Music file corruption without a change in checksum

[goldsdad]

Ok, this is going to sound weird. Today, I had a older folder off by about 2,000 bytes in the saved version on my Seagate Silm Mac backup drive. So I opened both folders (Mac Mini and Seagate backup) and compared each individual music file and album cover file and each matched exactly so I went back to the folder level and now they matched. Somehow just opening up the files gave the Seagate the same bytes as the Mac Mini. I swear I didn’t save anything, I just looked. Could it be the first time the Seagate folder gave the total bytes it didn’t include any hidden files and the second time it gave the total bytes it added the hidden files into the calculations?

 

Not weird at all. Just looking in the folder with Finder can cause the creation or change of a .DS_Store file in the folder. Your two folders will have become the same size because each folder now contains a .DS_Store file of the same size. I don't think anything is wrong with your hard drives, and, as I and others tried to tell you earlier, .DS_Store file changes are very likely to be the explanation for your mysterious losses of bytes.

[Audio_ELF]

Not weird at all. Just looking in the folder with Finder can cause the creation or change of a .DS_Store file in the folder. Your two folders will have become the same size because each folder now contains a .DS_Store file of the same size. I don't think anything is wrong with your hard drives, and, as I and others tried to tell you earlier, .DS_Store file changes are very likely to be the explanation for your mysterious losses of bytes.

Completely agree.

 

As you use Finder and view the files, thumbnails will be created as hidden files/resource forks.

[Teresa]

Thanks Goldsdad and Eloise!

 

That is a relief! In the future when my folders don't match, I'll just open them up instead of re-saving them.

[Audio_ELF]

Teresa ... something like https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/compare-folders/id816042486?mt=12 should be able to quickly check for corruption especially if you use the "Compare files using checksum" function.