App settings will not persist on macOS 14

[scottrobertson]

I have been trying to work out why my app settings are all resetting, and not persisting in macOS 14. This has been happening for apps such as Raycast, iTerm, Rectangle, Bartender etc. I just tried running mackup uninstall and everything is fixed. And then when i run mackup backup again, none of my settings will persist or save again. Any ideas?

[joshmedeski]

Which files storage method are you using? Can you share your ~/.mackup.cfg with us?

[scottrobertson]

[storage]
engine = icloud

[applications_to_ignore]
oh-my-zsh
espanso

iCloud

[joshmedeski]

I've seen other mackup users using iCloud have has similar issues. Could you try turning off the feature to optimize mac storage and see if that helps? It will be under the iCloud settings.

My thinking is iCloud is removing these config files from your hard drive to save storage.

[scottrobertson]

Hey. Just tried that, and it did not help, sadly.

I also did the following:

• mackup uninstall
• Open an app, all settings are fine
• Rename/remove ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Mackup
• Run mackup backup
• Reopen the same app, and it has reset all settings
• mackup uninstall
• Reopen the app, and all the settings are back

[joshmedeski]

Can you confirm the symbolic links that are generated are valid? The Rename/remove step you mentioned could be causing the symbolic links to break.

@lra any ideas?

[scottrobertson]

To be clear, I had already run mackup uninstall before the rename/remove. I ran that earlier today to get things working. I did the rename/remove just to basically do a "fresh start" to rule out any old files causing issues etc.

[scottrobertson]

Hey. Just an update here. I just tried this again using

[storage]
engine = file_system
path = Mackup/

And i get the same result. I run mackup backup, open iTerm2 for example, and all settings have wiped, run mackup uninstall and open it again, and settings are back. So i don't think iCloud is the issue.

[codechenx]

I have same issue

[ahmadawais]

Same issue. Started happening when I updated to Dropbox beta, and then tried moving to iCloud. Now it's a mess. Not sure what's wrong, unable to predict a pattern here but with latest macOS this happens:

• All of a sudden some apps loose their config (have to reconfigure)
• Some apps like iTerm2 or Terminal don't keep their configs no matter what I do (uninstall/install fresh doesn't help)

[Skowt]

+1 on this issue. I was going to say I wonder if this is related to the Apple update that basically made it harder for Cloud apps to work on mac. It also meant you had to change the location of your Dropbox drive.

https://help.dropbox.com/installs/macos-support-for-expected-changes

[scottrobertson]

+1 on this issue. I was going to say I wonder if this is related to the Apple update that basically made it harder for Cloud apps to work on mac. It also meant you had to change the location of your Dropbox drive.

https://help.dropbox.com/installs/macos-support-for-expected-changes

I don’t think it’s that, no. It even stops working if I just use the file system storage method.

[Skowt]

Then I would say it's a recent Apple update. For me this started happening in the last week, which is when I updated to Ventura 13.4.1 (might've also been when I updated to 13.4).

It's possible that there's an unknown bug with the latest update or a "security improvement" that's messing with symlinks 🤔

[Skowt]

I've done mackup uninstall for now which has fixed everything but it would be interesting if mackup has any logs stored somewhere? To see exactly what was erroring out. Perhaps a permissions issue that was going undetected? Who knows at this point.

[luispedrofonseca]

Just lost a couple days on this exact issue because it took me a while to figure why a lot of my settings weren't saving and that mackup was the culprit. Hope this gets solved quickly.

[jagajaga]

cc me

[jacobgraf]

Any updates on this one? I am having the same issues and it's maddening. I will uninstall for now, but hope it gets fixed soon because I really love Mackup.

MacOS: 14.0 Public Beta (23A5286i)
Mackup: 0.8.37

[storage]
engine = file_system
path = SynologyDrive/Backups

[applications_to_ignore]
illustrator
mackup
zsh
path-finder
streamdeck

[davdroman]

If for some reason this issue is due to symlinks and effectively impossible to fix going forward, it might be a good idea to offer an alternate mode of backup by copying over files instead of symlinking them, so that at least the tool doesn't become fully obsolete. I wouldn't mind doing a manual export/import every once in a while as a compromise instead of ditching Mackup altogether.

