ApplePi-Baker has been updated again – this time fixing a small bug for macOS Sierra users (beta 2 tested).
The disk/SD card size was not displaying. This has been fixed in 1.9.4.
Please report any issues you might run into when running MacOS Sierra, at the original ApplePi-Baker article where you can also download the latest version.
Special thanks to Barry for reporting .
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Comments
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Thank you for Apple Pi!!! what a life saver. I mainly use Pi and i have a mac. Im not sure why it takes so long to write a card with DD command..this programs is awesome. Thank you.
Jon-Paul Taylor
Hi Jon-Paul!
Thank you very much for the Thank-you note and compliment.
ApplePi-Baker actually utilizes “dd” as well, I just optimized it for speed.
I was just too lazy to keep typing and remembering the “dd” statement, so that’s why I created ApplePi-Baker.
But I’m very glad to hear it’s working well for you as well. Enjoy!
hans
I have found that when a 32GB card is imaged once, the card can not be imaged again with the same image. I get the error that the image is 31.9GB and my card is only 31.1GB.
I have to assume that this has to do with multiple partitions hat are made with the image or something. I have tried MANY things to re-partition or re-format the SD card but it keeps showing up as 31.1GB.
Any thoughts?
Chris
The best way to test would be:
– Make a backup from a given 32Gb SD card
– Try to restore it to the exact same card you made the backup from
“dd” is reading every single byte, and should be able to write it exactly the same way to the card.
If the card (after restore) isn’t working, then there is something fundamentally wrong with “dd”, which I highly doubt.
However, if the card is working just fine, and no information was lost, then it’s a matter of calculating the number of used bytes versus the observed capacity of the SD Card. When ApplePi-Baker complains about the card size, you can choose to ignore it and write anyway.
It has to be the same card you’ve used to make a backup from …
Even from the same manufacturer, 32 Gb is not always the same as 32 Gb.
Like you’ve seen, 32Gb can be 31.9 Gb or 31.1 Gb. Both will be marked as a 32Gb SD card.
hans
Hey Hans,
Great little app you have here. Found a little bug (ok it’s just a typo) but your http://www.tweaking4all.com is http://www.tweaking4al.com at the top right corner. (version 1.9.4)
Patrick Hulman
Thanks Patrick!
Ouch that’s an embarrassing mistake – I’ve added it to the list for the next version
hans
Just discovered ApplePi Baker! So much useful, using dd on macos is too error prone ! Thanks for this tool !
stibbons
Hi Stibbons!
Thank you very much for taking the time to post a “thank you” – it’s very much appreciated!
hans
I’ve been using your fantastic tool for quite some time. Since I’ve updated my Mac to MacOS Sierra I’ve had to update my ApplePI-Baker, unfortunately the latest version doesn’t work as smoothly as previous versions. I’ve found I cannot restore a backup from an external USB hard drive to an SD card, I first have to transfer the backup to my Mac’s internal hard drive before restoring the image to the SD card. Other than this it works as wonderfully as it has always.
Joseph
Thank you Joseph for reporting this issue.
Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of a move from Europe or the US, so I do not have my gear anywhere near me to test this.
I expect my stuff to arrive in about 2 weeks, in the meanwhile I’m living in an empty house on an air-mattress hahah
I have added it to the “To Do” list though
hans
[…] the extracted image to the SD card using Win32 Disk Imager on Windows or ApplePi-Bakeron […]
On my Mac – macOS Sierra 10.12.1 (16B2555), ApplePi-Baker won’t restore images files, says ‘Waiting for Recipe (idle)…’ and stays there. It has worked before but not since upgrade to macOS.
Amy ideas?
AudioBear
Forgot to say ApplePi-Baker 1.9.4
AudioBear
Hi AudioBear,
are you sure you’re running 1.9.4? This version was specifically released because of macOS Sierra.
Do you happen to be using any other tools that might access this SD card (ie. AntiVirus, or a tool that removes the hidden Apple files from drives)? Did you triple check (this is for normal SD cards) if the “read only” switch is set right?
hans
Yes, it is 1.9.4. I can write to the card and read from it. From the command line it has all the normal hidden files? Is there anything I should look for in the log?
