WebDAV and Macs

#1

Hi all,

I’ve had some odd behavior with Dreamhost WebDAV on my Mac, and it’s a bit over my head. Here’s what I’m seeing:

In the Finder, I can freely copy files to and from my WebDAV volume without any problems. I can even open files directly from the WebDAV volume into their respective applications. But whenever any of the Mac apps try to write to the Volume, everything goes higgledy-piggledy. Some examples:

  1. a. Open a .tiff file off the WebDAV in Photoshop
    b. Try to save that file back onto the WebDAV
    c. See Photoshop stop responding and throw the beach ball.

  2. a. Create a Disk Image file on the WebDAV volume
    b. Try to mount it…it mounts about half the time.
    c. Try to write to it, and bad bad stuff happens…Finder freezes, disk image is corrupted.

Wish I had more examples, but I’m hoping there’s a setting I can tweak that will make the WebDAV volume get along better with the file system. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
-Chris

#2

What kind of connection are you on? Chances are your upload speed is no where near what your download speed is, so when you try to save (upload) or mount (bi-directional), you are maxing out your bandwidth upstream and finder/application has to wait for the data to be sent up to the DH server.

I see this all the time on my home connection - cheap DSL @ 768kbit down, 128kbit up - anything that requires upload (saving…) causes a lag in finder/application and I stare at the beach ball… on my faster connection at my old house, 15mbit down, 2mbit up (yes, mbit), there was little to no delay unless the file was VERY large (as in more than 10MB).

So, to answer your question, there is probably nothing “wrong” per se, what you are waiting on is your upstream bandwidth to send all the data back to the DH server.

#3

Good thought…I wish that were the case, but the problem also shows up when I hit the server from work (which has a fat upstream pipe). Interestingly, my .mac iDisk works fine (from both home and work)…its speed varies with bandwidth, of course, but it doesn’t crash or eat files. Theoretically, this is WebDAV too, but perhaps with some special magic…

#4

there is some special apple mojo when it comes to iDisk, I read a great article about it a while back but I don’t know where it is now… I can’t think of anything else off the top of my head, currently, my WebDAV mount works OK at home (again, really crappy DSL) and works great from faster connections (especially the 2mbit up connection). I am not sure what server you are on, that may have something to do with it.

#5

Hello pixelknave,

Sorry I don’t have a solution for the problems you’re seeing. I’m just chiming in to let you know that I too have seen similar problems with Mac OS X connections to DH WebDAV. Usually when working with large file sizes(>5 M). Working with files directly from a share just hasn’t been stable.

I’m running OS X v10.4.8. I’ve read about(a la web search) different problems with OS X and WebDAV shares but I haven’t come across a fix for my experiences. SO, I’ve migrated to SSHFS. It’s probably too early to tell and I don’t want to sell you a magic elixir but so far SSHFS seems more stable(with large filesizes) and faster.

Hey, if you arrive at a solution for your WebDAV problems, please do share it with the board. Good luck.

–
jt