Back up user prefs
Frequently asked questions

ANNOUNCEMENT: Due to an overwhelming number of requests for a Tiger-compatible version of BUUP, I have decided to resume work on the project.

Some time ago, I decided to stop supporting BUUP. The hundreds of e-mails that I have received asking me to reconsider, in addition to those that have been sent to me since Tiger was released, have had the desired effect — and so, I released Back up user prefs 4.4 on June 7th.

What new features are in Back up user prefs 4.4?

The newest version of Back up user prefs 4.4 introduces a new step in the process in which the program checks the ~/Library/Preferences folder before the backup begins to determine whether or not the owner/permissions settings of items within the folder will allow successful copying, which is necessary for the creation of a backup. If these settings are not correct, a message will appear that will inform the user of this situation and will suggest several possible workarounds. Version 4.4 also adds a feature to Owner and Permissions Checker that takes into account an AppleScript anomaly that occasionally results in the application's not recognizing a valid administrator password. This glitch appears to be user account-specific, and we have so far been unable to isolate the cause of the problem, which appears only rarely with some user accounts and not with others. Version 4.4 also includes messages concerning the backup of e-mail folders for those whose preferred e-mail client is not Apple's Mail application. The automatic mail backup feature in Back up user prefs works only with Mail, so users of e-mail clients such as Entourage and others must use the optional folder backup feature to choose their e-mail folder.

I'm trying to use BUUP4_for_cron with "Panther" — but it keeps popping up a dialog asking for my administrator password, making it impossible to perform an unattended backup. How can I get it to work without doing this?

Apple has made significant changes in the way in which Mac OS X handles permissions in "Panther". The application was written to work in "Jaguar", and it does so with few (or no) problems (if there is a permissions problem, the application will flag the offending file or files and suggest a fix). In "Panther", however, the permissions changes cause dialogs to appear asking users to authorize certain actions such as copying, deletion of files and folders, etc. when such actions might cause essential data to be lost. The reason for this is probably very largely the rash of complaints in earlier versions of the operating system about the inability to do such things as emptying the trash in certain situations, or putting recalcitrant files in the trash in the first place. The new approach allows the user to do both, but requires a password (see below) to accomplish each. You take a little, and you give a little.

However, this makes it extremely difficult to write applications such as Back up user prefs and its companion application BUUP4.4_for_cron in a manner compatible with both versions of the operating system. There is a way of doing this, but it requires a different way of specifying, for instance, copying, moving, and deletion operations. There are well over one hundred pages of code (most of them consisting largely of error traps) in the applications), and so there are lots of lines to rewrite and test.

An alternate way of solving the problem is introduced in Back up user prefs 4.4 and BUUP4.4_for_cron: an additional application called Owner and Permissions Checker is included within the Back up user prefs 4.4/BUUP4.4_for_cron folder. This small application, which runs only in "Panther", checks the owner/permissions settings within the ~/Library/Preferences folder and if necessary adjusts them in such a way that the password dialog will not appear when a backup is attempted.

This application was designed to work with BUUP4.4_for_cron, which performs unattended backups and which therefore requires a "clean" ~/Library/Preferences folder in terms of owner/permissions settings. However, it may also be used with Back up user prefs 4.4. The advantage of so using it is that it makes it unnecessary to go through the process of attempting a backup, getting an error message, manually changing the settings as described in the message, and then rerunning the program. Running Owner and Permissions Checker before Back up user prefs 4.4 will eliminate the owner/permissions error and will allow the application to run through to completion.

Owner and Permissions Checker should always be run before a scheduled run of BUUP4.4_for_cron. This means that Owner and Permissions Checker must be run every day as the last item of business if an unattended backup is scheduled during the night using a crontab.

The reason for the necessity to run Owner and Permissions Checker before each backup is that some applications (not many, but some) may change the owner and/or permissions settings during the course of their normal execution. An example of this is Micromat's TechTool Pro 4.x, which must reset its preferences file to "system" as owner and its user permissions to "no access" in order to run its test and repair routines. Each time it runs, TechTool Pro 4.x will reset these settings, and if either Back up user prefs or BUUP4.4_for_cron is run without running Owner and Permissions Checker, an error message will result.

Running Owner and Permissions Checker is very simple; just launch the application and follow the instructions. You will be prompted to enter your administrator password twice, after which the application will work its magic and the settings will be reset to allow a trouble-free backup! Note that you must have an administrator password to run this application!

Sometimes when I run Back up user prefs and/or BUUP4.x_for_cron, one or more of the backup folders is/are empty. Why is this, and what can I do about it?

Beginning with the first version of "Panther", some users of Back up user prefs and/or BUUP4.x_for_cron started to encounter sporadic instances in which one or more of the folders copied by these applications would turn out to be empty. (The problem may possibly have existed before "Panther", but we have received no reports of its occurring with previous versions of Mac OS X).

Versions of these applications prior to 4.4 would copy the backup folder to the specified location and automatically replace any previously-existing backup. If the new backup terminated in an error, the old backup would be lost. This has been corrected in v 4.4. If such an error occurs, the following message

will appear and the pre-existing backup will be restored to its original location.

