Topic: What Does the .- before a style mean

[hammer]

Look at the picture.  I will download converted styles for my PSR900 and
every style will have the .- in front of the name and will not load.  But, the
very same styles are also present and do not have the .- in front of them.
Can someone explain this to me.

Thank,
Hammer

[Amwilburn]

If you converted from SFF2 to SFF1, I believe one of the options was to put an underscore in front of the converted sff1 style in order not to accidentally overwrite the sff2 original. However, if you have a mac, it could just be 'junk files' (to us) that they generate for file maintenance; if you can load them, then it's definitely not the latter,

Mark

[hammer]

The styles with the .- will not load. All the others
Load just fine. 

Hammer

[Amwilburn]

In that case it's probably the MAc OS thing.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/14980/why-are-dot-underscore-files-created-and-how-can-i-avoid-them

There was a thread on here where someone referenced a tool that would automatically delete all these junk "._" files (useless for the keyboards, they're only for Mac OS file system use) but I can't seem to find it. Anyone?

Mark

[hammer]

That software would be awesome. I currently
Delete them on my keyboard.  They don’t
Show up on my imac.

Hammet

[overover]

... I will download converted styles for my PSR900 and every style will have the .- in front of the name and will not load.  But, the very same styles are also present and do not have the .- in front of them. Can someone explain this to me. ...

Hi Hammer,

Such files with ".-" at the beginning of the file name come from a Mac computer. These are Index files (sometimes also called "Metadata" files) that were generated by the Mac OS. Yamaha keyboards cannot do anything with these files or are thereby "confused".

If you work with Windows, you can simply delete these files (only about 1 - 2 KB in size) in Windows Explorer. If you have a Mac, there are several ways to prevent such ".-" files from being written on a USB stick. See also the following threads:

>>> https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,65965.msg499890.html#msg499890

>>> https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,68527.msg516863.html#msg516863

>>> https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,67235.msg507333.html#msg507333

>>> https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,65447.msg496343.html#msg496343


Best regards,
Chris

[hammer]

Thanks to everyone who answered my question.  I found a good and simple
answer to the problem. I put the thumb drive in my Windows computer
and very easily was able to delete every file starting with the .- symbol.
When I put the thumb drive back in my PSR900 they were all gone.  The
entire process took about 10 minutes for over 2000 files.

Thanks,
Hammer

[dlepera]

Hello Hammer.

  Can I ask for the benefit of those that are not really computer savvy to maybe put a few lines in this post on how you were able to find all the files. The delete is simple but identifying them on a Windows computer requires just a little knowledge of the search criteria.

  I know in my case unless you have a more simple way,  once the USB is selected in Windows Explorer in the upper right hand Search Window I would enter ".-*". That is everything I typed including the quotes and let it do it's search which can take some time depending on the amount of data on the USB.  Have no idea if there is such a simple way with a MAC.

PS. If you read my Post on my SX700 Search Issue, I stated:

""" I have not had time yet to install the old version firmware provided to me to see if I can break things, but I still point my finger on those ".-E*" files as being my cause which broke things every single time when I had them on my USB with my styles. Once I cleaned them up from everywhere, I am unable to break this search function. """

  So cleaning these files has very good benefit. At least in my case with the ".-E*" files.

            Thanks.   dom 

   

[hammer]

Dom,

Copy all the files onto a thumb drive.  Put that thumb drive in your Windows computer.
Open the folder with the files.  Highlight all the files with the .- in the title.  Press delete.
That is all there is to it.  It will delete the highlighted files and when you put that thumb drive
back into your PSR900 the .- files will be gone.

Hammer

[dlepera]

Hi Hammer.

  In some cases and the one like mine I had them scattered all over in a number of different folders. How I found these was through the keyboard search(like you) when looking for a style for example there were these ".-' files along with the good files with the similar name. The next thing was the keyboard search limit hit the max limit(10 pages displayed).  So had to search many folders and thousands of files on the heavily populated USB to zero in on them. . Highlighted and deleted them on the Windows PC as to do it on the keyboard would have been too much work  as my list was  10 pages worth of them. Then once those 10 pages would have been deleted, I would still have had to do another keyboard search to see if there would have been more to display. So of course easier to do it all on the PC once and for all. 

  So basically was asking, "how did you isolate your 2000 files" .

   Thanks...                   dom

[RONBO]

Thanks to everyone who answered my question.  I found a good and simple
answer to the problem. I put the thumb drive in my Windows computer
and very easily was able to delete every file starting with the .- symbol.
When I put the thumb drive back in my PSR900 they were all gone.  The
entire process took about 10 minutes for over 2000 files.

Thanks,
Hammer

Glad you found a solution, Hammer.

Unfortunately that can't be done on an iMac

Those .- files don't show up on a thumb drive when accessed by Mac

I eliminated the unwanted files on the keyboard but that was time consuming so I just stroll through to the good files.

Perhaps someone can suggest a go around

Thanks

regards

Ron

[overover]

Glad you found a solution, Hammer.

Unfortunately that can't be done on an iMac

Those .- files don't show up on a thumb drive when accessed by Mac

I eliminated the unwanted files on the keyboard but that was time consuming so I just stroll through to the good files.

Perhaps someone can suggest a go around ...

Hi Ron,

Please follow the links in >>> my post above. There are several apps for macOS to prevent such ".-" index files from being copied to the USB stick or to clean the stick of such files, e.g. the "BlueHarvest" app.


Best regards,
Chris

[dlepera]

Ron,

  For a Windows PC this is kind of easy as I described and the method I used to blow away all mine.

  I am not a MAC person so can't help there.

  Here is another method that can be used and now I am speaking Android phone. Maybe IPhone can do the same. A trick I use as well.  Connect a USB or a Cloud Folder to the phone. Then in my case I use the resident Samsung File Manager to do a particular search. Example no quotes this time just   ._
  Once the file is presented to you simply display the details of the file and the path/file location will be presented to you. Once you have that, then connect what ever source you are using to your PC  Windows/MAC and go to that folder, find the file(s) and delete.

     Hope this helps.  Note you can never go wrong with Chris's recommendations and solutions.

        Good Luck!          dom

[KurtAgain]

Unfortunately that can't be done on an iMac
Those .- files don't show up on a thumb drive when accessed by Mac

I don't have a Mac, but files with a dot at the beginning are hidden files on UNIX-like operating systems. These hidden files can usually be made visible. For macOS I found the following:

You can toggle hidden files on and off by holding down the three keys

shift-command-period

at the same time in any Finder window. This setting will apply across all your Finder windows.

I hope that this is of any help.

Kurt

[Peter_B]

You don't need a Windows PC to get the "problem" under control.
I've always used a small tool on my Mac that automatically does the work for you if you want.
If you want, it automatically removes the unnecessary characters that come from the Mac. Look here. I love this tool:

https://macpaw.com/de/support/cleanmydrive

[RONBO]

Hello all;

I thank you all for the suggestions.  I tried most of them, but.....no luck.

I can live with that;  I'm satisfied

Thanks again

Regards

Ron