[ahmadawais]

I'm quite frustrated with losing all the settings again and again. To a point where I'm planning on rewriting this project one way or the other. It's been mentally taxing. 😮‍💨

I understand life gets in a way and this free software. Appreciate all the hardwork.

[jacobgraf]

If for some reason this issue is due to symlinks and effectively impossible to fix going forward, it might be a good idea to offer an alternate mode of backup by copying over files instead of symlinking them, so that at least the tool doesn't become fully obsolete. I wouldn't mind doing a manual export/import every once in a while as a compromise instead of ditching Mackup altogether.

Exactly. Honestly, I wish this was a feature today. I don’t really need the symlinking anyway. I just want the peace of mind that when I run mackup backup, my settings are copied somewhere that is versioned and backed up.

[godbout]

I've seen other mackup users using iCloud have has similar issues. Could you try turning off the feature to optimize mac storage and see if that helps? It will be under the iCloud settings.

My thinking is iCloud is removing these config files from your hard drive to save storage.

same with the new Dropbox in CloudStorage.

[jacobgraf]

I've seen other mackup users using iCloud have has similar issues. Could you try turning off the feature to optimize mac storage and see if that helps? It will be under the iCloud settings.

My thinking is iCloud is removing these config files from your hard drive to save storage.

same with the new Dropbox in CloudStorage.

I don't use either of these. I use SynologyDrive and have it set to sync everything. I don't think it has anything to do with the storage engine. I've had to temporarily remove Mackup to get things working, but like I said, I'm hoping they add a way to "copy" your prefs to another location instead of doing the whole symlink thing. That would be fine and preferable, for me.

[godbout]

for me things started failing with Dropbox when they moved to the new CloudStorage shit. (see #1891.) now you can't be certain that Dropbox starts at a proper time. i think the whole symlink thing should be gone yeah. maybe there's something also related to macOS 14 itself, where now it seems we need Apple's approval to read and write our own UserDefaults 🤣️

[neoromantic]

I've been debugging same issue for past hour, and finally understood that it's due to mackup.

I'm running Sonoma beta.

Here's how it look:

rejecting write of key(s) mainWindowPositionCache in { com.raycast.macos, sergey.petrov, kCFPreferencesAnyHost, /Users/sergey.petrov/Library/Preferences/com.raycast.macos.plist, managed: 0 } from process 7061 (Raycast) because Path not accessible

[romancin]

Same problem here with Sonoma RC. Mackup is broken :(

[iarchean]

I am experiencing a similar issue, but it is quite strange. My Intel iMac is functioning properly, while my M2 MacBook has stopped working.

[olssonm]

Can confirm, having major issues in Sonoma, both for app settings but also system plists; (com.apple.* for example). Discovered it when settings for Tower (the Git-client) and system-level keyboard shortcuts (Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist) didn't persist between reboots.

mackup.cfg:

[storage]
engine = icloud

[applications_to_ignore]
zsh

[gabrielkoerich]

Same issue, settings are not persisted.

Only 'fix' for now is mackup uninstall

my backup workflow is now mackup backup --force && mackup uninstall

[reitermarkus]

Just as additional information, defaults also doesn't work if the preferences file is a symlink but works with a plain file. So definitely symlinks are the problem.

[ChrisChinchilla]

Same here as soon as I installed Sonoma, damn… I have a lot of other "non-standard" setup with symlinks too, I really hope they're not all broken…

Edit… They still seem to work thankfully.

[ViaxCo]

For me, after running mackup uninstall, some files are just straight up missing, and I can't find them in the Mackup folder. I'm using file_system as the engine. My iTerm's settings don't seem to stick either.

[octoxan]

Same issue. It's so bad that I basically can't use Apple Music when using Mackup. Every single login to my computer it shows me the welcome screen for Apple Music, Bartender, etc. Only when having it set to iCloud storage.

[jhirn]

I'm running into this issue on Sonoma and finally took the time to track it down and came across this issue.

After reading most of this thread, am I correct in assuming there is no current fix for iCloud sync? It seems the solution mentioned above is only for GitHub.

Is the current recommendation to uninstall Mackup?