AudioBear
I’m not maintaining a log for ApplePi-Baker – I tried implementing that twice now, only to find out that the latest trick I used wouldn’t work in the next macOS release … still looking for a better way …
It’s not unheard of that the problem occurs when AppePi-Baker is trying to unmount the SD card (and it keeps waiting for that, but macOS is not releasing the SD card). There are several reasons why this can happen, and I assume that most involve some sorts of file access (read or write) by macOS itself (although this never happens to me) or applications that run in the background (ie.anti virus, clean up tools, etc).
Some users noticed that rebooting the Mac (as annoying as this might sound) seems to resolve the issue – pointing to something locking the SD card from being unmounted. A reboot would force that unmount.
hans
Hi Hans, sadly rebooting does not fix this, it is like it tries to write then just fails. I can read & write files to the micro SD card (in an SD holder) in the SD socket of the Mac, but not with ApplePi-Baker.
AudiBear
Hi AudiBear,
I’ll try to do some tests this upcoming week – it’s Thanksgivings this week, and I’ll be having plenty time then.
Just something to try when ApplePi-Baker fails: goto Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility and wipe the SD card (for example: Select Erase and make it a FAT disk/partition. Just curious if that works well, or not.
hans
Sorry Hans, Erase with Disk Utility is fine.
AudiBear
So it worked after an erase?
hans
Sorry Hans, it did not work after an erase, but the erase did work from Disk Utility
AudioBear
Thanks Audiobear.
I guess I have my work cut out for the holiday this week
hans
Good day,
Absolutely love your App, but I have a problem in that fact that the app does not detect USB drives when inserted into the Macbook. MacOS sees the drives and I can read and write to them, but the application does not detect the inserted drives. I have formatted the USB drives FAT, but no luck. Even when I refresh Pi-Crust I cannot see these drives. I have tested this with several of my USB drives that I know work. Any advise or pointers? Thanks for a great app.
Sarel
Forgot to mention I am running v1.9.4.and MacOS Sierra 10.12.1
Sarel
Unfortunately, I cannot reproduce this issue.
hans
Hi, Wow – thanks for quick reply. I have rebooted several times and deleted the app and re-downloaded and re-installed as well. The same problem manifests. I have also tried different brands of USB keys as well, the problem persists across them all. Any specific way I should format the USB drives in MacOS “correctly” to be seen by ApplePi-Baker?
Sarel
Hi Sarel,
well, I’ll send you some Terminal commands, to test. This way I might be able to analyze what’s going on.
Which should produce something like this (I do not have a USB stick near me right now, but the stick should be listed as well):
Now, pay attention to the lines that start with “/dev/disk”, we need those device names for the next commands. Ignore those that have “virtual” or “disk image” in the line. So in the example above we have:
/dev/disk0 and /dev/disk1, however the line with /dev/disk1 has the word “virtual” in it, so we only have /dev/disk0 left.
With the lines that are left, now do this:
I’d need to see an example of the one for your USB disk (which is probably not /dev/disk0).
hans
Good day Hans,
Thanks. Output posted below:
Initial ‘list’ command:
/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *4.1 GB disk4
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk4s1
2: Microsoft Basic Data U 3.8 GB disk4s2
Subsequent ‘info’ command:
Device Identifier: disk4
Device Node: /dev/disk4
Whole: Yes
Part of Whole: disk4
Device / Media Name: Drive SM_USB20
Volume Name: Not applicable (no file system)
Mounted: Not applicable (no file system)
File System: None
Content (IOContent): GUID_partition_scheme
OS Can Be Installed: No
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: USB
SMART Status: Not Supported
Disk Size: 4.1 GB (4051697664 Bytes) (exactly 7913472 512-Byte-Units)
Device Block Size: 512 Bytes
Read-Only Media: No
Read-Only Volume: Not applicable (no file system)
Device Location: External
Removable Media: Fixed
Virtual: No
OS 9 Drivers: No
Low Level Format: Not supported
Sarel
OK, I found why it’s not listed … this line is causing the issue:
So the device is removable … but fixed …? Hahah.
I will have to do some experiments here to see what happens on my macOS Sierra setup.
I’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible – thanks for posting the results!
hans
p.s. Thanks for the compliment
hans
I’d like to check it.
amurcia
Yeah, it definitely doesn’t work on Sierra. 10.12.2
I tried 8 times with a new 32 gig flash card and it just got hung up on “Waiting for recipe”
So , I moved the file for pi baker 1.9.4 and the retropie disk image to a usb flash stick and transferred it to an older macbook running 10.9.5 and it ran flawlessly right away.
