Macros aren't syncing after macbook hardware failure and reinstall

Questions & Suggestions
1

My MacBook, running macOS Tahoe, experienced a hardware failure. It needed to have the main drive wiped and hardware replaced. When I got it back, it was at the hello screen for macOS Ventura. I couldn’t manage to use the Migration Assistant to restore from my Time Machine backup. something was wrong (it hung). I have all my data backed up in the cloud (on Dropbox) and I decided to just set up the machine by downloading and configuring all my applications.

I installed KM 10.2 (I assume this was the last licensed version I had based on looking at email from Stairways Software). I tried to sync to my macro sync file which is located on Dropbox. It failed. I got a yellowish error box (I didn’t manage to catch what it said and it’s not happening now) and my synced macros didn’t appear.

Then I realized how old Ventura is so I decided to upgrade right away to Sequoia before Dropbox finished syncing. (I didn’t like Tahoe.)

That finished. I tried stopping KM syncing and restarting it with an older KM sync file. (I noticed that the last modification time and date of the newer sync file had been updated so I got worried it had wiped all my macros.) I got the yellow box error again.

I noticed there is a kmmacros/ folder in the same folder as the km sync file. It has three files in it which appear to name the custom macro groups I created. I tried importing those and it said it was an unknown file type.

Help!

2

Update. I tried again with KM 10.2 after letting Dropbox finish syncing and grabbing an older backed up version of the kmsync file (it was clear the first time I tried to use this sync file it was overridden and had a small file size). This time KM gave a clear error: “the kmsync file was from a newer version.” I downloaded the trial version of KM 11 and lo and behold starting the sync got me back my old macros (essentially up to date). I can’t find any email indicating I upgraded to KM 11, so I’m not sure I did. But I don’t know why else my macro file would be from a “newer version” than 10.2.

3

Since it worked with version 11, and not with the latest version of 10 it seem obvious that you did upgrade to 11.

You can check your license here: License enquiry

4

Firstly, in order to sync you must have identical versions of Keyboard Maestro on both Macs.

Also, Keyboard Maestro generally will sync from an older version sync file, but will not sync from a newer version sync file. So if you, for example, upgrade to version 11, and that sync file is saved, and then downgrade to version 10, that sync file will never be synced from.

So:

  • Make sure the versions are exactly the same on both Macs.
  • Turn off syncing on both Macs
  • Delete the sync file altogether.
  • Wait for the sync file to be removed on both Macs.
  • Choose one Mac to have the definitive macros.
  • Start syncing, creating the sync file from that Mac.
  • Wait for the sync file to propagate.
  • Start syncing, reading the sync file and overwriting the macros on the other Mac.
  • Verify that changes now sync.
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5

Thanks Peter. I don’t recall when I started syncing my macros, but it was some number of years ago when I had access to two Macs. I now only use one Mac, so maybe I should consider skipping the syncing and just save directly.

But in any case, the only way I knew how to get access to my macros was to get it from Dropbox (i.e. install Dropbox on the wiped Mac). I could only find an email stating I had version 10.2, so that’s the first version of KM I installed. When I tried to sync, when it had that first error, I think it ended up wiping the sync file or reverting it to version 10, because the size dropped from the original 52 KB to 8 KB. Fortunately I was able to get hold of the original 52 KB file from another computer I was using while my Mac was in the shop (a Windows 11 machine) so I waited (1) for Dropbox to finish making files available offline (in case KM was having trouble with online-only files) and (2) installed KM 11. I put the 52 KB file back and it worked from that point.

Since I don’t actually need syncing, do you recommend I stop using a sync file and just save my macros?

Thanks.

6

You can use syncing as a form of backup, so if you are syncing to somewhere that is backed up and keeps versions, that can be useful even with only one Mac.

That said, you should be backing up your entire Mac is a form that has versions, and so the Keyboard Maestro Macros.plist file would be backed up that way.

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