However, since the empty folder problem is known to occur in a small number of cases (and we emphasize that it occurs only sporadically and is apparently due to some sort of AppleScript bug and not an error in these applications), we recommend that the user copy the old backup, if one exists, to a new location, renaming it if necessary, to guard against this problem, just to be on the safe side.

This error appears (at least from the beta test reports) to have been fixed in Mac OS 10.3.3, but we wouldn't want to state categorically that this is the case, since it may be that our beta tests have simply not encountered the problem and that it may still exist. So, be warned and plan accordingly!

I've been trying to install Back up user prefs 4.x, but I can't get the installer to work. What can I do?

Assuming that you're running "Panther" — how did you install 10.3? The reason I ask is that "Upgrade" is a disaster! I tried it on one of my machines and it left it in a shambles — it wouldn't print, and all sorts of other things that should have worked didn't. I had to reinstall using "Archive and Install" to get it working again. The same thing has happened with several others who've reported similar problems that were corrected by the solution outlined below:

If you chose "Upgrade", I strongly recommend that you reinstall 10.3 using the "Archive and Install" option. This will preserve your user settings and any non-Apple applications installed in your /Applications folder but will otherwise install a virgin 10.3 system. Your existing system will not be deleted but instead will be moved to a folder on the root level of your startup drive called Previous Systems.

Of course, there will be things that will have to be moved over or reinstalled (for example, you'll have to reinstall Back up user prefs 4.x, because otherwise the application won't be able to gain access to the documentation folder that is installed in /Library/Documentation, and you'll have to move the fonts from the /Library/Fonts folder in the /Previous Systems folder to the corresponding folder in your new one) — but at least once you get everything where it should be, you'll have a Panther system that works!

Once I launch Back up user prefs, there seems to be no way to get it to quit. Why is this? This is very frustrating. Can't you add the ability to quit to subsequent versions? And how can I get the current version to quit during execution?

When Back up user prefs is running, the actual active application is the "Finder" — and it is therefore impossible to quit the application either by using the <Command-Q> keyboard shortcut or by selecting "Quit" from the "File" menu. Instead, to quit Back up user prefs, the user must <Control-click> on the application's icon in the Dock and select "Force Quit" from the pop-up menu that appears. This will force it to quit. There may be a dialog box left on the desktop if the application is forced to quit, but the dialog can be dismissed by clicking on whatever button is available in the box. Since Back up user prefs is no longer running, it makes absolutely no difference what the text in the button says.

Shareware???? What the hell is this???? One of the main reasons I've been using Back up user prefs is that it's free! Why should I be willing to pay for what up till now has been freeware?

The first version of Back up user prefs was written in October of 2002 as an AppleScript written for my own use after I discovered that Mac OS 10.0 had a disconcerting habit of zapping some of my preferences files — and more specifically, those files connected with Internet settings, which meant items in both the ~/Library/Preferences folder and the folders associated with the various browsers that I was using. I had absolutely no intention of distributing it, so rather than using Objective C or (later) AppleScript Studio, I wrote it in "plain vanilla" AppleScript.

That was about forty versions ago. Shortly after mentioning on-line to someone on some forum or other (I forget where) that I had written such a script, I began to get requests that I post it for others to use. I have maintained and expanded Back up user prefs as a freeware application for over a year, during which time it has grown from a simple script only a couple of pages long to a huge program (you wouldn't believe me if I told you how huge, so I won't). The great increase in the length of the code has been due almost entirely to the wide distribution that the program has received — all told, it has been downloaded at least 38,000 times, in addition to being distributed on several CD-ROMs produced both in the U.S. and abroad — and specifically to the fact that the great majority of the total lines of code consists of error traps, which I would not need if I were the only user of the application, but which are absolutely necessary for such a program if it achieves wide currency.

HOWEVER . . . it takes time to maintain such a project — time spent adding new features, keeping up with changes and additions to each successive version of the Mac OS, answering requests from users for error traps for glitches that I had never dreamt of, and staying abreast of the continually evolving plethora of browsers being made available.

As strange as it may seem, I do not spend all of my waking hours on Back up user prefs: I am an active composer (see my Web page for information about this phase of my activities) as well as the proprietor of M-T Software, a Macintosh software and consulting business located in Salem Massachusetts — and to keep food on the table and pay the mortgage and utilities bills (and to get me that G5 that I'm hungrily waiting to buy!), I have to make some money now and again.

SO . . . to make a long story shorter, Back up user prefs is now shareware.

That's the bad news . . .

But now, the good news!

If you do not want to pay the shareware fee to purchase a serial number (which, by the way, is only $5.00 US and which can be done through eSellerate at this link), you can continue to use it anyway. The only difference is that each time you launch the application, you'll have to sit and fidget for twenty seconds until the registration dialog

disappears before it continues on its merry way.

