iFamilyData

General discussion of iFamily for Leopard and Genealogy
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John De Carteret
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:07 am
Location: Jersey, UK

iFamilyData

Post by John De Carteret » Tue Nov 19, 2013 12:48 pm

I recently got a new Mac (and have posted previously about Migration). I'm now on OSX 10.9 and iFamily V2.888.

But...every time I open the iFamily software I now get the message "You appear to have moved the folder called iFamilyData - probably using Finder. Please Quit from iFamily and use Finder to move it back to be a child of your Home folder. In future please use the iFamily menu option File-> Move Data Directory. You may also need to delete the iFamily Property List file at /Users/HomeFolder /Library/Preferences/com.kswa.iFamilyForLeopard.plist"

When I click to get rid of this message it just keeps popping back up, and would eventually cover the screen, and I get stuck in a never ending loop!

Or it crashes out!

I've checked and the "iFamilyData" file appears to already be in my home (John) file ?

In the last sentence regarding the iFamily Property List chain I can only get as far as /Library/ after which there's no /Preferences/....I have either PreferencePanes or Safe Preferences neither has a sub "com.kswa.iFamilyForLeopard.plist" (nor do ANY of the other sub choices?

Any ideas how to stop this "pop-up" loop?

Great software, but I'd hate to loose all my information!

I realise that it's probably all to do with the many upgrades/updates that are coming out, but any advice would be helpful.
John De Carteret

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Warwick Wilson
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Post by Warwick Wilson » Tue Nov 19, 2013 10:21 pm

It may be that your Mac username is different on the new machine as compared with the old. For instance you may have called yourself john on one and johnc on the other. (implying a different home directory name).

I am concerned that the message ends up filling the screen which is not good. I will look into that looping behaviour.

The problems root lies with the old installer which I will soon do away with. For Macs pre Snow Leopard, the installer cannot see the user home directory at install. Once the program starts it creates the directory if it does not already exist. It stores the location of this directory in it's plist file as '/Users/warwick/iFamilyData/'. The problem stems from here. Delteing the plist file means that the entries will be created from scratch the next time iFamily opens.. it will identify the user home directory at runtime and put the iFamilyData entry in the plist file.

I will be remedying these file issues in the new year when I must lamentably fork iFamily into two products, one for Tiger/Leopard and another for SL and later. This will also resolve the certificates problem that Apple introduced with Gatekeeper. (Also only surmountable by using a SL or later installer method).

As for the Library folder, Apple in their wisdom HID the Library folder which is a child of the User home directory in OSX versions Lion onwards. The Library folder you are looking at, i think, is a child of the root directory. There are a number of ways to make the user one visible again, try this google search link: http://www.google.com.au/?#q=mac+library+hidden

Your data will not be affected by the issue described. Please email me if the above brain dump requires further clarification.

Thanks.

John De Carteret
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:07 am
Location: Jersey, UK

Re: iFamilyData

Post by John De Carteret » Sat Dec 28, 2013 4:32 pm

Warwick, my apologies for not replying earlier, I got involved in some other tasks which took me away from family history matters, and iFamily. Many thanks for the information which you have imparted, although in truth I don't understand it all, but it seems to be yet another issue caused by running OSX 10.9.1 SL this has caused other issues also. I'm certainly glad that you included a comment that my "data will not be affected", I'd hate to loose anything as I've traced my ancestry back over 1,000 years! (31gen). I think that I'll probably wait until you come up with a fix for SL user's in the New Year. I note that you're thinking of dividing into two versions, but won't everyone eventually be forced onto SL,.......I was....with a new iMac, especially when I was told not to expect more that 8-10 years life from an iMac (desktop) or 5-6 years serviceable life from a Macbook!!
Again thanks for your great help in these matters, iFamily is great software, long may it continue.

Hope you had a great Christmas, and that you will have a prosperous New Year.

Best wishes from Jersey UK
John :)
John De Carteret

Erichlutz
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2010 8:59 pm

Re: iFamilyData

Post by Erichlutz » Thu Jan 09, 2014 11:02 am

Im struggling with the same issue. I have moved the folder to the Home folder. Deleted the pref file in the user library, but still get the same message again. Im on the latest version...

Im stuck. What now?

cfn1954
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun May 08, 2016 11:50 pm

Re: iFamilyData

Post by cfn1954 » Tue May 10, 2016 3:19 am

This is an old thread, but I had the same issue when migrating to a new computer. If you have changed your "home folder" name the migration assistant will not work. You will get this error...

"You appear to have moved the folder called iFamilyData - probably using Finder. Please Quit from iFamily and use Finder to move it back to be a child of your Home folder. In future please use the iFamily menu option File-> Move Data Directory. You may also need to delete the iFamily Property List file at /Users/HomeFolder/Library/Preferences/com.kswa.iFamilyForLeopard.plist"

You can uninstall using an uninstall app (this cleared out the application and plist) and/or change to iFamily for mac and re-install, but that will not fix this error. Re-reading Warwick's reply I was overlooking the homefolder name change. This was easy to fix when I realized that the names were different. I created a folder using in the users directory with the proper name and put the iFamilyData folder in that. then started iFamily for mac and everything worked. Then I moved the data using the menu option and all is well. I am using Mavericks and that could be part of the issue as it caches some application data even when the application is closed and restarted; that may be why deleting the plist wouldn't help.
chuck

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