tredje design - TrashLater FAQ

TrashLater FAQ

Frequently asked questions.

1 General Questions
   1.1 My browser does not display your web pages.

2 Using TrashLater
   2.1 No folders are checked
   2.2 I receive email messages from the "Cron Daemon"
   2.3 Error email messages from the "Cron Daemon"
   2.4 How do I edit TrashLater's cron table?
   2.5 The "Show Progress Window" button does not work

3 Licensing
   3.1 Which license do I have/need?

4 Contacting tredje design
   4.1 How can I become a beta tester?
   4.2 When will TrashLater become available in my language?
   4.3 I think I found a bug. What should I do?
   4.4 My question is still unanswered. What can I do now?

No folders are checked while the TrashLater application is up and running. Secondly, the "Enabled" check-box at the bottom of the window must be checked. Now, once you quit TrashLater, it will schedule its client application (TrashLater Client) to be launched at regular intervals.

In cases where the scheduling goes wrong, please check the following points to locate the problem (for version 4.2 or later):

If you enabled the creation of a log file, check whether any messages have been written to that file.
Check that there exists a scheduling PLIST file for "launchd" at this location:
```
/Library/LaunchDaemons/se.tredje.trashnow.plist
```
Check that "launchd" has accepted the file by typing in the Terminal:
```
launchctl list | grep tredje
```
The expected result is:
```
-      0      se.tredje.trashnow
```
Check the systems log for messages; open the Console application and search for "Trash" or "tredje".
Check that the name and path to TrashNow in the PLIST file is correct, i.e. in the Terminal run:
```
grep Trash /Library/LaunchDaemons/se.tredje.trashnow.plist
```
The expected result is:
```
/Applications/Utilities/TrashLater.app/Contents/Resources/TrashNow
```
(enclosed in an XML string).

Verify that the client application exists at that location:

ls -l /Applications/Utilities/TrashLater.app/Contents/Resources/TrashNow

Try running the client application from the Terminal and take note of any messages that may pop up:
```
/Applications/Utilities/TrashLater.app/Contents/Resources/TrashNow
```
Finally, are there any crash report files related to TrashLater or TrashNow in any of these folders:
```
/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/
~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/
```

2.2 I receive email messages from the "Cron Daemon"

The email contains just one line:

INIT_Processeses(), could not establish the default connection to the WindowServer.

This message may be generated by versions prior to version 4.2 of TrashLater. It is generated when the "cron" scheduling mechanism was asked to open a application for you at a time when you were not logged in (maybe someone else was?).

The bottom line is, the window-based TrashLater Client can only be started when you are logged in. This is true even if it does not attempt to open a window. There is also a background-only version of the client that does not suffer from this limitation, but prior to version 4.2, this one is not enabled for unregistered users.

To deal with this situation, you have a three alternatives:

Ignore the emails (and create a rule to automatically delete the messages), but remember that no checking will be done while you are logged out.
NB. Since Mac OS 10.3 (Jaguar) you can stay logged in when fast user switching is enabled.
Users of Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), or 10.6 (Snow Leopard) can upgrade to version 4.2 of TrashLater.
As a licensed user of a version prior 4.2, you can turn off the option to "show a progress" window and a background-only client will be used instead - whether you are logged in or not.
NB. For unregistered users, this option works differently: the window-based client is still used; it simply hides its progress window. Therefore, it still only works when you are logged in, sorry.

N.B. Beginning with version 4.0 of TrashLater. The window-based client will only be launched when the user is logged in.

2.3 Error email messages from the "Cron Daemon"

The email contains lines like:

2007-10-08 23:43:10.241 TrashLater[19399] Unable to (re)move 'NeoOffice.app'.

Messages like this will be generated in version 4.1 of TrashLater. What happened here is that an item could not be modified, usually due to insufficient access rights. A typical example is an item that is owned by the admin user. If that were the case, then you can fix it in the Finder:

locate the item in the Finder;
select it and open its Get Info window;
expand the "Ownership & Permissions" section; it may read: You can "Read only";
expand the "Details" and change the "Owner" to your account; you may need to unlock it first (click the lock and authenticate yourself as the admin user);
if required, change the "Access" to "Read & Write"; you should now see: You can "Read & Write".
close the Get Info window.

A the time when the error occurred, TrashLater re-set timer for this item as if it were a new item.

Brave users may also use the Terminal application for this (replace "admin" by whatever your admin user and is called):

su - admin
cd /to/where/the/item/is
sudo chmod -R a+rw item_name

Beginning with version 4.2, no more email messages will be generated. Instead, similarly phrased error message will be written to the log file.

2.4 How do I edit TrashLater's cron table?

This question only applies to versions prior to 4.2 where "cron" is used as a scheduling daemon (4.2 or later uses "launchd").

Every user on your computer can do the following: open the Terminal application and type:

crontab -l

This will produce something like this (the path shown here is incomplete):

## Attention! The following line is automatically updated by TrashLater:
9 * * * *       /Applications/Utilities/TrashLater.app

You can edit this crontab entry directly in the Terminal. You could use "crontab -r" to delete it, or "crontab -e" to edit it in a UNIX editor such as "vi". For more information, view the manual page; in the Terminal, type:

man crontab

2.5 The "Show Progress Window" button does not work

This question only applies to versions prior to 4.2. Beginning with 4.2, there are no more progress windows.

Common symptoms for this disease are:

The "Pause on Errors" button does not become active (clickable) or inactive as the "Show Progress Window" is selected or deselected.
The window-less background client is not used, i.e. you see the name "TrashLater Client" in the Terminal window as you type "crontab -l".

As a workaround, you can type this command in the Terminal application:

        defaults write se.tredje.trashlater ShowProgress 0

where "0" means off, i.e. dot not show the progress window, or you could use "1" to turn it on.

Furthermore, registered users should then launch and quit TrashLater to allow it to update the cron table (crontab). Otherwise the window-less background client is not used. When ShowProgress was set to 0, the name "TrashLater Client" should no longer be listed by "crontab -l" in the Terminal application.

3 Licensing

3.1 Which license do I have/need?

There are two types of license codes:

TrashLater Version 2.2 or later: The code is a 35-character-long string (incl. dashes), beginning with "TRASHBB". This is the code that you would enter in the main window of the TrashLater application. It is valid for all current versions of TrashLater, except for the special server-mode that was introduced in version 4.2.
TrashLater Server Version 4.2: The code is a 32-character-long string (incl. dashes), beginning with "TRASHDA". This is the code that you would place in the configuration file for TrashLater Server: /etc/trashnow.plist under the key SerialNumber. It is primarily intended for the server mode, but it does also unlock the regular TrashLater application (4.2 or later).

If you purchased a regular TrashLater license prior to March 2011, then you can contact us to request a 50%-off upgrade cupon for a TrashLater Server license.

Remember that no license is needed during your 30-day evaluation period.

Which version of TrashLater are you using?
Which Mac OS X version do you use?
If it crashed, when did it happen? (Please include the file ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/TrashLater.crash.log).

4.4 My question is still unanswered. What can I do now?

Why don't you post your question on this contact form?

Table of Contents