@sinewave

I've been doing what's suggested above which is to mackup backup --force && mackup uninstall. This will overwrite your saved config with the files in place and it's good enough to generate a git diff which I then commit and push up. You'll have to edit your config files in place because they are no longer symlinked.

I really wish at least the README would get updated because right now this tool will basically break your system forcing you to

I'm doing this until another solution comes along because I don't think there will be any solution for symlinks to work with ~/Library anytime soon. Apple shut it down quietly perhaps due to an exploit and AFAIK don't recognize it as an issue to be resolved.

[victor-falcon]

It's possible, somehow, to just disable this files backups. Something like this?

[applications_to_ignore]
macos

[weeebdev]

It's possible, somehow, to just disable this files backups. Something like this?

[applications_to_ignore]
macos

Would love to see that!

[sinewave]

I'm running into this issue on Sonoma and finally took the time to track it down and came across this issue.
After reading most of this thread, am I correct in assuming there is no current fix for iCloud sync? It seems the solution mentioned above is only for GitHub.
Is the current recommendation to uninstall Mackup?

@sinewave

I've been doing what's suggested above which is to mackup backup --force && mackup uninstall. This will overwrite your saved config with the files in place and it's good enough to generate a git diff which I then commit and push up. You'll have to edit your config files in place because they are no longer symlinked.

I really wish at least the README would get updated because right now this tool will basically break your system forcing you to

I'm doing this until another solution comes along because I don't think there will be any solution for symlinks to work with ~/Library anytime soon. Apple shut it down quietly perhaps due to an exploit and AFAIK don't recognize it as an issue to be resolved.

Thx @jhirn , assuming I'd need to switch from iCloud to Github as my storage system?

[tshu-w]

I'm looking for an alternative to mackup, since soft links no longer work on macOS 14, and mackup temporarily doesn't support copying (the only solution is mackup backup --force && mackup uninstall).

I found unison to be a good alternative. It can perform two-way synchronization between directories with many advanced features (including watch, merge, backup, atomic directory, etc.).

The only thing needed to migrate from mackup to unison is to manually convert mackup's configuration to unison's profile. For example, this is my default profile.

Then we can use the unison -batch -repeat watch to synchronize our configurations. I hope this can help others with similar needs.

[victor-falcon]

I just discovered this is actually an option.

[applications_to_ignore]
macosx

I'm testing it right now.

[jhirn]

I just discovered this is actually an option.

[applications_to_ignore]
macosx

I'm testing it right now.

Results @victor-falcon. I'm so burnt out I don't even want to test it myself. I got bit the other day editing my .profile because I was editing the saved version which is no longer linked and really wish I never switched from my simple script to mackup.

[jussapaavo]

I just discovered this is actually an option.

[applications_to_ignore]
macosx

I'm testing it right now.

I don't think it makes any difference. MacOS doesn't seem to support symlinks in general in the Application Support directory, so just ignoring the OS preferences is not enough. There are so many other applications using that directory for storing plist files etc and they won't work either.

I didn't find any viable way to use mackup and I followed tshu-w's advice on migrating to unison. I also use dotfiles managers (like chezmoi) for managing my dev env and non-sensitive configs.

[jhirn]

I just discovered this is actually an option.

[applications_to_ignore]
macosx

I'm testing it right now.

I don't think it makes any difference. MacOS doesn't seem to support symlinks in general in the Application Support directory, so just ignoring the OS preferences is not enough. There are so many other applications using that directory for storing plist files etc and they won't work either.

I didn't find any viable way to use mackup and I followed tshu-w's advice on migrating to unison. I also use dotfiles managers (like chezmoi) for managing my dev env and non-sensitive configs.

Yeah I traded in my 9 year old ./install.sh 8 line script specifically because this worked with ios application settings. It's a shame that Apple killed it but was more concerning is nothing has been done to address this in mackup (to my knowledge).

Thanks for the recs. I will check out those out before going back to that.

[shelper]

maybe add an option for mackup to globally ignore all files in the folder ~/Library/Preferences
or ignore file type: plist

[aboqasem]

Might be helpful for the future of Mackup, or other tools:

I previously came across Mackup, but proceeded to implement a similar tool for syncing dotfiles, because I want to save them to a Git repo, to have version control, but also without committing unnecessary configurations or secrets.