J J
Hi JJ,
sorry to hear you’re running into issues. I will try to make some time in the next days – since I cannot reproduce the issue on my Mac (running Sierra). I’ll upgrade to 10.12.2 today to see if I can get the same issue.
hans
Hello,
Just wanted to say i was running into the same exact issue. The on a whim i unchecked the box that says “Auto EJECT after Successful Install” and it started writing the card…
Not sure if i got lucky or if this sis something to look into on your end, just wanted to help. Love your program…
Michael Francis Thomas
Thanks Michael!
It’s always good to get feedback like this.
I’m now curious how many users actually want to auto eject feature, otherwise I’ll just drop that functionality. You’re not the first one to report this issue.
As soon as I have one of my other projects done, I will have a look at APB again and see if I can fix this. I’m even considering skipping the use of “dd” by writing my own code for that, but that will take some more effort and I’d have to see that it is at least equally fast
hans
Nope doesn’t work for me either, just freezes with ‘waiting for recipe’… 10.12.2 Sierra here.
moby
I’ll have to go find some time to build a debug mechanism to see what is going on in these rare occasions, since I cannot reproduce the issue on either of my Mac’s. Did you reboot your Mac in between testing? (I know that sounds super lame, but some users reported this to actually make a difference)
hans
Hi Hans,
Still a Huge Fan of Apple PI Baker, with a small enhancement request. It seems that SSH is disabled in the new releases of Raspian (Pixel). Since I tend to create Headless versions of the Pi’s it gets to be a bit of a pain to remount the disk, and touch a file on the boot partition called SSH (see current release notes for raspian). Could you possible provide a check box/radio button and do a touch /boot/SSH before doing the automatic unmount. You might want to note the UI check box as make headless version rather than something like touch ssh or whatever to save changes when enough complaints about this add up on the Raspberry Pi site. A link that describes the problem solution: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=167799
Thanks as always for great software!
Barry
Sorry, Slight error…. the file should be /boot/ssh (lowercase) — old habits are hard to break :-)
Barry
Hi Barry,
I’ve added this feature request to the “To Do” list – it will come with some extra work to find the most suitable solution, as this does cannot be applied to all IMG’s out there. As for touch and changing the SSH option, I’ll have to dig in and see if the partition can be accessed read/write by the Mac.
Thanks for the find on how to enable this, I’m just pasting it below for my own reference;
hans
This might help: http://aoakley.com/articles/2016-12-05-raspbian-enable-ssh.php
In there he references This page:
https://major.io/2010/12/14/mounting-a-raw-partition-file-made-with-dd-or-dd_rescue-in-linux/
Barry
Thanks Barry!
Quite a script, for Linux … let me see if I can work with this on a Mac …
hans
Actually I found a simpler method. (well I am in the remedial IT section evidently, cause it actually took me some time to think a simpler session)
Prior to this I was creating an empty rtf file with TextEdit and then removing the .rtf by renaming.
However now I just do it this way. Find out what the volume name is (most likely boot) and before you eject just do a sudo touch /Volumes/boot/ssh That is what I do now but of course I have to unplug and plug in the µSD card before I do it.
Barry
Thanks for the tip Barry – interesting. I most certainly will keep it in mind for APB …
hans
Hi,
having got my first every raspberry Pi this week i have found your tool invaluable, great piece of software!
I have one small question though – I have made a backup of a 32gb card, can i restore that backup to a different 32GB card (same model/manufacturer) or can the restore only be done to the original card? The question has arisen for me due to the reply at the top of this thread…
“It has to be the same card you’ve used to make a backup from …
Even from the same manufacturer, 32 Gb is not always the same as 32 Gb.
Like you’ve seen, 32Gb can be 31.9 Gb or 31.1 Gb. Both will be marked as a 32Gb SD card.”
Karl Jeffery
Hi Karl,
Technically, this should just work. However, manufacturers, even when using the same brand and model, have decided that 32Gb is not 32Gb.
Alternatively, you can restore to a larger card.
I apologize for this inconvenience, unfortunately, I have very little influence on this …
You could try to keep the last partition slightly smaller, so I does not hit the end of your SD card.
Since “dd” is rather dumb, it would simply keep writing until it fails.
Note that I have never tested this approach, it just occurred to me
hans
Hi,
I was creating a backup with applepi baker when at around 80 percent It froze and now that sd card is not accessible anymore. Can’t even format it.