Now, not only is $5.00 US not very much to pay, but it also entitles you to use another application that is packaged with Back up user prefs 4.4 as a bonus, BUUP4.4_for_cron. In a nutshell, BUUP4.4_for_cron allows you to schedule unattended backups using the Unix script "cron" or its very useful freeware GUI version, CronniX. (Don't let the German bother you — just click on "Download" to get it.) If you decide to use BUUP4.4_for_cron, then you will need to register; BUUP4.4_for_cron will run only ten times without a serial number.

If you are using Back up user prefs for the first time, welcome aboard! If you're already a user, if you can afford it, I'd appreciate it if you could pay the shareware fee — but remember that if you can't, you can continue to use the application as before, with only a minor added inconvenience!

Why is version 4.4 such a major release, in terms of the version number? The changes don't seem to be so major.

Version 4.4 of Back up user prefs owes the magnitude of the change in the version number to the fact that the error-detection routines have been completely rewritten in an attempt to eliminate the problems caused by the differences in the way in which versions 10.2.x and 10.3.x of the Mac OS deal with permissions issues. Previous version numbers of updates of 4.0 have operated by making small changes in the treatment of file ownerships and permissions; these updates have on the whole been unsuccessful. Consequently, these routines have undergone a major rewrite which justifies changing the number after the first period (or decimal point, depending upon one's preference.) Also, several new error traps and other safety features are introduced in the latest version.

In addition, aside from its changing from freeware to shareware, not only has Back up user prefs itself undergone some major changes "under the hood," but an additional application called BUUP4.4_for_cron (see the preceding FAQ) is packaged with it (along with another application, Owner and Permissions Checker, which eliminates the need to enter an administrator password while running either of the main applications). This application took a great deal of time and effort to write, but aside from an occasional unwanted authorization request (see the Manual packaged with the application for details), its ability easily and quickly to make unattended backups is the answer to the requests of many users who have been crying (well, maybe not crying — begging — no, that's not right either: but you probably get the idea) for a way to perform the types of backup operations that this application can do without the overkill of complete user folder backups. And anyhow, if you've been using earlier versions, the change to shareware will involve only the wait of an additional twenty seconds — which, by the way, is more than made up for by the fact that it runs much faster in "Panther" while still being (soon — see 'I'm trying to use BUUP4_for_cron with "Panther"', etc. above) fully compatible with "Jaguar".

Why are there so many dialogs?

There are many things that Back up user prefs can do — but it didn't start out that way. I originally wrote this application as a simple "plain vanilla" AppleScript to back up my own preferences, which in the v 10.0 days were getting corrupted with distressing frequency. By the time that it had occurred to me that others might find it useful, its development was far enough along that I did not feel that I could take the time to rewrite it extensively. Unfortunately, plain AppleScript imposes some limitations upon the programmer, not the least of which is the maximum length of 255 characters in a dialog box. (Another is that there can be no more than three buttons per dialog box.)

In addition, once I decided to distribute the application, I was so sick and tired of hearing people bitch and moan about how un-"Mac-like" OS X was (I've never been able to understand this line of reasoning, by the way — because whenever I've started people out directly in OS X with no prior knowledge of OS 9 and then explained OS 9 to them, my clients have invariably found OS 9 much more confusing and difficult to work with than OS X), that I wanted to create an interface that would give even the least "computer-savvy" user a step-by-step "walk-through" that would make everything as clear as possible. As I added more features, the dialogs multiplied because I didn't want to abandon this "walk-through" approach.

But what about those of us who do have the experience necessary to use the program without a "walk-through"?

Well, those users were stuck until version 2.4.7 was released. This version allows the user to select what I call "Auto-pilot" mode, in which nearly all of the dialogs that were not absolutely necessary were dispensed with. However, this means that I also either eliminated certain things that were done as a matter of course by earlier versions or chose for some things that were previously optional to be done by default.

But then how do I know what things are eliminated or done by default if I choose "Auto-pilot"?

If you click through to the dialog that asks whether or not you want to use "Auto-pilot", one of the options is a button labeled 'Explain "Auto-pilot"'. (This should of course say "What will happen if I choose Auto-pilot?" — but there we're up against another AppleScript limitation: there are too many characters to fit within a button.) If you click on this button, your default browser will open a document that explains what previously-required steps will be omitted and what previously optional ones will be done by default and Back up user prefs will quit. Just print out this page and you'll have a list of the differences, after which you should just rerun the program and click (if you wish) on "Auto-pilot".

But even if I choose "Auto-pilot", I'm still getting too many dialogs. What, if anything, can I do about that?

Nothing, if you are doing a restoration of your files. But after all, restoration is an operation that is there for everyone, but which most users will never have to use. In the case of making backups, there are two further options:

• choosing the "Suppress dialogs" in Back up user prefs (see the Manual for details),
  
  or
  
  
• creating your backups in BUUP4.4_for_cron, thereby (after the first run) eliminating all dialogs once and for all.

Why do I sometimes get a strange-looking error message that says "Can't get some object"?

Beats me! Sometimes AppleScripts do that for no apparent reason. Usually the script will run without problems if it is re-launched.

If you have other questions, please use our Contact page to submit them.