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Carbonite Keeps Asking for Full Disk Access

  • 29 September 2022
  • 19 replies
  • 406 views

I am running Carbonite  Safe CE 22.3 on a MacBook Pro M1 Max, running macOS Monterey Version 12.4 (21F79). About once a week, I am asked to grant it Full Disk Access permission. Except that it already has it. I see that Webroot Secure Anywhere went through this about two years ago in other threads. But I do not see a solution. Any ideas? Just to prove the point, here is a screen shot: 

 



 

19 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

I’ve yet to install Carbonite on the newer M1 Max chips but I'm having all sorts of other issues with multiple different services and apps with these M1 Max chips. So this might be another issue linked to the way these new processors work.

I can only think of 2 things I would try :

  1. Click the - button and remove Carbonite from Full disk access,. Restart the machine and then manually add it in again but pressing the + button, navigating to /Applications and adding Carbonite back in.
  2. Uninstalling Carbonite, then do everything listed in step 1.

Good luck, let me know if you get any luck.

Userlevel 7
Badge +25

Thanks Russel. I had already tried both of those.  As I work at Apple, I have filed a big report on this issue. Have not seen it for b other programs though. 
 

I’m guessing that something in the enhanced security prevents an app from asking if they have full disk access, so the response they get may be wrong, so they pop up an alert. Might alto be the protections on one or more files not set for access, so Carbonite thinks they don’t have access. 
 

Hopefully this will get worked out. Not a show stopper, but a bit annoying.  
 

Cheers

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

No worries. Be interested to know if you get a solution. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +25

Anyone from Webroot/Carbonite have anything to add? You must be aware of this issue?

Userlevel 7
Badge +25

This has stopped happening. I am not sure what changed, but it has stopped for now. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

🤷🏻‍♂️ Weird. Sometimes things fix themselves. Annoying though as it’s nice to know what caused it and what resolved it.

Also sometimes clients ask what you did to fix it and you feel like you need to provide an explanation!

glad it’s sorted though 

Userlevel 7
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Hello all. Now a year later, and this has started all over again. Carbonite is constantly asking for Full Disk Access, even though it is turned on.  Anyone else seeing this again? MacOS 14.3 (23D56)

 

SIGH

Userlevel 7
Badge +33

@MajorHavoc 

Have you reached out to support? 

Userlevel 7
Badge +25

Yes. But not much help. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +33

What did they say @MajorHavoc ?

Them not fixing it isn’t good enough. Hold them to account. If you pay for the service, then they’re job is to ensure said service works. I’d call and call and call until they knew my name. We spend tens of thousands of dollars with OpenText and I don’t give an inch. There’s well over a dozen high ups @ OpenText that know me and my MSP/MSSP, from the sheer number of times I’ve been critical of things, required help, offered beta and design help etc… 

 

Userlevel 7
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It was implied that it was fixed if I read it correctly. I will wait for the next update and see if it still happens.  Thanks. 

Userlevel 4
Badge +1

Hi @MajorHavoc,

I’m the PM for the Webroot Mac team but I wanted to let you know I’ve reached out to the Safe PM to talk about this. We’ve struggled with the same problem on the Webroot Mac team because Apple has been very reluctant, in the past, to provide us with a good way to discover the current state of this (as you suspected above). They finally gave us something, though, so I’ve let them know in case they hadn’t gotten the same breakthrough with Apple yet.

Userlevel 7
Badge +25

Hi @MajorHavoc,

I’m the PM for the Webroot Mac team but I wanted to let you know I’ve reached out to the Safe PM to talk about this. We’ve struggled with the same problem on the Webroot Mac team because Apple has been very reluctant, in the past, to provide us with a good way to discover the current state of this (as you suspected above). They finally gave us something, though, so I’ve let them know in case they hadn’t gotten the same breakthrough with Apple yet.

Thanks Jeremiah, I appreciate the update. 

 

Having spent 10 year at Apple, I feel for you. I recall writing a program that killed my spawned tasks if they hung,  and got a real ration of *&!% for doing that, telling me that tasks should properly exit on their own. Later not even allowing it to happen. (So why have stop/exit call if one can’t use it?) And I get the paranoid issue Apple has for security sake, worrying that a launched app could kill or affect other apps owned by the same user, so they went to the extreme in protection. 