Any suggestions?
jax
Hi Jax,
since APB doesn’t write anything to the SD card during backup, I can only assume 2 possibilities:
1. You’re using a SD card adapter with a micro SD card, and the adapter is poorly connecting (common problem – remove it and reinsert it, also check the “Read-only” switch on the adapter)
2. Your SD card is faulty. In that case I honestly do not know what can be done to fix that. I personally would try another way or PC to access the SD card.
If neither of these work;
Since it’s most likely having the ext-filesystem on it, you could get a USB bootable (or virtual machine) Linux distro (or GPartEd – use the Live CD/USB stick) and see if you can retrieve something with that. You might have to look into tools that recover or check filesystems.
hans
Hi, thanks very much for making this tool!
I am restoring from an .img.gz file that I created as a backup, and the in-progress ETA calculation reports quite a large negative number of seconds. It started positive (and much smaller than I expected) and has now gone negative after some time has passed. My guess? It’s calculating the ETA based on the gzipped file size rather than the actual .img size. Obviously not a blocker as long as the current restore actually completes but would be nice to fix.
Sean
Brief update: the restore worked just fine. Only bug is in the ETA display as far as I can tell.
Sean
Hi Sean,
thanks for reporting this odd effect. The negative number occurs when the number goes beyond what the variable can hold (for example, integer can go from -32,768 to 32,768, but when the value goes beyond that, it loops back to the beginning, so 32769 would actually become -32767). This was a bug in older versions of APB which I thought I had fixed. What version are you using?
Glad to hear the restore worked anyway …
hans
I’m using v1.9.4. The gzipped file was around 8 GB (a 32 GB image with quite a bit of empty space in it)… the countdown started at about 3 minutes, but the entire restore ended up taking 15 minutes or so.
Sean
Yeah the calculation is based on uncompressed filesize, divided by the average speed reported by “dd”. This speed changes as is the image is being written, in your case: fast start but then slowing down (suggesting that cache is being used). 15 minutes seems a little longer than usual though – but it all depends on the speed of your Mac, harddisk, SD-card adapter and SD card.
hans
Hi and thank you for this great tool.
Any news? My PiDrive is also listed as “fixed” and not show in ApplePi-Baker (v.1.9.4 on Sierra).
stammi
Hi Stammi,
I still have to try to find time to make some changes – I’m in the middle of a project finishing up signing my applications (thank you Apple for making it not easy).
Are you running the beta version or the final 1.9.4 version?
Additionally, I have to figure a way to determine which media is an SD card, which Apple keeps changing.
Did you post this question before as “Sarel” ?
If not, and in case you have not send me this info yet; Some Terminal commands, to test. This way I might be able to analyze what’s going on.
Which should produce something like this (I do not have a USB stick near me right now, but the stick should be listed as well):
Now, pay attention to the lines that start with “/dev/disk”, we need those device names for the next commands. Ignore those that have “virtual” or “disk image” in the line. So in the example above we have:
/dev/disk0 and /dev/disk1, however the line with /dev/disk1 has the word “virtual” in it, so we only have /dev/disk0 left.
With the lines that are left, now do this:
I’d need to see an example of the one for your USB disk (which is probably not /dev/disk0).
(in case you had already done this: my apologies for the delay – it’s rough having a full time job and trying to do what you love besides that and a full house hold – but I’m doing what I can)
hans
Hello Hans,
Thank you for your answer.
FIRST:
No rush! Important is the real life, everything else can wait ;)
Here is my diskutil list output:
Device Identifier: disk2
Device Node: /dev/disk2
Whole: Yes
Part of Whole: disk2
Device / Media Name: My Passport 07BA
Volume Name: Not applicable (no file system)
Mounted: Not applicable (no file system)
File System: None
Content (IOContent): FDisk_partition_scheme
OS Can Be Installed: No
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: USB
SMART Status: Not Supported
Disk Size: 314.0 GB (314038026240 Bytes) (exactly 613355520 512-Byte-Units)
Device Block Size: 512 Bytes
Read-Only Media: No
Read-Only Volume: Not applicable (no file system)
Device Location: External
Removable Media: Fixed
Virtual: No
OS 9 Drivers: No
Low Level Format: Not supported
Thank you for your time, and as I said, no hurry, I also have a real life ;)
I wish a nice evening
stammi
Sorry, i forget to write: 1.9.4 Final
“Sarel” posted on “november 16” how i see, my post is from today “may 17” ;)
stammi
Thanks Stammi,
Thanks for understanding …
If I’m reading this right, you want to use a USB harddrive?
