What I’m trying to do
I am setting up a new Mac mini; trying to match my setup on my MacBook Pro, but after a little while Obsidian stops picking up any changes/new files made in the vault outside of the Obsidian app itself.
I have some Keyboard Maestro scripts that create new files in the vault. On the old system changes are picked up immediately (also if I opened them in Bbedit). On the new Mac they only get picked up if I stop and start Obsidian. After restarting it works for a little while (maybe an hour or so?) and then it stops.
Things I have tried
I’ve searched for every keyword I could think of around filesystem, caching, metadata, etc in the forum, Google, and even ChatGPT (ugh). I haven’t found anything. I’ve compared all the settings between my old Mac and my new one and I haven’t found any differences. It isn’t related to disk permissions (although I did check) because it will find the files when I restart Obsidian. I only have a limited number of apps installed on the new Mac and no anti-malware/performance tuning things that might be killing/blocking that in the background.
The vault is stored locally, not on iCloud, Dropbox or anything like that. It is using Obsidian Sync and I’ve deleted and recreated the vault a couple of times.
I’ve also uninstalled/reinstalled Obsidian and made sure it has the file permissions in Settings.
If I rebuild the cache all the files show up.
Summary
- New Mac mini (running Sequoia), matches settings of old MacBook Pro (which still works properly)
- Problem: Obsidian does not detect changes or new files in the vault that it didn’t do itself
- Restarting Obsidian or rebuilding the vault cache reads the new/changed files and syncs them.
- vault is on local SSD, not iCloud, etc.
- Rebooted
- Reinstalled Obsidian
- Rebuilt the vault from Obsidian Sync
- No anti-malware, etc running
- compared Obsidian and system settings between new Mac mini and old MacBook
- changed system settings to prevent system from going to sleep
Can anyone point out what I’m missing? It’s got to be something simple but I’ve no idea where else to look.
Can you share your “Show debug info” from the original Macbook Pro?
The first thing I’d be curious about is if you have not recently updated your Obsidian installer by downloading and reinstalling. Maybe it’s out of date and needs a refresh.
Next, what Sync plan are you on? Any chance you are close to your vault size limit? And maybe when you restart Obsidian it is clearing some cache that temporarily brings your size back down long enough for it to work for a couple hours.
If you use this Keyboard Maestro workflow on the new Mac Mini, does the MacBook Pro pick up the changes as expected? You said it was working fine, but didn’t specify if you meant syncing was working fine, or if the app was just generally working fine.
That’s all I can think of for now.
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Here’s the original MacBook Pro debug info. The Mac mini is identical except the installer version is 1.7.7 instead of 1.4.13 (which makes sense since I downloaded it today). I’d hate to update on the MacBook Pro and break it there, too but perhaps I will get desperate and try that.
I’m nowhere near my vault limit (387.65MB out of 50GB)
For the KM stuff:
- The Keyboard Maestro scripts (or editing a file directly w/ Bbedit) immediately get picked up by Obsidian on the old MacBook Pro and are synced to the Mac mini.
- On the Mac mini KM scripts or edited changes do not show up on the mini nor are the changes synced until I either rebuild the cache or restart Obsidian on the mini. I can, of course immediately see the changes in the MacOS finder.
MacBook Pro Debug Info:
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.0
Installer version: v1.4.13
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 24.2.0: Fri Dec 6 19:01:59 PST 2024; root:xnu-11215.61.5~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 24.2.0
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: supporter
Insider build toggle: on
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: Prism v3.6.0
Snippets enabled: 4
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 33
Plugins enabled: 29
1: Actions URI v1.6.5
2: Advanced URI v1.44.2
3: Archiver v0.26.1
4: Banners v1.3.3
5: Calendar v1.5.10
6: Callout Manager v1.1.0
7: Commander v0.5.2
8: QuickAdd v1.11.5
9: Style Settings v1.0.9
10: Creases v0.7.0
11: Dataview v0.5.67
12: Day Planner v0.27.0
13: Homepage v4.0.7
14: Meta Bind v1.2.5
15: Contextual Typography v2.2.5
16: Hotkeys++ v0.2.7
17: Meld Calc v1.0.2
18: Metadata Extractor v1.1.0
19: MetaEdit v1.8.2
20: Minimal Theme Settings v8.1.1
21: Natural Language Dates v0.6.2
22: Periodic Notes v0.0.17
23: Readwise Official v2.1.4
24: Review v1.6.6
25: Table of Contents v0.2.0
26: Tag Wrangler v0.6.1
27: Tasks v7.14.0
28: Templater v2.9.1
29: Workspaces Plus v0.3.3
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Custom theme and snippets: for cosmetic issues, please first try updating your theme and disabling your snippets. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community theme and snippets.
