Urgent!...Manual Unmount Help Needed...

[justperry]

I have been thinking about this a lot today, the strange thing is you reinstalled and it still mounts.
Then later today I thought about resetting NVRAM(Pram) and SMC, now I went to Apple's site again, SMC has nothing to do with it and on NVRAM it says there are no network settings in NVRAM on that MAN page.
That is not completely true because in my NVRAM (nvram -p) it says skip-netboot?

Earlier I asked you how it was connected, part of the reason was that you can set up a TimeMachine over an Airport Extreme/Express and thought if you had one the problem could be there, or is it in the (i)cloud!!
But since you are hardwired that does not seem to be the case.

Switon seemingly knows quit a bit but in his post above forgot you reinstalled everything (No offence Switon) and if you wiped your machine clean there is no way there is anything left, except clearing the PRAM.

 

[switon]

RE: other connections...

Hi,

justperry: I have to admit that I speed-read these threads looking for pertinent details, especially when I'm busy and the thread has 25+ posts. Thus I'm sure I miss things...although I did notice that JoelBC did a clean install -- but I have to ask if and how he restored. If he restored then chances are that the configuration files were restored too.

I suspect that the share is being mounted by some other user, perhaps as a "Guest" which can be configured to not even require a password. That's why I asked JoelBC to check on how many connections there are to this share. If there are any other connections, even from a guest account on his machine, then he will not be allowed to unmount the share unless the unmount is forced. Perhaps JoelBC's use of the tmutil command configured an automatic launchd agent that keeps the share mounted. Since TM already does auto-mounts and auto-dismounts of shared backup disks once an hour, it is entirely possible that JoelBC's use of tmutil configured an automatic mounting. (Basically, I have used tmuitl to turn off local snapshots, set the destination volume, and restore from a sparse bundle. And in my hands, I don't have the problem of not being able to umount a TM mounted volume -- I tested this myself yesterday, and I could umount the TM mounted volume without issue.)

I would really like to know if JoelBC is using Mac OS X Server to configure the afp, smb, and/or nfs shares? If so, then executing the serveradmin command I gave in my last post should tell JoelBC if some other user has connected to the afp share, such as a guest account. Similar commands could check if there are any smb or nfs connections. There could even be any of a number of other system users, say a _devicemgr, _ftp, _installassistant, _kadmin_admin, _krb_admin, etc. that might connect to the share. Are there any "Home Folder"s on the share?

If JoelBC is not using Mac OS X Server, then perhaps a solution to his problem would be to use this server software to configure the file sharing. He could then better control precisely who gets access and what type of access is granted. I know this is an extreme solution, but I've never had a situation where I could not unmount a shared volume, including a TM volume, especially after making certain there are no other connections.

JoelBC: What if you use tmutil to removedestination for the wd_backup and to set the destination to a different volume? Does this eliminate the WD_Backup from being mounted too? (The 10.8 Time Machine allows for multiple destination volumes, and it will oscillate among destination volumes for its backups. Thus you may need to remove the old destination and not just set a new destination since with the -a option this will only add a new volume to the list and not eliminate the old one.)

Edit: JoelBC, if you execute the command,

sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine

how many hostUUIDs do you have?

Switon

 

[JoelBC]

Hi Everyone....

First, thanks for all of the help, greatly appreciated...

And, to those who are interested, here is what I learnt after 30 minutes on the telephone with a WD Level 2 System Engineer [Jeremy (very helpful and nice), case # 120712-633-2496].

1. As far as the WD ShareSpace that I have it is officially supported in OS X 10.7 and earlier [i.e. it is not officially supported in 10.8 and higher.]

2. As far as WD_Backup hidden share i) appearing as a TimeMachine eligible backup disk and ii) showing an AFP path when moused over this is "normal behavior" in that this is how it appeared / worked ans has always been "mounted" (see 3. below) in OS X 10.7 and earlier.

3. As far as the WD_Backup hidden share being mounted it is NOT mounted but rather appears -- AND ONLY IN TIME MACHINE -- as a mountable drive...the proof / support for this is that one needs to enter credentials were one to select this share as their TimeMachine drive.

4. As far as last night's activities [i.e. creative attempts by me to "break" the AFP link as noted in posts 19 and 20 of this thread] the above behavior explains my lack of success and the adaptive behavior of the NAS to always appear in TimeMachine.

The above also explains why none of Swinton's suggested comamnds worked!!!

5. As far as the concerns / differences between the time when I first reported the problem [let's call this Install 1] and the the current situation [let's call this Install 2 (i.e. after having done a wipe my OS X disk and fresh install)] is that:

-- Install 1 was not appearing to work properly in that the WD_Backup hidden share did not appear in TimeMachine and I had to enter the command "sudo smutil....".

-- Install 2 appears to be working properly in that the WD_Backup hidden share appears in TimeMachine without me having to enter the "sudo smutil ...." command.