A WD Passport – which is considered a fixed drive, not a removable drive.
In the future I could add the option to show all USB drives … if that’s what you’re looking for.
hans
THANKS
JAUMENS
Thanks Jaumens for taking the time to post a thank-you – it’s much appreciated!
hans
hi!
Im confused on why it is taking forever, actually not even starting to write a backup image. The progess bar is just started but does not move, after several minutes (more than 20…!)
I closed the program and opened it again, same thing.
I also prepared the SD card successfully but backup is not working.
Im using MACOS Sierra.
thanks
martin
Hi Martin,
there can be numerous reasons why this happens. Short version: macOS appears to not release the SD card for writing.
I have seen this happen with applications that clean Mac specific files (like .DS_Store, .VolumeIcons.icns, etc), or applications that scan disks for specific reason (ie. Anti Virus), or just macOS doing something with the disk.
This however is not happening consistently and I have yet to reproduce the problem on my Macs.
Some users reported that rebooting the Mac helps – suck a Windows solution, but it did seem to work for some.
From personal experience; when using a micro SD adapter, the Read-only switch tends to slide to read-only pretty easy by accident. But APB should catch that. (device marked as read only).
Finally, it might be an issue with your access rights – even though that happens rarely.
hans
i cant find the link to download it! where is it?
waldo
Hi Waldo,
The download link can be found in the original article, follow this link.
hans
Aloha Hans, for the waiting for recipe idle problem on Sierra? Once I plugged my micro sd card directly into the reader it wrote to the card.
I guess it didn’t like the SD card adapter even if the adapter was in write mode.
Steven Pataray
Hi Steven,
Thanks for the feedback – Glad you did get it to work though.
How did you connect the SD card adapter [that failed]? Directly to USB? Through a USB hub?
Just being curious
hans
I was connecting the adapter to a USB hub. But while testing I found it worked better without the USB hub.
Mahalo
Steven Pataray
Thanks Steve!
This is good info for other users (and myself) … thanks for letting us know!
hans
Hi Patrick,
I’ve been a very happy user of ApplePi Baker for ages and wanted to try creating an image on SSD for my Pi3 using the new USB boot feature, but the baker says no dice – my drive doesn’t show up as a destination.
Is it possible?
FWIW, Etcher doesn’t work, either.
Mike Thornbury
Hi Mike,
Apple has the tendency to change things in DiskUtil, so it would be good to know what version MacOS you’re working with.
hans
Sorry Hans – Sierra on a 2012 Mini
Mike Thornbury
Hi Mike,
sorry for the late response – ApplePi-Baker should run just fine on Sierra.
It will however not show an SSD drive, it might show it if it’s in an external enclosure.
I guess I’m a little confused now what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to make a copy of an SD card on your SSD, as an IMG file or overwriting the entire SSD drive?
p.s. Maybe not related to the issue you’re running into;
Two things you could consider trying: reboot your Mac, if that doesn’t work, try resetting the SMC (a user reported succes with that). If this still does not work, then you USB device might be
hans
Hi Hans.
The Pi 3 can boot from USB media, without an SD.
You prepare the media the same way as you would an SD.
I’m using an SSD on a USB adapter.
Mike Thornbury
My apologies, Hans… don’t know where I got Patrick from
Mike Thornbury
Hahah No worries Mike
hans
Hi Ive got the latest pi baker but cannot back up an SD card. The idle message appears and nothing happens.
Cheers
adrian
Hi Adrian,
A few things to try, even though they might sound lame;
1) reboot your Mac
2) Reset SMC of your Mac
3) Test another SD card or SD card reader.
I know this really sounds lame, but most users seem to resolve their problems in step 1 already
hans
[…] Use the Win32 Disk Imager on Windows and for Mac to write the extracted image to the SD card download ApplePi-Baker. […]
How do you download it? All the download links are dodgy Google ads for virus-ware.
Lindsay
Downloads are listed in a larger rectangular green box.
Unfortunately, Google Adsense does not offer the means to block these sketchy download ads.
The only thing I can do is block particular ad links when I see them, so feel free to post them here so I can add them to the list of blocked ads. You can also reply to this email with the link.
Additionally, you could file a complaint/feedback about these kind of advertisements. I did so a few times already (with little to no effect unfortunately).
hans
I am having a problem with loading retropie disk image onto my SD card.
