After years of relying on Chronosync to handle backups - even though it wasn't perfect, version 4 has thrown everything out of whack. The program "sets up" to upgrade v 3 files and then countermand settings that were exactly the way I wanted them in version 3 - I've ended up with my desktop and my laptop having dozens of files and folders which can't be opened without running them through BatchMod to repair permission errors.

Unlike other users, I have had very responsive results when contacting Chronosync - but the answers have made the use of the program even more of a challenge. According to them (if I understood and am quoting them correctly), the problems lie in a change in the way Apple's Mac OS X 10.5.6 handles user permissions.

I was told that I shouldn't use "Target Drive" mode any longer, but should connect the two machines via Ethernet. Even with Gigabit Ethernet, I sat there watching the 'spinnning beach ball' as Chronosync tried to make sense of ONE 16MB file (albeit an Address Book archive that is made up gazillions of little metatext files) - and finally gave up. The results of dealing with trying to sync Mac Mail (my Mail folder is 1.6 Gigabytes) was almost funny, if you don't count the fact that I waited so long I was late for dinner one time too many and my girlfriend is moving out now. Sync my entire Home folder this way? My cats may leave!

I back-graded to version 3 and that seemed to work okay, but the program altered the permissions settings by copying some (not all) files and folders - a folder with 2,200 music files that was sync'd perfectly in version 3, all of a sudden Chronosync 4 wants to overwrite my entire iTunes music folder - because of one difference in the permissions settings.

The tooltips - not unlike many tooltips in the Mac world - are laughable. If you hove over a checkbox, the tooltip repeats the name of the checkbox, but in a sentence: Example "Preserve access control lists" is explained by saying "Preserves access control lists on filesystems that support them." Well, thank god for the explanation - that's certainly a huge help.

At this point, I regrettably am ready to abandon Chronosync entirely - and try some other stuff (Backup? Retrospect? Carbon Copy Cloner? Synchronize+?). I really can't take any more of mucking around with this stuff - it's the EXACT OPPOSITE of getting actual work done on the Mac.