Can't offload camera cards — (Error code -36)

[soulbot]

I posted this on the Apple.com forums to no avail. I have found plenty of "solutions" but the popular fix doesn't work for me. Such a basic problem — so incredibly irritating.

I can't copy images off of my camera cards (both SD & CF) after moving from 10.8.5 to 10.11.3. I incessantly get the dreaded error -36 code. My cards are not corrupt. If I boot from older volumes, the folders copy perfectly and consistently. But not in 10.11.

Most fixes online point to the "dot_clean" terminal command. And there seems to be a ton of success there for other people. Unfortunately though, not for me. I've tried several iterations of dot_clean, nothing works.

A slightly lengthier description of the issue can be seen at above the link, but it's pretty basic. Error -36 prohibits me from copying more than one image (if that) off of my cards. Dot_clean doesn't fix it.

Hoping for some suggestions. Thanks!

 

[casperes1996]

Error 36 does point to some error with the ._ files macOS creates when the system can't make the native forks on the file system. If dot_clean doesn't solve your issue, I recommend simply deleting all the ._ files manually. You may lose metadata, but no actual data.

 

[soulbot]

Error 36 does point to some error with the ._ files macOS creates when the system can't make the native forks on the file system. If dot_clean doesn't solve your issue, I recommend simply deleting all the ._ files manually. You may lose metadata, but no actual data.

Thank you. For instance I have a CF card right now with 73 images on it. When I have the Finder show hidden files there are no ._ files that I can see. The only hidden files/folders I can see anywhere are .fseventsd and .Trashes, at the root off the drive but no ._ files anywhere on the card. Hmmm...

 

[casperes1996]

Thank you. For instance I have a CF card right now with 73 images on it. When I have the Finder show hidden files there are no ._ files that I can see. The only hidden files/folders I can see anywhere are .fseventsd and .Trashes, at the root off the drive but no ._ files anywhere on the card. Hmmm...

Look at it through Terminal. ls -a is your friend. And for good measure you could kill the .fsevents and .Trashes too.

You could also try and copy over the data via cp or dd in the Terminal and see if that works better

 

[soulbot]

Look at it through Terminal. ls -a is your friend. And for good measure you could kill the .fsevents and .Trashes too.

You could also try and copy over the data via cp or dd in the Terminal and see if that works better

Thanks for your input. Not sure how to use dd properly, but the cp function didn't work. I tried cp -a source-folder destination-folder. It starts to go, then after copying a single file terminal balks and says, "No such file or directory" and ejects the card.

Also running ls -a shows no ._ files.

How can I delete .Trashes? I get error code -50. .fsevents I was able to delete.

 

[casperes1996]

No such file or directory" and ejects the card.

Now that's interesting.

Using dd is simple. The syntax is "dd if=/(path to input) of/(path to output)" - For any given input the output will be identical, if it goes right. Try that out

 

[soulbot]

Now that's interesting.

dd if=/(path to input) of/(path to output)

Sorry, I'm missing something... I'm typing: dd if=[dropping source folder here] of[dropping target folder here]

 

[casperes1996]

Sorry, I'm missing something... I'm typing: dd if=[dropping source folder here] of[dropping target folder here]

You need an = sign after of as well as if

And beware that you don't just want a "target folder", in the sense that it could be your documents folder. If you point it to an already populated location, everything populating that location will be replaced

 

[soulbot]

You need an = sign after of as well as if

And beware that you don't just want a "target folder", in the sense that it could be your documents folder. If you point it to an already populated location, everything populating that location will be replaced

Terminal says the destination folder "Is a directory"