I am using version 1.9.5 baker on 10.11.6 el capitan. The computer is an older 2009 macbook pro
I have tried writing via the mac slot SD card reader on a 64 gig SD card. When that didn’t work, i tried using a usb sd card reader with a different 32 gig sd card. Both are having the same problem. I formatted with SD Card Formatter application no problem, but when trying to bake the image onto the SD card, it starts saying it should take roughly 2 minutes, but when the time is up, it goes to negative seconds, and the negative timer just keeps going and going while saying “Baking IMG Recipe….”
oregonoceanhome
Hi Oregonoceanhome!
Sorry to hear you’re running into issues. First thing I’d try is v1.51 (download it from this page).
You MacOS version is somewhat dated, so that might be an issue.
The negative number indicates that the writing speed is insane slo and the calculation (seconds) is so high that it exceeds 32,768 seconds resulting the variable to go negative. Now I assume your SD card reader (internal and external) work just fine, but it can be that APB is not getting the right info back from “dd”.
Give the old version a try.
hans
Are you by any chance trying to write a zipped or gzipped image? I think I saw similar problems when it calculates the time remaining using the size of the zipped file rather than the (much larger) size of the unzipped image. The solution in my case was to just ignore the time remaining and leave it be for 30 minute or so and it eventually finished successfully.
Sean
I decided to let it just keep plugging away. I’m not sure how long it took as I did it overnight. But it did eventually work somewhere between 1 hour an 8 hours later. Appreciate the replies. Glad it got going!
oregonoceanhome
Trying to write a MinePeon disk image to an 8gb micro SD. It’s plugged into a USB adapter because my mac doesn’t have an SD port.
No SD cards show in the “Possible SD-Cards”.
OSX 10.11.5
AppiePi-Baker v1.5.1
Device Identifier: disk2
Device Node: /dev/disk2
Whole: Yes
Part of Whole: disk2
Device / Media Name: Multi-Card
Volume Name: Not applicable (no file system)
Mounted: Not applicable (no file system)
File System: None
Content (IOContent): GUID_partition_scheme
OS Can Be Installed: No
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: USB
SMART Status: Not Supported
Total Size: 7.9 GB (7948206080 Bytes) (exactly 15523840 512-Byte-Units)
Volume Free Space: Not applicable (no file system)
Device Block Size: 512 Bytes
Read-Only Media: No
Read-Only Volume: Not applicable (no file system)
Device Location: External
Removable Media: Yes
Media Removal: Software-Activated
Virtual: No
OS 9 Drivers: No
Low Level Format: Not supported
Kevin
Thanks Kevin for the great info!
I’ll dig into the code and see what it would skip this disk. I’ve seen SD cards being reported as not removable, but that’s not the case here.
hans
Looking through my code, I would not know why it’s skipping this one.
I’ll need some more time to test this …
hans
Sounds great thanks for looking into this for me!
Kevin
THANKS
Psiphon Handler
Thanks Psiphon for taking the time to post a Thank You
hans
Hans,
New problem trying to write raspian stretch lite to a 16GB uSD Card. Last little bit, shows 1 or 2 seconds left APB seems to hang
Workin on latest version of High Sierra
regards,
Barry
Hi Barry,
if it “hangs” in the first few seconds, then I suspect that APB is unable to unmount the SD card. I’m planning on making a new version of APB that verifies this in a more reliable way since occasionally this seems to happen.
One thing I noticed is that some applications “lock” a volume (SD card) and prevent timely unmount.
For example I’m using 2 tools from Paragon to read/write NTFS and Ext file systems. Even Apple’s Disk Utility seems to have issues un-mounting volumes when I try to repartition or format SD cards, because of these applications.
Other applications like Anti Virus or tools that keep non-Mac volumes “clean” (ie. removing those special Apple files) seem to occasionally “lock” a volume.
In all these cases you can try to temporary disable these utilities – in the hope that un-mounting works quicker.
hans
Hans,
I suspect that it might be related the the incomplete write problem. I also just tried to create a version of Jessie From 05 July 2017 full version (Stretch was giving me too many problems bringing up a LAMP Server) and it wont boot because the uSD card is corrupted. Same version of Jessie, in the lite version creates without flaws. However the latest stretch lite version seems to exhibit the hand problem mentioned slightly over half the time. I think it may have something to do with writing the last buffers out to the end of the disk and may be dependent on something like total file sector count, file size, or something like that. Used “etcher” (I do not like their interface at all –yours is SO much better) and no problems were encountered. Back in the day we used to have to kick Unix and Debian with a reboot or shutdown sequence on the CLI to ensure the final buffers write out to the disk (i.e. sync; sync; sync; reboot).
