Wednesday, December 10, 2008

NTFS-3G 1.5130 Update 1

Mac specific service release:
  • Bugfix: ntfs-3g_daemon was accidentially compiled for Mac OS X 10.5 only, causing severe problems for Tiger (10.4) users.

  • Required MacFUSE version is now 2.0.3.
    Note: MacFUSE 2.0 had an issue which led to problems with data corruption in certain situations when using NTFS-3G. All users are urged to update to the latest MacFUSE release.

Download NTFS-3G 1.5130 Update 1 [ublio] (performance patches applied)
Download NTFS-3G 1.5130 Update 1 [stable]

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing is done in the context of my development efforts with the Catacombae projects.

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 2.0.3 or later installed.
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.5/Intel.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.
If you are having problems with NTFS-3G, write a post about it in the NTFS-3G Forum (or post a question as a blog comment if you're just unsure of how things work).

Known issues:
  • Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

  • After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't have a solution for this, but you can still choose your startup drive by:
    • Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).

    • Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.

    • Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)
    If you have any information on a pretty way of solving this issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.5130 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

25 comments:

  1. many features of new MacFUSE are experimental:
    http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/wiki/CHANGELOG

    Is it save to use it (on 10.4 and 10.5)?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Raymond, December 11, 2008 1:53 AM:

    I would say yes, but you should really ask the MacFUSE developers that question.
    With MacFUSE the latest version is always the only supported one.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Why is it installed in /System/Library/Filesystems and not /Library/Filesystems?

    I thought that /System is for OS X only and not to be touched...

    FuseFS itself is installed in /Library/Filesystems

    ReplyDelete
  4. mat:

    Because file systems that will be used for automatic mounting by DiskArbitration must be located in /System/Library/Filesystems .
    Try moving ntfs-3g.fs to /Library/Filesystems and see if it works. It does not work for me...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Strange problem:
    After update to NTFS-3G 1.5130u1 (stable, not ublio) and MacFUSE 2.0 when I copy files from system disk (HFS) to an external USB-disk (NTFS), the copy give no errors BUT files seems to be corrupted (cksum of origin-HFS and destination-NTFS differs).
    Strange cause the problem apparently ONLY OCCURS if I copy the files using Finder: copying them with cp command works perfectly in the tests I've done.

    I've tried uninstall+reinstall NTFS-3G and MacFUSE several times (even with the previous versions used) with same result... :-(

    I've been running NTFS-3G/MacFUSE (previous versions: 1.5012/1.7) during several months without problems...Only change in the last days: update versions of NTFS-3G/MacFUSE (so same hardware, same Mac OS version & updates).

    My system: iMac 2008 with Leopard 10.5.5.

    Any idea or suggestion?

    Thanks in advance.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks so much for this! Now that I've installed NTFS-3G, though, I can no longer read/write to an HFS+ external volume. Any thoughts on why that would be the case? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  7. chema1969:

    That sounds serious, but I can not reproduce the issue.
    Can you tell me a little bit more about your hardware and the specs of your external USB disk, and also what kind of files you tried to copy that were incorrectly transfered? (Large files, small files, many files...?)
    Can you repoduce this for all files that you copy HFS+ -> NTFS through the Finder or does it only happen with some files?

    This discussion should really take place in the NTFS-3G forums.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous, December 12, 2008 1:26 AM:

    Could you tell me a bit more about that volume and what problems you are experiencing?

    Is the HFS+ volume not mounting at all?
    Is the HFS+ volume in read-only mode?
    Can you take a screenshot of Disk Utility with the the HFS+ volume selected? (Even better, a screenshot of the "Info" window for the volume... i.e. press the Info button with the volume selected)

    NTFS-3G does not do anything that would affect OS X's handling of HFS+ volumes, so it all sounds really strange.

    ReplyDelete
  9. will my files on my ext hd be lost if i install ntfs3g NOW? i'm afraid to risk it and i can't exactly find any straight answers. obviously i'm new to all this :)
    thx for any help!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous, December 14, 2008 12:33 AM:

    No, they won't be lost. :)
    NTFS-3G alters your Mac OS X system so that it is able to write to the NTFS volumes that you attach, as opposed to the read-only mode provided by Mac OS X itself.

    If you are 100% paranoid about losing data, use the "stable" build. That will make file transfers to/from usb-disks very slow though, which is why the "ublio" build exists, providing a caching layer between the OS and the drive.
    Read the user guide for more info.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hello, Erik.

