Troubleshooting

MacOS Finder errors

Some file operations can fail when browsing your files through the macOS Finder. This is due to some macOS system updates that may break compatibility with the filesystem driver used by Parsec.

Make sure your version of macFUSE is up to date, either by checking in System Settings > macFUSE, or through the macFUSE website. After update, you will need to allow the use of macFUSE in System Settings > Privacy and Security and reboot your Mac.

If the issues persist on the latest version, you can still perform file operations directly in Parsec until the issue is fixed.

The Parsec interface (GUI) allows you to:

  • copy and move files within the same workspace

  • delete and rename files from your workspace

  • import files into your workspace either:

    • by drag & drop from the Finder into a directory in Parsec

    • by using the Import button

Microsoft Excel/Word or similar software says the file name is too long

This error is due to Microsoft’s Maximum File Path Limitation.

When you save or open a file, its path (including the file name) cannot exceeds 260 characters. This limitation includes 3 characters for the drive (i.e. D:), the characters in folder names, the backslash character between folders, and the characters in the file name.

So the only solution is to rename the file or the folders containing it in order to have shorter path.

Microsoft’s article also mentions a more cumbersome approach by modifying a registry entry. This might work, but it has not been tested in Parsec.

Copying files from Parsec V2 takes a long time

When copying files from a mounted workspace in Parsec V2 the operation may take some time and the files may not be accessible to open them. After some time, files are copied and can be open normally.

This is most likely due to data is not being present locally in cache. Reading data when is not in cache is much slower than reading data from from a regular on-disk filesystem and performance is heavily dependent on your internet connection speed.

Moreover, while the file is under copy, its displayed size only grows when a flush operation occurs. Flush are not explicitly issued by Parsec V2 and happen automatically when data written since previous flush is bigger than the blocksize of the file (i.e. 512KB).

So this explain why the file can appear with a size of 0 for some time: data is being downloaded into cache and then copied via occasional flush operations.

You could try enabling the off-line mode on Parsec V2 workspaces before copying large amount of files. In any case, you will need to wait for the copy to be fully finished to be able to open files.