run.

    If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback to offer, let us know in the comments.

  • Carbon Copy Cloner updated to 3.4.2

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    Late Tuesday, Carbon Copy Cloner, the shareware favorite for drive cloning operations by Mike Bombich, reached version 3.4.2. The new version, a 5.2 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:

    – Fixed an issue in which scheduled tasks with a remote Macintosh specified as the source would not run properly if the scheduled task had been upgraded from an earlier version of CCC.

    – Fixed an issue in which a task scheduled to run when the source or destination was reconnected would not fire unless the disk was physically detached from the Mac.

    – Fixed an issue that would interfere with the execution of scheduled tasks configured to back up to a network volume.

    – Fixed an issue in which some network filesystems would not appear in the source and destination menus, or would cause a crash when selected.

    – Fixed an issue in which the Cloning Coach would appear frozen on screen.

    – The email recipients field should now be editable on Tiger systems.

    – Several general tweaks to user interface behavior.

    – Fixed an issue in which a restored volume wouldn’t be bootable if the volume had been restored while booted from a different version of Mac OS X than what was being restored.

    – CCC now avoids setting file flags and permissions on files that are not owned by the user account that was used to mount a network filesystem.

    – Fixed an issue in which CCC would report that it was unable to enable ACLs on the destination volume when specifying a folder as the destination.

    – Fixed an issue in which CCC would not display the list of currently-configured scheduled tasks in the Scheduler window.

    – Added undo and redo support to the “Ask a question about CCC” form in CCC’s Help window.

    – Fixed an issue in which the “Send test email” button would be unclickable if the Scheduler window was resized vertically.

    – Fixed an issue in which a scheduled task would not run, rather it would only display the background “Defer/Skip” window. This issue was associated with a “-[__NSCFBoolean objectForKey:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance” error in the CCC log file.

    – Fixed an issue in which CCC would report an error enabling ACLs when the source was a remote Macintosh. The error would subsequently cause the backup task to fail.

    – Growl notifications should now work with scheduled tasks.

    – /.DocumentRevisions-V100 is now excluded by default. A note on this exclusion has also been added to the appropriate section of the documentation.

    – CCC now deletes the per-task archive folder at the end of the backup task if that folder is empty. The _CCC Archives folder will also be deleted if it is subsequently empty.

    – Archive folders were occasionally created with restrictive access that would prevent the user from accessing their contents. These folders will now be more reliably created with the user set as the owner.

    – Fixed a bug in which an improperly unmounted volume would cause scheduled tasks to fail. Suspending a Parallels VM, for example, could trigger this behavior (Parallels unmounts the “C” drive but does not remove the mountpoint folder).

    – Fixed an issue affecting Leopard users in which CCC would hang when the user clicked the Stop button.

    – Fixed an issue in which Growl notifications would not be accepted by the Growl helper when sent from a CCC scheduled task.

    – The “Maintain a backup (Archive modified and deleted items)” preset no longer calls for archive pruning. Archive pruning must be requested explicitly by the user.

    – Fixed an issue in which CCC would report permissions problems while accessing some files on network filesystems.

    – Made a couple tweaks to the sending of email notifications that should make it work better with some email servers.

    Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.2 retails for a US$10 shareware registration fee. The application requires Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later to run.

    If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback to offer, let us know in the comments.

  • Carbon Copy Cloner updated to 3.3.7

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    Late Tuesday, Carbon Copy Cloner, the shareware favorite for drive cloning operations by Mike Bombich, reached version 3.3.7. The new version, a 4 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:

    – Resolved in issue introduced by Mac OS X 10.6.5 in which errant messages related to allocating memory for ACLs were reported.

    – Improved several progress indication irregularities.

    – Fixed a problem affecting some Tiger users in which the source and target menus were not properly populated.

    – The “Show log” button that is presented when the scheduled task helper application reports a problem will work more consistently now.

    – Minor errors will no longer prevent CCC from blessing the target volume.

    – Fixed a minor scheduling issue in which tasks that ran after 11PM could not be (re)scheduled to run before 11PM on the next day.

    – Fixed a regression introduced by CCC 3.3.5 in which deny Access Control Entries were not preserved. Simply re-running a backup task with this updated version of CCC will repair any of the affected ACEs on the target volume.

    – Resolved an issue in which CCC would errantly report that the connection to a remote Macintosh had been dropped when two minutes had elapsed without encountering any files that needed to be updated.

    – The software update mechanism used by the scheduled task helper application (introduced in version 3.3.4) now uses the interval settings defined in the main application. Additionally, when the scheduled task helper application determines that an update is available and launches the main application to perform the update, the main application will now be more reliable about immediately executing the update procedure

    – Fixed a race condition involving multiple scheduled tasks trying to roll the same log file (e.g. on startup).

    Carbon Copy Cloner 3.3.7 retails for a US$10 shareware registration fee. The application requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to run.