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Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

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Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... unless you are writing a half-gig every hour, why would that be remotely expected?

I would think that it's touching a bunch of log files slightly or something…

My guess so far is something like Firefox's history database.

Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How up-to-date is this? I was able to join a zoom videoconference yesterday evening from the web browser. And while on the topic of the web client, it turned out to be a very disappointing experience. There was no way to set focus on a given attendee; I wanted to view the host's video feed but the website kept switching feeds, seemingly haphazardly, to different attendees.

This is just today. https://github.com/arkadiyt/zoom-redirector/issues/7

My guess is that people stop using their native clients due to the security problems and now their webrtc servers are beyond capacity.

Could it be that they are limited by the number of servers that are available to them? A webrtc bridge shouldn't have a bottleneck and should perfectly scale. Who is their cloud provider?

Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

#43
post #18

Open a bug with Apple about this. They fixed an issue I reported a few years back about being able to launch applications in the Trash. They will likely want to add the same restriction to Time Machine Backups as well.

What if you need to run an old version of the application?

Find it in Time Machine and click the restore button.

Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

#44
post #18

Open a bug with Apple about this. They fixed an issue I reported a few years back about being able to launch applications in the Trash. They will likely want to add the same restriction to Time Machine Backups as well.

What if you need to run an old version of the application?

Then you would go into your Time Machine backup and restore the version your want to /Applications

Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

#45
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's at least one app for figuring out why every hourly backup takes half a gigabyte. It might require root privileges, but I doubt that.

Wait, is that not normal?

Hourly backups with rsnapshot - which serves more or less the same task but does it without a fancy UI - take no more than the size of the changed files plus some space for file system metadata. If Time Machine takes half a GB on a quiescent file system I'd say something is amiss...

Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

#46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think that it's touching a bunch of log files slightly or something…

My guess so far is something like Firefox's history database.

If that is half a GB Firefox would be crawling. Here is is around 60MB on a well-used machine with an ancient FF profile.

Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

#47
post #32
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is unexpected to me. If I remove an application I do not expect it to run. If the OS is willing to reach into the Time Machine backups will it also modify them? What if I delete an app, run it then install an update? Will it install to the backup? That would be very unexpected. Looking at multiple application directories is one thing but executing things from the backup directory is another.

I checked before, and if I recall correctly, Time Machine backups are protected at the kernel level -- you cannot modify them, even with sudo. You can delete the whole backup, but you cannot modify part of it. > but executing things from the backup directory is another. Time Machine backups are structured in a very non-proprietary way. Each backup is just a folder, protected from modifications, with hard links used t…

You can also delete items from your backup. So like if wanted to delete Zoom from Time Machine just select it in a backup and then select the option to remove it from all your backups from the Action menu or a right-click.

Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

#48
post #18

Open a bug with Apple about this. They fixed an issue I reported a few years back about being able to launch applications in the Trash. They will likely want to add the same restriction to Time Machine Backups as well.

What if you need to run an old version of the application?

The bug is in the "find an application and launch it" code, which is distinct from the "user located this application within Time Machine and tried to open it" code. Apple will either make the distinction so that you can manually open an application from a Time Machine backup, or simply prohibit launching applications in both scenarios and require you to restore it to your user partition to do so.

Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

#49
If your time machine backup volume was mounted, I would expect this behavior. Back in the old days, when storage was at a premium, you could have applications stored on a network volume, so they would be shared by everyone on the LAN. The OS would launch an application that matched the requested file type from any mounted volume.

If it wasn't mounted, I would file a bug.

Either way, not really Zoom's fault.

Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac

#50
I wish I could remember / find it right now, maybe it was my Witopia VPN? Need to check...

Anyway, I've had at least one application that said to remove it, first delete it, AND THEN EMPTY THE TRASH (?!?!) and maybe even reboot. Most of us are probably more troubled by the trash-empty thing than the reboot thing.

EDIT: OK Alzheimer's hasn't gotten me yet. It was Witopia / personalVPN:

https://www.personalvpn.com/support/set-vpn-mac/app-setup-fo...

Just search the page for the word "empty". It reads:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2. If you already had the WiTopia personalVPN app installed previously: Go to your FINDER > Applications folder > Drag the WiTopia app from there to the trash > and empty the trash* to remove the existing app.

* If the trash is not emptied, this will not work!

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