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BUG: Synology Drive Compatibility Issue

Feature Request

Issue: Substage returns "No such file or directory" errors when attempting to process files located in Synology Drive folders, despite having full disk access permissions.

Environment:

  • macOS (on MacBook Pro/Mac Studio)

  • Synology Drive client with local sync

  • Files located at: /Users/richardjacobs/SynologyDrive

Behavior:

  • Substage works perfectly with regular files on the local filesystem

  • When attempting to process files in Synology Drive folders, receives path resolution errors

  • Giving Substage full disk access does not resolve the issue

  • Pausing Synology Drive sync does not fix the problem

Technical Context: Synology Drive appears to implement a virtual filesystem layer with extended attributes (@) on directories and files. This likely causes path resolution issues when Substage attempts to access these files directly.

Possible Root Causes:

  1. Synology Drive's custom filesystem implementation uses redirection or virtualization that Substage's file access methods can't resolve

  2. Extended attributes on Synology Drive files interfere with Substage's path resolution

  3. Substage might be accessing files in a way that bypasses macOS's translation layer for these special directories

Request: Please consider adding support for properly resolving paths within Synology Drive's filesystem implementation. Many users rely on both Synology for storage and tools like Substage for productivity.

Thank you for your excellent app otherwise!

Posted by ExtremeOccident ·
4 comments

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Comments4

  • joethephish

    Team•

    Apr 14, 2025

    Update: since the move to using FILE_NAME etc variables, Substage is now working for files, but still isn’t working for folders

  • joethephish

    Team•

    Mar 24, 2025

    oh actually, another question, what happens when you type pwd in Substage in that folder?

  • joethephish

    Team•

    Mar 24, 2025

    Thanks for the nice clearly written bug report! I’m afraid I’m not much of an expert when it comes to file systems, and I don’t have a Synology!

    In terms of what Substage does internally, it just creates a process with the current directory as reported by Finder (via AppleScript), and then runs the generated command with bash.

    I could try resolving symlinks before setting the current directory I guess?? Though I’m not sure whether that has anything to do with it.

    In the Terminal, if you cd to /Users/richardjacobs/SynologyDrive and then run the pwd command, does it resolve to something different? Presumably if you paste a command generated from Substage into the Terminal it works okay there?

    • ExtremeOccident

      •

      Mar 25, 2025

      Hi there,

      Thanks for the quick response! I've run all the tests you suggested:

      1. When running cd /Users/richardjacobs/SynologyDrive && pwd in Terminal, it shows the normal path: /Users/richardjacobs/SynologyDrive

      2. Basic file operations (create, list, rename) in Terminal all work perfectly fine with Synology Drive files:

        cd "/Users/richardjacobs/SynologyDrive/Claude's Corner" touch test_file.txt mv test_file.txt renamed_test_file.txt

        All of these commands execute without errors.

      3. When I run pwd in Substage while in a Synology Drive folder, it correctly shows the current directory without any errors.

      So Substage sees the correct path but still can't work with the files, which is puzzling. The issue must be happening during the actual file operations rather than when determining the location.

      Your idea about resolving symlinks before setting the current directory still seems promising. Since Substage gets the correct path but fails when trying to use it, something is happening between the path recognition and the actual file operations.

      The Synology folders do show extended attributes (the @ symbol appears when running ls -la on them), which might be related to the problem.

      Thanks for your help with this!