For files/dirs, it will symlink the configuration.

For defaults, the tool will export only a subset of the keys (configurable) of the given defaults, compare it with the existing tracked configuration, then you decide to export it to tracked file or import from the tracked file to override existing.

Example output:

$ dotsync
DRY RUN...

Dotfiles              symlink   .editorconfig                                         > Already symlinked.
Dotfiles              symlink   .hushlogin                                            > Already symlinked.
Dotfiles              symlink   .zprofile                                             > Already symlinked.
Dotfiles              symlink   .zshrc                                                > Already symlinked.
Oh My Zsh             symlink   .oh-my-zsh                                            > Already symlinked.
LunarVim              symlink   .config/lvim                                          > Already symlinked.
Git                   symlink   .gitattributes_global                                 > Already symlinked.
Git                   symlink   .gitconfig                                            > Already symlinked.
Git                   symlink   .gitignore_global                                     > Already symlinked.
Atuin                 symlink   .config/atuin                                         > Already symlinked.
Zellij                symlink   .config/zellij                                        > Already symlinked.
lazygit               symlink   Library/Application Support/lazygit/config.yml        > Already symlinked.
powerlevel10k         symlink   .p10k.zsh                                             > Already symlinked.
iTerm                 defaults  com.googlecode.iterm2                                 > No change.
Macs Fan Control      defaults  com.crystalidea.MacsFanControl                        > No change.
Rectangle             defaults  com.knollsoft.Rectangle                               > Diff found but is tracked. Saving...
--- /dev/fd/63  2024-10-30 21:37:22
+++ /dev/fd/62  2024-10-30 21:37:22
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
                <key>SUHasLaunchedBefore</key>
                <true/>
                <key>SUUpdateRelaunchingMarker</key>
-               <true/>
+               <false/>
                <key>allowAnyShortcut</key>
                <true/>
                <key>almostMaximize</key>
@@ -30,6 +30,8 @@
                <key>footprintAnimationDurationMultiplier</key>
                <integer>0</integer>
                <key>hideMenubarIcon</key>
+               <true/>
+               <key>internalTilingNotified</key>
                <true/>
                <key>launchOnLogin</key>
                <true/>
AltTab                defaults  com.lwouis.alt-tab-macos                              > Diff found. Backing up existing and saving new...
--- /dev/fd/63  2024-10-30 21:37:22
+++ /dev/fd/62  2024-10-30 21:37:22
@@ -38,9 +38,8 @@
                <string>⌘</string>
                <key>holdShortcut3</key>
                <string>⌥</string>
-               IF I CHANGED THE FILE
                <key>menubarIcon</key>
-               <string>3</string>
+               <string>2</string>
                <key>mouseHoverEnabled</key>
                <string>false</string>
                <key>nextWindowShortcut</key>
CleanMyMac            defaults  com.macpaw.CleanMyMac4                                > Diff found but is tracked. Saving...
--- /dev/fd/63  2024-10-30 21:37:23
+++ /dev/fd/62  2024-10-30 21:37:23
@@ -5,9 +5,9 @@
                <key>MenubarAppEnabled</key>
                <true/>
                <key>SUAutomaticallyUpdate</key>
-               <true/>
+               <false/>
                <key>SUEnableAutomaticChecks</key>
-               <true/>
+               <false/>
                <key>SUHasLaunchedBefore</key>
                <true/>
                <key>SeenIntroVideo</key>

Backed up paths: ~/dev/dotfiles/synced/defaults/com.lwouis.alt-tab-macos.plist.1730295442743.bak
Review and commit.

Nothing was actually done. Use --do to apply changes.

This is how the config looks like as of now:

https://github.com/aboqasem/dotfiles/blob/44c1c1216844d08441b2a9bedea40750eb3d41d2/syncconf.toml#L1-L149

If any of the above files changes, it prints out the diff and I would have visibility of what exactly changed.

Was thinking of properly designing it and publishing it, but since it fits my usage and I'm not sure if it's useful to others, I haven't started yet.

I believe the ultimate goal would be to build something like lazygit but for dotfiles.