TVS871T NFS to SMB filenames issues

[camdarley]

Hi,
We got a TVS871T a few years ago and used it as a storage for our FCPX libraries and project.
We first used NFS share for our OS X client as QFinder exposed it as a specific setting for FCPX... but after many issue with authentication and difficulties to auto mount (along with QFinder pro not able to detect our NAS anymore), we decided to switch to SMB.
According to Bob Zelin, SMB is more reliable and offer better stability for FCPX.
It works, but we have many issues with special characters in filenames created through NFS, and FCPX not being able to reconnect medias, or folder not being writable when there are special characters in the name.
Although it's easy to rename said files/folders, there are sometimes a lot of file to rename and relinks, so I wonder if there is a workaround for this issue.
Best regards,

[animatola]

we've had the same problem.

Main problem: Apple encodes UTF8 filenames with NFD instead of NFC. NFS does not care and just writes NFD encoded files. SMB on the other hand expects NFC encoded files and converts to NFC while writing. then there's the issue with : as a path delimiter for HFS volumes vs / for unix paths and macOS' handling of converting between them.

You can convert NFD to NFC with a unix tool called convmv, but files and folders with special characters like / and : and spaces at the end of names will become inaccessible, also the aliases in FCPX libraries won't work anymore, they'll look like normal files with 0KB.

what we did:

1. If you don't have a current full backup, then connect via NFS and copy at least all Final Cut libraries (.fcpbundle) to a local mac volume. this retains all aliases

2. Still connected via NFS: clean file- and folder names (no / : and spaces at end). unfortunately FCPX snapshots have colons : in their names. (what were they thinking?)

3. another backup via NFS

You should understand linux filesystem structure and basic shell commands for the next steps

4. connect via SSH to your qnap and install pearl and then convmv
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/faq/arti ... auses-this

5. cd into the folder you want to change, then convert to NFC:

dry run without converting, lists files it would convert

Code: Select all

convmv -r -f utf8 -t utf8 --nfc .

add --notest to actually convert

Code: Select all

convmv -r -f utf8 -t utf8 --nfc --notest .

you should now be able to access all folders via SMB but the aliases in fcpx libraries won't work.

6. connect via SMB and copy the FCPX libraries from your local backup back to your NAS.

now everything should be accessible and all media aliases should work.

I think that was the complete workflow/workaround we did.

be careful with those commands, always have backups of everything and test everything on a single project folder before you do any bigger changes.