what are these mystery files?

[dtokez]

Just completed a backup to a external hard drive (WD My book 6TB) from my xpenology (synology) setup, using a simple copy and paste command. Looking in the folders on the external drive, some not all but most have duplicate files with the same prefix ._ for example '._filename.jpg'

Inside all the files, opened with a text editor I seem to have something similar to the following:

Mac OS X

Mac OS X 2 È ú ATTR ú œ ^ œ ^ com.dropbox.attributes xœRMo‚0þ+†óŠrØÝ€ÌÌã†:½J‹ZK€ÎŠñ¿ .âb²ìÔ7íóôùhÉe¶–:± 9TÆ%&ÆSç`„œÑm¬ã¤(s¶Ý4Û—¸ŒéÂJCñ˜^Ð~œŒL‡CãøйðJ&¨Œ¢‚–-Ú[…v`£T4g¤ƒ
`§ûz=A ýb!
„$”·ï¦[,?ckäXœ¾Î«ë‹™Èd~²Ò¾Ý‡TÎ ’9±¡çíÎÞ#Æiã"ŽoË,}7õªYµô½ Átv+û™ƒ€¾g;}¨Ü|{âl˜jýÕn#+îØDzâ,ðëÞP»âŒã2’¹¸÷.Ýqâ(د
áŠpXªœæ-ÚÌtË°?W«K—ÂïÂ[B¢>¥¿s$HC"5øR{h_ÏÝz®~òœµÔí'°îÄ'/`/µ×ô€´7½Žó¹ãñ©ö%

How have I ended up with them, and how can I avoid generating them? Very annoying

 

[bledd]

Any of these files come from a Mac?

They have a weird way of creating with and dealing with zip files.

 

[dtokez]

No mate, none have ever been on a Mac. The weird duplicate files don't exist at the source, only on the external drive after copying. I'm so confused bud

 

[Django x2]

Synology runs Linux (technically so does OSX) so it's possible its just a weird way that it's handling those files or you've stumbled across a re-manufactured drive and pulled some old stuff from it.

 

[bledd]

I'm not familiar with Xpeneolgy, only Synology.

 

[dtokez]

I'm not familiar with Xpeneolgy, only Synology.

Think it's the same mate essentially

 

[dtokez]

Synology runs Linux (technically so does OSX) so it's possible its just a weird way that it's handling those files or you've stumbled across a re-manufactured drive and pulled some old stuff from it.

Not sure what you mean fella, the external drive is a western digital re-cert but don't see how that could effect it? Seems to be some talk on the Synology forum about the strange ._ files but nothing conclusive?

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Post a screenshot of the said thing.

 

[dtokez]

Post a screenshot of the said thing.

What thing mate?

 

[jpaul]

Post a screenshot of the said thing.

as he said more information on the mystery files eg. are they the same size as the originals. (if you do an octal/hex dump of start of an example file can maybe identify
its type from web lists, using bytes at start of file)

sounds like these are metadata files associated with synology file system btrfs
and you should be using a synology mechanism to backup/copy directories/folders - do you have another option ?

 

[Deleted member 77746]

What thing mate?

Just take a screenshot (photo) of the directories you are having trouble with. 1 screenshot will do just post it here so that we can see properly.

 

[ecksmen]

files starting with a dot (.something.jpg) are hidden files in the unix world, so you wont see them unless you tell it to.

 

[dtokez]

Just take a screenshot (photo) of the directories you are having trouble with. 1 screenshot will do just post it here so that we can see properly.

here you go fella. They are all 1kb files. https://www.dropbox.com/s/qf53avumnz1p1ix/Screenshot 2017-06-26 21.33.44.png?dl=0

Just noticed they are also present on the 3TB external drive that I use for server backups. This one gets backed up by the synology backup software built in :/

 

[jpaul]

if the file type acdsee shown in screenshor is correct they are metadata files, accompanying images
Do you use this ACDSee product

Ok, what is metadata? Well, it’s information about an image and how it was taken. For example, the metadata of digital camera images can contain the date and time the picture was taken, the shutter speed, the exposure settings of the camera, whether a flash was used, and much more. What is ACDSee metadata? This is additional information you can add to an image to help you find and categorize/compartmentalize/organize it, such as keywords, color labels, captions, etc.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

._ is hidden files on MacOSX ..... which indicates meta data as above.

"They're created to store file information that would otherwise go into an extended attribute on HFS+ (Apple native) or Unix/UFS volumes"

 

[dtokez]

if the file type acdsee shown in screenshor is correct they are metadata files, accompanying images
Do you use this ACDSee product

Yes I do use acdsee for viewing images but don't think that is the issue bud? I haven't ever seen those files on any local drives? Also always assumed that metadata was included in the image file itself, such as the exif data?

 

[dtokez]

._ is hidden files on MacOSX ..... which indicates meta data as above.

"They're created to store file information that would otherwise go into an extended attribute on HFS+ (Apple native) or Unix/UFS volumes"

Hmm I see... I think lol. But I don't own any apple products so surely those files should not exist?

 

[jpaul]

the proprietary Metadata files, maybe have sections with data that would be relevant for viewing/understanding the gifs on different operating systems,
and macos just happens to be the first word visible, even though, as you say, this is not your OS.

On windows too (your OS ?), there are files that are hidden in the default file browser, so if you change the options on the file browser these metadata files will become visible.
(folder -> properties -> general -> hidden)

 

[Deleted member 77746]

You have nothing to worry about what you see is normal and hidden for a reason. Delete them if you want. Won't make a difference to anything.

 

[dtokez]

Not worried about them but they are just annoying, puts the file count up and they just seem like a waste of space Is there no way to avoid them?

I did another backup over the network (ext hard drive plugged into a PC instead of the server) last night and the files don't show up on the external drive so happy days but it's not ideal to bog the network down :/