Community plugins: for bugs, please first try updating all your plugins to latest. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community plugins.
One addition: On the ‘good’ MacBook Pro - MacOS security in Files&Folders Obsidian has toggles for Desktop Folder, Documents Folder, and iCloud Drive (all turned on). On the Mac mini Obsidian shows ‘full Disk access’ because I forced it. When I first started running into this problem Obsidian didn’t show up anywhere and MacOS sequoia won’t let you add apps to ‘File & Folders’, you seem to have to wait until the application asks for it. Obsidian never did. I can add apps to Full disk access (not as secure but I’m fine with using a hammer at this point)
I could be wrong, but I think you are thinking of that backwards.
I asked for the debug info on the original Mac, because I suspect the VERY old installer is the cause of your issue. If the new Mac isn’t getting the files that could mean the old one is failing to send out the files properly. The symptom is likely on the new one. The cause is likely on the old one. (There’s a chance I’m backwards.)
v1.4.13 is wildly out of date. You are missing some key upgrades and security upgrades. I highly recommend you upgrade. It might even fix the problem. There is no good reason not to upgrade.
And also, do you upgrade your community plugins periodically? I checked a few of yours, and they seem to be up to date.
On mine, I only have permissions for the Downloads folder. Are you 100% sure your vault isn’t stored in an iCloud folder? In Finder, if you right click on the top column, do you see an option for “iCloud Status”? You should not. Please double-check even if you think you are sure. Some of the Documents or Desktop folders are synced by default.
Sorry, I may not have been clear. Any changes made to the old Mac Pro do show up immediately on the new Mac mini. The Mac Pro does sync properly with everything. The problem is that file level changes on the new Mac mini don’t show up in Obsidian on the Mac mini nor do they sync with the MacBook Pro until I rebuild the cache one way or another.
I do update plug-ins, but I have that syncing as well and it may have gotten off with my rebuilding. That’s a good point and I’ll make sure they are current on both devices. (They both only shows Advanced URI being out of date at this point; I’ve updated)
Thanks for showing the easy way to confirm it’s not in iCloud:
Just for giggles I created a brand new vault for testing. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of that already. I’ve only tested with my main vault that I’ve been using for years. The new one is working properly, but I’m going to give it time as my main vault works for a little while after I restart/rebuild cache.
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Ok pardon me, I think I understand, and do see it was clear in the first post. The external edits you are making with KM are not showing up in Obsidian on the same computer. (I think I was just assuming sync issues since you were talking about the two computers.)
Have you tried testing with community plugins turned off? And then turning them on one at a time, or in groups, to see if you can isolate a plugin problem? (Even if they are working on another computer.)
Fixing or debugging the cache is beyond my abilities, so checking plugins is likely the last suggestion I can make.
If you want to test upgrading the Obsidian installer on the old computer, you can backup the app settings folder (and your vault to be safe). And then it will be possible to roll back to the old installer if you do find the new installer does break things for you. BUT, if that did break it, I would still first suspect it’s a plugin conflict. ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/
So, it’s the new computer. Somehow. My new vault behaves exactly the same way. on the old computer the terminal I entered the command ‘echo “from MBP” > MBP2.md’ and MBP2 shows up immediately in the vault on BOTH computers. ‘echo “from mini” > mini.md’ on the new computer does not show up anywhere. No plugins are installed in the new vault.
AND THEN
When I ran the ‘rebuild cache’ the new vault closed and now it won’t reopen. It just flashes and goes back to the open vault screen. (It’s still fine on the old MacBook Pro)
I feel like it has to be something about installing on Sequoia and there’s some permission somewhere that hasn’t been granted. Apple did a bunch of stuff with that for this version of MacOS.
(rebooted system and now I can open the vault). Goofy!
I have rebooted multiple times while trying to debug this.
My next steps (Just an update)
- logged out of my Apple ID and back in. No luck
- disabled ALL background jobs and ‘open at login’ apps. Things seem to be working
So now I will painfully and slowly add things back in to see what is causing the problem.
I’ll post what I find here, but I think it is now just a conflict with an app. A bit odd because I don’t have anything running on my new Mac that isn’t running on my old one, but there may be a newer version or it’s the fact that these were all installed on Sequoia on the new Mac mini and have been around a while on the old MacBook Pro.
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Just in case anyone else has this problem…
The problem appears to be Backblaze. Every time I’ve added it in updates eventually stop working. Remove it and everything works as before. I’ve reinstalled it, but that didn’t help.
I do have it running on the old MacBook without any issues, so I don’t know what the difference might be.