Also on the new version please implement a check box to create the file “ssh” on the /boot partition to get around raspian’s paranoia for those of us who regularly create headless versions to enable ssh on a newly created version.
Thanks again for all you do….
Barry
Small correction here the forth sentence reads “… seems to exhibit the hand problem mentioned ….”
should be “… seems to exhibit the hang problem mentioned ….”
barry
Hi Barry,
apologies for the late response …
Just out of curiosity – is your IMG file compressed (ZIP or something like that)?
I recently added a sync at the end of the “dd” task, so in case you have downloaded your version of APB a while ago, please make sure to download it again and give it a try.
I’d be happy if I can resolve this issue.
hans
Sorry for the late reply. I never use the APB feature for writing compressed files. I use the standard MacOS decompress feature and keep the files in decompressed format. With a 2TB USB backup, of older versions of Raspian (I go back to Wheezy) who cares how many 2 or 4 GB files there are I only keep the latest release of full and Lite on my laptop so not too much space required I do think the hang problem may also be related to the corrupted problem, and both deal with writing the final sectors out. May be because you cross a boundary or not a full block write (i.e. writing a 2048 byte block in a 4096 byte sector without padding the entire last block out with sync’s or nulls — something weird like that.
barry
Thanks Barry!
I’ll tak a look this week and see what I can find concerning “the last block” … I thought I had added the sync option to “dd”, just to make sure I’ll verify.
hans
I’m using Mac High Sierra. Tried two card today, after it appeared the process was done, the timer started going negative, process did not end.
Cards were 32GB
I have used previous versions and it worked great.
Ralph
Hi Ralph,
A user reported that this issue may be ZIP related.
Extract the IMG file from the ZIP file and try again.
Negative numbers may be caused by strange returns of the ZIP application when it comes to speed – which makes ETA prediction unreliable.
hans
Hey Hans!
I just wanted to let you know that I was having that same issue on High Sierra and extracting the image made it work. So… thanks for the tip! And, of course, thanks for making this thing for us to use. :-)
-Josh
Joshua
Hi Joshua!
Thanks for letting us know how you fixed it.
And many thanks of course to you for taking the time to take a “thank you” note.
hans
Hiya,
It is taking a pretty crazy long time to put the image on my SD card.. I’m not sure if I am doing something wrong? (Currently it is at – 2400 seconds and counting.
Thanks!
Tyler
Hi tyler,
I’m sorry to hear you’re running into this issue. Most likely, you’re using a compressed IMG file (is. zip, 7z, etc).
Decompress the file and try the straight IMG file and see if that resolves the issue.
hans
Heya,
any chance to get this App updated to work with future macOS versions? I just got the note that this App is not optimized for High Sierra. Probably as it is a 32bit App.
Using 1.9.4
Thank you :)
smoochy
Hi Smoochy,
yes there will be a 64 bit version in the future – I’m already working on a more advanced ApplePi-Baker
32 bit applications will still be supported for quite a while, so no worries.
hans
This is awesome. I’ve come to really like this app. It is simple, it works, and I can create and backup cards with minimal effort! I wanted to you know that your effort is very much appreciated.
Sandmen
Thanks Sandmen!
Great to see positive feedback – it is very much appreciated!
Since you’re posting this for the old version of APB; give version 2 a try, you may like that as well.
hans
Hi,
have been using the Apple Pi Baker for nearly three years now, and very satisfied too. I wanted to remind you that it should be made a 64Bit application pretty soon, or it wont work on the next major macOS release.
Keep up the good work!
Oliver Holmes
Hi Oliver,
With recent changes (private/work/Apple), I’m under a little time pressure to get everything done – while having to deal with moving, finding a new job, etc. But … I will get a 64 bit signed version out before it is too late. As per Apple’s own statement, this may not be an issue in this year. Apple doesn’t even have it’s own ducks in a row for doing a full 64 bit transition, they announced that they do not even have a date for their own applications, amd they have announced that 32 bit will remain supported for now.
hans
HI Hans,
my Scared is full, I need a bigger one. So I made a backup of my old card and restored it to the new one (double size). Apple Pi did everything and it’s working perfectly but it only has the size of the old one.
How do I get the lost space back?
