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-   -   Message "The variable previous settings is not defined" - please explain (https://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1646)

mypointofview 09-24-2006 05:17 PM

Message "The variable previous settings is not defined" - please explain
 
I have set up Cocktail (all possible cleaning actions - am I doing "overkill"?) to run (every day at around midnight) 1.5 hours before SuperDuper starts (once a week and smart updating about 150 GB). Usually Cocktail is finished when SD starts.

This morning I wake up my Mac and see Cocktail still doing its work - apparently being stuck - progress bar still running (I forgot which process).

The SuperDuper window was up too and was stuck with the first command "preparing the drive". Also a warning message (with an AppleScript icon) was on my desktop saying "The variable previous settings is not defined" with the header "Copy Job" in the title bar. I clicked OK (or whatever the default button on that window was) but the warning window did not go away.

So I quit Cocktail (I had to use ActivityMonitor, the Macintosh built-in utility - for those who might not know) -- then I waited a bit hoping that SuperDuper would continue its work.

I waited 5 minutes and since nothing advanced with the first step in SuperDuper's work (which usually just takes 2 seconds!!!) -- I tried to quit SuperDuper. This is where the warning came up, like "... would leave your computer in an unknown state..." which made me scared, so I cancelled that window. I waited another 5 minutes and since nothing advanced I went ahead and said OK to that warning, accepting that my Mac is now in an "unknown state" (?!).

I tried to reboot my Mac (which got stuck in the restart procedure but maybe out of other reasons?) so I force restarted.

I thought of running DiskWarrior and TechTool from another partition before doing anything else, but since I had to do some work I didn't (yet). So now I run SuperDuper again -- and it worked.

Basically there's no practical problem since all works, but I'm really curious what happened. It would probably be useful to change Cocktail to running AFTER SuperDuper -- but the time that SD takes is even more unpredictable.

My questions are:

1. What's this with that "unknow state" -- is it something to be really, really worried about?

2. What about that warning which I couldn't click away which said "The variable previous settings is not defined"?

Thanks,


Martin

dnanian 09-25-2006 08:35 AM

OK. It certainly sounds like your system went south while Cocktail was doing its things. When we tried to run, it failed (likely for the same reason Cocktail was failing).

The "Unknown State" warning is phrased too severely -- it basically means your backup is not complete and (if you're using images) the image is still mounted. Nothing to be concerned about.

The unclickable window was due to the scheduling driver failing, again, due to whatever happened to your system.

Once you restarted, you likely cleared up whatever was wrong with the system, and you're now OK.

Hope that helps.


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