Hang during Smart Update

[peychaud]

Hi,

I hadn't backed up my MacBook in a few months, so I decided I was overdue for a Smart Update. I've tried a number of times over the past several nights, but Smart Update continues to hang after evaluating about 25 GB.

The first night I let it run for about 45 minutes, but it showed no progress after the first 15 minutes or so. Since then I've been stopping the update after about five minutes of no progress.

If it matters, I'm backing up to a Western Digital external drive that's connected via USB. I've used Disk Utility's "repair disk" function on the external drive, but it never turns up any problems with the disk.

FYI, I'm running OS 10.5.8 and I just updated to the latest version of SuperDuper tonight. I was hopeful the update would solve the problem, but it didn't. Prior to this problem, I had never had any problem with SuperDuper.

Finally, I tried to submit feedback via the SuperDuper application itself, but for some reason my message didn't go through. If you need to contact me via e-mail or if you need me to attach the SuperDuper log, please let me know.

Thanks in advance.

[dnanian]

Yes, please send me some email to support and we'll try to figure out what's going on.

[peychaud]

I just wanted to follow up and say that Dave responded to my email query almost immediately and the problem turned out to be no problem. What I thought was "hanging" turned out to be just the result of SuperDuper's copying a very large file that took a long time to copy.

Thanks for a great product and outstanding support, Dave.

[rggoode]

I've been having a similar problem (a couple problems, actually) and have been searching the forums for possible solutions. I've come across a number of posts where Shirt Pocket support responds by saying "send me an email and we'll try to help."

I appreciate that they are so willing to be helpful, but why not use the forum to conduct the dialog so that a knowledgebase is created to help others having similar issues?

[dnanian]

Because the solutions involved are nearly always specific to a user. I ask people to post the results to the thread if they'd like, but having them post system logs and the like to a public forum is unnecessary and a bit silly.

[sjk]

I…, but why not use the forum to conduct the dialog so that a knowledgebase is created to help others having similar issues?
If it could be more regularly updated (which, of course, is challenging with only Dave doing it along with proficiently handling a zillion other support-related issues :)) I think the Frequently Asked Questions (http://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=7) subforum better serves the purpose of a forum-based knowledge base. Helps keep that type of information more distinct, accessible, and accurate than when it's mixed with discussions. In general, I've always felt that forums make a poor substitute for what's more traditionally considered as a knowledge base (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_base).

[dnanian]

The big problem is that the FAQ won't help users who need to be stepped through diagnosis. After all, there's a pretty extensive Troubleshooting section of the User's Guide, and it does help with virtually all cases...

[sjk]

The big problem is that the FAQ won't help users who need to be stepped through diagnosis.
True. And even though this is a support-centric forum your previous post makes it clear that you prefer some of that diagnosis not be handled here.

It's tempting to continue this diversion from the primary topic but I'll stop now. :)

[larco]

I've been having a similar problem (a couple problems, actually) and have been searching the forums for possible solutions. I've come across a number of posts where Shirt Pocket support responds by saying "send me an email and we'll try to help."

I appreciate that they are so willing to be helpful, but why not use the forum to conduct the dialog so that a knowledgebase is created to help others having similar issues?

I can think of no other software company that will help you so fast as Shirt Pocket without some extra support fee charged. When Dave says send an email- I do and he responds. I read the FAQ discussions and the SD manual
also.

-Larco

[gorji]

I agree with Larco. SD is a great program with excellent support.

[dnanian]

Thanks to both of you.