Dominik
Dominik
Hi Dominik,
you will have to resize the partition on the Raspberry Pi.
A good starting point is: RPi Resize Flash Partitions
Of course this all depends on what IMG you have installed, some images do and others do not allow an easy way to expand the partition.
If using the official Raspian images released by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, you can use the raspi-config utility to resize the main partition to fill the SD card.
More advanced methods, and the use of PartEd, can be found in that article as well.
Feel free to post how you did it in the end, since others may benefit from this as well.
hans
Season’s Greetings, everybody! I have Apple Pi Baker 1.9.5 and call me McDonald’s because “I’m Lovin’ It!!” However, I did get a one-time message box stating that the app is not optimized for the current OS and to contact the manufacturer. Well, not being a physical harm kinda guy, I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to reach out to you (I know you can’t see it, but just imagine REALLY hard-like my little stretching arms trying to make it ALL that distance to you) and let you know.
Cheers and a Happy, Most Prosperous New Years’!!
William
William
Season greetings to you William!
I’m working on a new version of APB. For now you do no need to worry about this message, since even Apple hasn’t fully moved to 64 bit themselves.
Having said that, I do want the next version of APB to be 64 bit and signed.
Thanks for the long reach hahah
May 2019 be a great year for you and your family as well!
hans
I’m having an issue restoring a compressed backup. I made a compressed ZIP of an SD card, but when I try to restore it back to the SD, my Mac says the card is unreadable and needs to be initialized. Subsequently the Pi will not boot from it.
Cody
Hi Cody,
sorry to hear you’re running into an issue.
One thing you could try, is decompressing the zip file first and then have ApplePi-Baker write the uncompressed IMG file.
In the past, on rare occasion, a few users have reported issues with compressed files.
Please let me know if that did or did not help restore the backup.
hans
I tried extracting the zip, but all I get is a completely blank file (no name or file extension) that is the size of my original SD card.
Cody
That sounds correct, and caused due to a limitation in the command-line tools to compress a zip.
You can safely rename that file to something like “backup.img”.
hans
Worked perfectly… thank you!
Cody
Awesome! Nothing worse than losing a backup, right?
I’m glad it worked. I hope to release a new version of ApplePi-Baker in the next weeks – I hope I find a fix for the ZIP issue some users (like yourself) encounter.
hans
I too had the problem of restoring .zip files (High Sierra). Extracting/Renaming and then restoring the .img worked.
Looking forward to the next version that fixes this.
Some additional info for debugging/testing
– At the end of the restore of the .zip, the ETA went into very high negative estimates, like -600 seconds
– After the restore, looking at it in Disk Utility showed two very small partitions. I forget the exact numbers but the boot partition registered about 87MB.
I’m happily donate (again) when the fix is released!
Steven
Hi Steven,
I have the beta for ApplePi-Baker available if you’d be interested in testing.
For now I have a closed beta testing, but so far things are going very well.
Shoot me an email at webmaster at tweaking4all dot com and I’ll send you the download link.
The issues you mentioned should, due to the completely different way of reading/writing disks and archives, no longer be relevant.
hans
Open invite to test 2.1.0 beta (download here).
Version 2.1.0 comes with some major changes;
– significant speed impact (while testing, backup almost 3 times as fast as before),
– optimized backup (parts of the disk that are not partitioned will be skipped),
– option the shrink or expand Linux partitions on your Mac.
Since I have a limited number of Macs to test with, I’d love to hear feedback from other Mac users.
hans
Hi
I’m currently running macOS High Sierra version 10.13.6 and downloaded the latest version of ApplePi- Baker V1.9.9. I’m having the issue with restoring SD it gets stuck on “waiting for the Recipe (idle)”. Is this the best version to run for my OS, if not what is? I had a hard time finding the direct downland link to v1.9.4. I am new to all of this and trying to figure it out as I go.
Thanks in advanced,
Jerry
bee2
Hi Jerry,
Sorry to hear you’re running into issue. Unfortunately, testing under 10.13.x is a little tricky for me.
ApplePi-Baker v2.x did run OK in a Virtual Machine running 10.13.6 , but I was not able to test it with USB sticks or SD cards (the Virtual Machine didn’t want to “connect” to those devices).
Since there is no longer any development for v1.9.9, you have basically 2 options:
– Since you are still able to run 32 bit apps, since you’re running 10.13.6, you could try v1.9.5 (download here)
– or you could give ApplePi-Baker 2.x a try (download here)
Hans