    I am having some problems with NTFS-3G (both 1.5130 and 1.5130 update 1).

    I am getting the message on this image:
    http://eremita.di.uminho.pt/~ambs/ntfs3g.png

    I tried to use ntfsfix and the windows file system check, and none complaing about nothing. The disk is mounted correctly on windows, and used the "remove hardware" all times.

    By the way, I can't figure how to force the disk to be mounted:

    [ambs@rachmaninoff Downloads]$ sudo mount -o force -t ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/My\ Book

    Volume is dirty.

    Forced to continue.

    Volume is dirty.

    Run chkdsk and try again, or use the force option.

    ERROR: couldn't mount volume : No such file or directory


    Thanks for any hint.

    Cheers, Alberto

    ReplyDelete
  12. Alberto Simões:

    Hi Alberto,

    I really can't answer what's wrong with your drive by myself as I haven't seen that particular message before, so could you repost that question in the official NTFS-3G Forum?
    The forum is monitored by Szaka and other core NTFS-3G developers. They have a better chance of figuring out what the problem is.

    ReplyDelete
  13. To all:

    chema1969's issue with data corruption was solved by updating to the latest MacFUSE beta release (2.1.5 at the time).

    If you're experiencing something similar, please update your MacFUSE installation by opening "System preferences", clicking the MacFUSE icon, ticking the box "Show beta versions" and checking for updates. Then update to the latest beta.
    ...or wait for the next stable MacFUSE release.

    ReplyDelete
  14. each version is getting terribly slow!! :(
    Why is it? Is it MacFuse? Is it ntfs-3g? Is it me? Hahahah!!!
    I transfered a 350MB file in 20 (twenty) minutes!!! :S

    ReplyDelete
  15. Clovis T.:

    Really? Copying the same amount of data from my external USB2 drive takes about 10 seconds. (Provided that the performance enhanced ublio build is used)

    What kind of hardware are you on?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Im on a macbook pro.
    The situation is:
    I have a ntfs partition where i run boocamp windows.
    If i transfer from the osx partition to ntfs (same disk hardware) it get terribly slow like i said.
    When i put my external HD with expresscard in NTFS partition it writes a lot faster.
    Could be fragmentation?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Clovis T.:

    Well, I doubt that fragmentation could affect your performance that much...

    First: Have your tried both the stable and the ublio build? There's no reason why the ublio build should be slower than the stable build, but just to be sure... please try both, and write down some numbers for each of the builds such as "transfering 10 MB file: xx seconds (stable) yy seconds (ublio), transfering 100 MB file: ..." etc.
    It always helps when troubleshooting to have some numbers to look at.

    It would also be helpful if you tried out ntfs-3g for linux to check if this issue is specific to OS X. The latest Ubuntu live-cds come with ntfs-3g, and I don't think you have to do anything special to get it working.

    Windows does have a built-in defragmentation utility. It's not perfect, but it's always something. You could defragment your drive in Windows' to see if that makes any difference... (for XP: Control Panel-Administrative Tools->Computer Management)

    I'll be very intrested to see the results of these tests. The reported performance is terrible and needs to be addressed somehow.

    ReplyDelete
  18. update2 with ublio - 350MB - 9 minutes (from osx to NTFS)
    update2 stable - 350MB - 4 minutes (from osx to NTFS)

    Even with these results, its slow isnt it?

    I havent tested on linux yet.

    ReplyDelete
  19. im using macfuse 2.0.3. OSX 10.5.6
    I always install ntfs-3g over the previous installation. I dont uninstall it. Is it the right way?

    Tks!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Clovis T.:

    Yes, upgrading the driver is supported. I do this myself when testing, so that shouldn't be a problem. (You can easily uninstall and reinstall if you want to try it that way, but it won't likely make any difference...)

    Hopefully you can gather some linux ntfs-3g performance numbers too, so we know whether to treat this as an issue specific to Mac OS X or as a more general ntfs-3g issue.

    ReplyDelete
  21. why are the transfer rates so slow when transfering to a external hd compared to a fat32 drive...?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous, April 11, 2009 4:46 AM:

    Please try the newest version of the driver displayed at http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com (currently 2009.4.4).
    The version that you commented is old, and later versions tend to improve performance with external USB/FireWire drives.

    ReplyDelete
  23. kikkazz for what I needed it for. thanks man. props!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Regan:

    Good, but please use the latest version of the driver. A lot of problems have been solved since the version that you're commenting, and performance has improved a lot.

    ReplyDelete