Apple has said only that the reliability of File Fault, among other areas listed, was addressed by the 10.3.1 update. Is it FIXED? I am not sure one can say that is it working perfectly. I have heard that it is fixed, and I have heard it is still trashing preferences. I have heard both responses from people using a fresh, clean system only to test File Vault. Personally, I'm waiting for more information and to hear back from Apple on my case floating around in support.
As I say, I was under the impression it had been fixed so, after installing the update decided to allow it to reclaim the disk space. It trashed my iTunes database and I've since discovered it also trashed some of my email preferences and messages.
Just a word of warning... appears to ork ok on some machines
I have to admit, I'm still confused why this one is turning out to be so hard to debug. I'd wager a keg of Guinness I know what the problem is. :P
The loss of preferences, etc, also occurs when you're running extremely low on disk space (<100MB). The VM swap space starts stomping on what's left during shutdown as every app suddenly wants more RAM to complete shutdown, and when it comes time to write the preferences as the last step... there's no disk space left. Of course, there's no disk space left to use for the memory for a dialog, either. :P So, silent failure. I had this happen a few times on me, until I figured it out.
So... FV tries to compact the space, yes? It compacts based on what it thinks it currently needs, usually what the user is currently using. Cool beans. Except what if the preferences are larger this time around? Bzzzt. Not enough space left in the encrypted area now. Same result, a silent failure.
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Just a word of warning... appears to ork ok on some machines
The loss of preferences, etc, also occurs when you're running extremely low on disk space (<100MB). The VM swap space starts stomping on what's left during shutdown as every app suddenly wants more RAM to complete shutdown, and when it comes time to write the preferences as the last step... there's no disk space left. Of course, there's no disk space left to use for the memory for a dialog, either. :P So, silent failure. I had this happen a few times on me, until I figured it out.
So... FV tries to compact the space, yes? It compacts based on what it thinks it currently needs, usually what the user is currently using. Cool beans. Except what if the preferences are larger this time around? Bzzzt. Not enough space left in the encrypted area now. Same result, a silent failure.