What could the cause of the difference be between Install 1 and Install 2...though my MBA is brand new is it possible that the initial install was flawed?


6. As far as the current situation and next steps are concerns it appears that I am in a different situation now in that I have *NOT* mounted the drive and, given the previously problems I had with the AFP mounted drive, I will not do so!


7. Other interesting tidbits in my attempt to completely separate the WD_Backup hidden share from my MBA...

a) There is no way to roll back to earlier firmware versions which DO NOT have the AFP broadcast feature.


b) There is no way to turn off AFP within the NAS drive...therefore the only way to stop the WD_backup hidden share from appearing in TimeMachine is to disable AFB in OS X which I am not going to do.

c) There WD_Backup hidden share has been designed from day one to be i) "mapped" and then mounted AFP ii) not directly accessible from within OS X.

d) This means that even formatting the drives will change not a thing...good thing I was patient this morning as I was considering doing this!


8. Those interested in a TimeMachine compatible drive should get a MyBook Live [this was the WD engineer's suggestion] as it has the ability to i) backup to other shares in TimeMachine and ii) not appear in Timemachine...seems my drive is old in the tooth....

*****​

Two final closing points / thoughts...

1. Thanks to all who tried to help me as you concern, effort, and time are greatly appreciated and is what makes this a great community.

2. Would be interested in your thoughts and comments on the above.

Thanks,


Joel


PS. It follows that technology is great when it works and a huge frustration and time waster when it does not...that said, I remain interested as to why the WD_backup share did not automatically appear in Install 1.

 

[JoelBC]

@Swinton...to answer your questions....

1. No, I did a fresh install and then reloaded all my applications...I did not use any backups as I knew that this would only corrupt things.

2. No, there are no Guests or other users...just me...

3. No, I am new to OS X and did not want to start with OS X Server as this would have been more that I could handle at this point.


Joel

 

[switon]

RE: Great! ...

Hi JoelBC,

Glad you were able to solve your problem...so the drive wasn't mounted all along, hummm...

Well, the take home story is that it is always good to call the manufacturer --- I'm glad that WD was so helpful.

I apologize for not being any help to you.

Switon

 

[JoelBC]

Hi JoelBC,

Glad you were able to solve your problem...so the drive wasn't mounted all along, hummm...

Well, the take home story is that it is always good to call the manufacturer --- I'm glad that WD was so helpful.

I apologize for not being any help to you.

Switon

A few additional points:

1. Am not sure agreed with you as to whether the drive was or was not mounted...I would argue that in Install 1 the drive was mounted as I issues the "sudo smutil setdestination..." command and actually used the drive for bakup [i.e. it had to be mounted]...in Install 2 I believe that the drive is NOT mounted...

2. Completely agree that calling technical support is helpful...the problem is that it takes a while to get to the right person as I wasted 2 days on this and nearly decided to reformat my drive...this would have been a disaster...

3. Nothing to apologize for as you were very helpful...much thanks..


Joel

 

[switon]

RE: mounting TM drives and tmutil setdestination...

A few additional points:

1. Am not sure agreed with you as to whether the drive was or was not mounted...I would argue that in Install 1 the drive was mounted as I issues the "sudo smutil setdestination..." command and actually used the drive for bakup [i.e. it had to be mounted]...in Install 2 I believe that the drive is NOT mounted...

2. Completely agree that calling technical support is helpful...the problem is that it takes a while to get to the right person as I wasted 2 days on this and nearly decided to reformat my drive...this would have been a disaster...

3. Nothing to apologize for as you were very helpful...much thanks..


Joel

Hi Joel,

(1.) The "tmutil setdestination" command does not actually mount the drive, rather it configures the drive so that TM can mount and unmount it when it needs to for its backup. So, unless you actually mounted the drive or TM mounted it and then did not unmount it correctly, the drive was most likely not mounted (TM only mounts the drive for its backup, it unmounts it after the backup is finished). It was my mistake to think that it was mounted when I made suggestions on how to unmount it. I believe the fact that "df" did not find the drive means that in fact it was not mounted (at least at the time you attempted my suggestions for unmounting it).

I'm just glad that you solved your problem.

And, believe it or not, it does get much easier. I know your experience was not very pleasant, but hang in there and you will gain unix experience quickly.

Switon

 

[JoelBC]

Hi Joel,

(1.) The "tmutil setdestination" command does not actually mount the drive, rather it configures the drive so that TM can mount and unmount it when it needs to for its backup. So, unless you actually mounted the drive or TM mounted it and then did not unmount it correctly, the drive was most likely not mounted (TM only mounts the drive for its backup). It was my mistake to think that it was mounted when I made suggestions on how to unmount it. I believe the fact that "df" did not find the drive means that in fact it was not mounted (at least at the time you attempted by suggestions for unmounting it).

I'm just glad that you solved your problem.

And, believe it or not, it does get much easier. I know your experience was not very pleasant, but hang in there and you will gain unix experience quickly.

Switon

Thanks for the encouragement...


Joel