[Andrew Clark]

[Jeff Feaz] “Maybe the build of the plugin you downloaded was compiled by someone at the vendor who had their system set to Spanish localization.

My system is set to Spanish, and I have to use a third-party app to open certain applications in English so my collaborators don’t end up with Spanish-named exports, or for example, e-mail replies with quotation headers in Spanish.”

Hi Jeff –

Haven’t loaded any “plugins”.

It’s no big deal and not effecting my computer … so far. Just curious about it.

Though it is amusing to see those folders.

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[Andrew Clark]

[John Rofrano] “What exactly isn’t working? I’m not running Mojave but I do use symbolics links to move my Garage Band instruments off of my boot SSD. You should have done something similar to this (assuming your external drive is labeled “MyDrive”)

cp -R “/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Instrument Library” “/Volumes/MyDrive/Instrument Library”

rm -fr “/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Instrument Library”

ln -s “/Volumes/MyDrive/Instrument Library” “/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Instrument Library”

The first line copies the contents of source to the target folder. The second line deletes the source folder (this is what frees up the space) and the last line creates the symbolic link from the new folder to the original folder so that it looks like it’s still in the same place. You will probably be prompted for your password to be able to delete from and create a link to the /Library folder. That should do it.”

** Hi John and thank you for your reply.

Here’s what I did:

I created the Symlink for …

/Library/Audio/Apple\ Loops/Apple/Final\ Cut\ Pro\ Sound\ Effects

The Symlink is created but, for some reason, Software Update thinks that the folder is not there and sends me an update for the contents in the folder that I moved and created a Symlink for. But when I launched FCPX, all the content shows up and operates fine … just as before I did this Symlink-ing.

The new location is on an external SSD, formatted as APFS, connected via USB3.0.

So I decided to try it again. I deleted the Symlink (via Finder), moved the original folder back to its original location, emptied the trash and restarted the computer.

For the second go round, I used an app called SymbolicLinker. It (seemingly) did everything just fine. But again, Software Update did not recognize this.

Both ways worked as they should but … the result of Software Update not recognizing this along with launching FCPX and all the content is showing up and working just as nothing changed … is most baffling.

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[Andrew Clark]

Quick question – which instance of the folder are you symlinking… the one in the application bundle, or the one at /Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Final Cut Pro SFX?

** The one you listed … not the App Bundle (show package contents routine).

Though perusing in the App Bundle, there is a folder “PETemplates” (it is a “.localized” folder) that has 1.24GB of content that I would like to Symlink as well.

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[Andrew Clark]

[Joe Marler] “I don’t think you should have FCPX system files, FCPX media files or macOS system files on an external exFAT drive. You created a symlink which redirects something in /Library to an external exFAT drive. That might be the problem. In theory the symlink just resolves to a volume+path reference, but we don’t know what kind of filesystem calls Software Update is making on the source file (what the symlink resolves to). You can be fairly certain they didn’t thoroughly test filesystem operations in /Library on an exFAT volume, since that was intended to only exist on an APFS or HFS+ system volume.

If you back up, format the external SSD as APFS or HFS+, then restore your data to it, that might work better.”

** OK, well I tried that. Formatted another external SSD to APFS, connected via the USB 3.0 port, created a Symlink for the “Final Cut Pro Sound Effects” folder … but Software Update still did not like it. Though I opened up FCPX and all the SFX were there and operational. Strange. And it’s not even a “.localized” type of folder either.

I beginning to think this a Mojave limitation?!

I created the Symlink twice. Once via Terminal and the second time with the SymbolicLinker app. Both with the same result.

Oh well, it’s not a life stopper by any means … just bewildering.

Appreciate you chiming in with your suggestions Joe.

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[Andrew Clark]

[Doug Metz] “I see those as well, no issues. Appears to be normal.

What are you doing in the bowels of the .app bundle anyway?
On second thought, never mind. I don’t need to know. ;^)”

** Haaa!!! Actually I was trying to see all the Content Folders that I might be able to create a Symbolic Link to/for. Reason being, to get back more of my SSD storage space. But it seems, upon more Googling and testing it myself, that there might be an issue in doing so with the APFS format and/or Mojave and/or something I did wrong.

Quite interesting though … and a bit bewildering too!!!

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[Andrew Clark]

Hi Joe. Thanks for your insight on this; much appreciate it!!!

[Joe Marler] “(1) While most file operations work identically against a symlink vs the linked source file/folder, not all do. E.g, if you delete a symlink it only deletes the link not the linked source file/folder. Maybe Software Update is trying to delete that before updating, or use some odd combination of relative and absolute paths which the symlink trips up. “

** I did delete the Symlink Folder. Emptied the Trash. Restarted. Ran Software Update and it stated my system was up to date.

[Joe Marler] “(2) Since the above folder is a system item, they might be doing some attribute check. E.g, the Cocoa file manager framework has a method attributesOfItem(atPath:) which will return different values if executed against a symlink vs the source folder. To make that work against a symlink they’d have to add additional code, which was probably not envisioned. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/filemanager/1410452-at...”

** Whoa. OK, this is going a wee bit farther than I want to go … but thanks for that most informative link. Basically, all I wanted to do was to save space on my System (C:) Drive by offloading FCPX’s Content, Templates, Audio, etc… but it seems more of a hassle than convenience to do this so that Software Update is happy.

I’ve seen YouTube videos of people doing this (Symlinking) for their Logic Pro X audio loops/content folders and they stated it worked for them.

But like I stated, it does work for me … just that Software Update doesn’t recognize it (the Symlink).

[Joe Marler] “This is likely due to HFS+ file compression. I think starting with Snow Leopard that certain system files are automatically compressed to save space. This is transparent and invisible to normal Finder and terminal operations. However compression can cause top-line vs “general info” returned by Get Info to differ. E.g, if I do Get Info on /Library/Developer, that returns 958.5 MB vs 366.7 MB on disk.”

** So the OS compresses files that are on an external drive too? I am running the latest Mojave OS 10.14.3 and it uses the new APFS format. Maybe the OS along with APFS cannot communicate well an external drive that is in the exFAT format?!

Here’s my setup:
Macbook Pro 15″ Retina (2015)
macOS X Mojave 10.14.3
FCPX 10.4.5
C: SSD 512GB (APFS format)
D: SSD 2TB (exFAT format)

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