Hopefully what Apple has give you will solve this issue. 

Cheers

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Hopefully this is progress for the Mac version!

Userlevel 7
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Its BACK! Carbonite is once again asking for Full Disk Access every single day again. I am running version 2.8.4 build 18.  I get the pop-up alert telling me I have to give Carbonite Full Disk access. But as I open the System Preferences to Privacy & Security, and select Full Disk Access to see the list, the dialog goes away. Maybe because Carbonite is already set to on? (And has been since day one of installing.)

OK, so I thought I would go to Carbonite Support and report this again, or reopen my ticket, and once again I am stuck in Carbonite looping hell going round and round through the same pages.  

I start here and login in to my account on this page: 
https://myaccount.carbonite.com/support

On that page, I see: 

Carbonite Customer Support

Go to Carbonite customer support  (← this is a link on that page. But I thought I was at Carbonite Support!)

Clicking on “Go to Carbonite customer support”  I am taken here: 

https://support.carbonite.com

In the upper right hand corner, it says “login”, even though I was logged in. So I press that and login, and am taken back to the first page again.  There is also a link at the top that says “Support” that simple reloads the current page. Also, there is no way to actually contact support on this second support page. 

BUT, sometimes it goes to this page instead, thinking I am logged in. But it is not consistent. 

https://myaccount.carbonite.com/home

On this page, in the list on the left there is a “Support” link. Guess where that goes?  Yep: 

https://myaccount.carbonite.com/support

Rinse and repeat. 

There is this link: 

But when I click on that, I get: 

You searched for " i need to speak to a representative" in  Mac         

 

Search Results

Your Search Returned no results. Please try another search term.

 

Holly &*)%! Seriously, your own link returns no results? Are you kidding me? 

This is a total fail on Carbonite Customer Support. I am glad I am no longer reviewing this kind of software because as good a Carbonite backup is, the customer service on the web ranks a 0 out of 10 for me.  And this constant problem that keeps popping up that they have not addressed is driving me crazy. I am told it is fixed. Obviously not. I go check the setting each time I get the alert  just in case it magically turned off. Nope!

I am hoping I can get a contact so that these issues can be resolved.  This is seriously making me consider a different back up solution. 

ARGHHHHHHH………. As you can tell, I am very frustrated with Carbonite right now. Can someone tell me please how I see my past and recent support tickets, or where I go to enter a new one?

Thank you.

Userlevel 7
Badge +25

Sorry for my frustration in the previous message, but after a dozen or so attempts to get support, Im pulling my hair out.  

Userlevel 4
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@MajorHavoc I’m sorry I didn’t see this earlier but I want you to know I’ve passed along your frustration to the support team in the hopes they can at least reduce the friction with the page links. As you’re aware, having worked for a very large company, public facing pages like that are not something we’re able to change quickly but the conversation is started at least. They’re also passing along the return of your FDA concerns to the Carbonite team since we’re on the Webroot side. :) 

Userlevel 7
Badge +25

Sorry for my frustration in the previous message, but after a dozen or so attempts to get support, Im pulling my hair out.  

@MajorHavoc Sorry for missing this I will have Carbonite support escalate this and reach out to you through email 

Userlevel 7
Badge +25

Thanks Tyler.  

They responded and we found the culprit. Seems there is a preferences file for email recent searches that even with full disk access, the file is inaccessible to Carbonite. Every time it tries to back it up, it fails and the only failure it seems to know for a inaccessible file is that the program must not have full disk access, thus the request. Manually removing that file from the backup solved the problem, and I am not longer asked for permission.  So Carbonite did finally come through with a solution. Thank you. 

Now, if I can just get Webroot to stop popping up those annoying Suspicious Activity alerts I get every time I restart my MacBookPro  15” Intel i9, everything would be solved. I am told by support that these alerts should only happen once, but today on a restart, I got 69 of them.  I guess I need to avoid restarts!  😮 Maybe this means they will only happen once on each restart? 

 

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