Hazel no longer running certain rules automatically

Hi,

I’ve been a happy user of Hazel for a couple years now, with all my rules running consistently.

Recently however, some of my rules no longer run automatically. Hazel will process the folders correctly when I manually hit “Run Rules Now” but doesn’t do it automatically any more. Any help is very much appreciated.

No clue I can tell in the log. It just shows the other rules I have running successfully.

Thanks!

  1. What versions of Hazel and macOS are you using? Just to rule out beta versions, give a common benchmark for others checking things.
  2. When you say “some of my rules”, Is it a common set of rules? i.e. is Hazel misbehaving in general, or is it a specific set of Hazel rules that is misbehaving?
  3. Assuming it is a common set of rules, have you tried checking the rules by manually adding a file that should be matched and checking that Hazel flags the match in its preview? I realise they are running when manually triggered, but the preview can show you things like where one rule intercedes before another, taking priority and changing the attributes.
  4. Can you try creating a rule the, the same as one that has issues, but setting it to do something else (e.g. tag the file). That might give a clue
  5. If that works, try recreating a misbehaving rule form scratch. A bit of an enforced reset.
  6. Check for disk errors.

Hi, thanks for the response.

  1. macOS 11.4, Hazel 5.0.7
  2. I have a folder called “Python Test”. Every day I have a Python script that runs on a cron job to download certain PDF and xlsx files from my email account and save them to the folder. I have Hazel watching this folder, and when it finds PDF and Excel files, it just renames then with today’s date and moves them to another folder. Pretty simple stuff.
  3. Yes, I’ve tried this. Adding a file manually does nothing. The rule doesn’t run until I hit the “Run Rules Now” button.
  4. I just tried that. I made a new rule to set the color label on PDFs to blue. Hazel did not run it automatically. The preview, however, found that the file I tested it on matched.
  5. No dice.
  6. I ran first aid on my disks and all seemed well.

Thanks again…any other ideas?

When you say you tried this, was that the preview you tried, or only the manual addition you describe?

Dropping a file with the appropriate extension into the folder manually does not trigger the rule to run automatically (but again, it will work just fine if I trigger the rule).

When I preview the rule, it tells me that the “Rule Matches” and gives me the green check mark.

Update: rechecking the log just now, I see the following error:

2021-07-25 14:09:48.349 86Z3GCJ4MF.com.noodlesoft.HazelHelper[707] Attempted to run worker on undeployed folder: /Volumes/GoogleDrive/My Drive/60. Reports/Python Test.
2021-07-25 14:10:08.742 86Z3GCJ4MF.com.noodlesoft.HazelHelper[707] Attempted to run worker on undeployed folder: /Volumes/GoogleDrive/My Drive/60. Reports/Python Test.
2021-07-25 14:10:08.750 86Z3GCJ4MF.com.noodlesoft.HazelHelper[707] Attempted to run worker on undeployed folder: /Volumes/GoogleDrive/My Drive/60. Reports/Python Test.

Not sure if this is a clue…thanks again.

That indicates it is losing track of the folder to be processed.

Can you try it on a different folder? Start with one that is fully local only (not Google Drive, not iCloud Drive, etc.) If that works reliably, retry with a new folder in Google Drive.

Mystery solved. Thank you for helping!

The issue appears to be was that macOS (for some reason) unchecked the full disk permission for Hazel Helper. Hazel was checked, but not helper. I rechecked it and it now seems to be working properly.

Thanks again sylumer!

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