I just migrated our FileMaker Server from a Mac Mini running MacOS High Sierra and FMS 17 to a Mac Mini running MacOS Catalina and FMS 18. Everything went well except getting FMS to backup to an external Hard Drive.

 

I simply unplugged the External HD from the previous server and plugged it into the new server. It mounts no problem. I gave "fmserver" "Read & Write" access to the drive AND the folders on the drive it needs access to. I can read and write by dragging files onto the drive, but when I try to enter that Default Backup Folder Path under Configuration>Folders in FMS Admin Console I am told that "The path is not valid.".

 

I used the exact same path as was used on the previous FMS. I even went so far as to set the permissions on the drive and folders to allow "everyone" "Read & Write" access.

 

The only thing that I can think of that might be the issue is that the internal hard drive on which FMS is installed is formatted using APFS and the external hd is formatted using Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

 

Before I go either reformatting the internal drive as Mac OS Extended OR the external as APFS, I wanted to see what the community thought. So I'm posting here.

 

Am I on the right track here? Is it because of the difference in formatting of the drives? If so, which format would you recommend.....I'm leaning towards Mac OS Extended? If not, I'm open to any and all thoughts.

I was having the exact same problem today following an upgrade to Catalina and FMS18 and called Claris support.

SOLUTION: Open System Preferences-->Security-->Privacy-->Full Disk Access and enable "fmserver_helperd". It's a new Catalina security measure, and unlike other application installers, the FileMaker Server installer doesn't let you know you need to enable this.

21 hours ago, jayivan said:

I was having the exact same problem today following an upgrade to Catalina and FMS18 and called Claris support.

SOLUTION: Open System Preferences-->Security-->Privacy-->Full Disk Access and enable "fmserver_helperd". It's a new Catalina security measure, and unlike other application installers, the FileMaker Server installer doesn't let you know you need to enable this.

Thank you for posting your solution!   

I ended up installing Mojave instead of reformatting the backup drive.   Going to Mojave solved the issue....which now makes sense given what you found about Catalina.   If I end up deciding to go back to Catalina,  I'll now know what I need to do.   I'm going to stick with Mojave for now.  I was having all kinds of issues with FMS on Catalina....they could have been related to the Full Disk Access settings.  They all went away on Mojave.

Edited February 7, 20205 yr by Matt Klein

On 2/7/2020 at 1:20 AM, jayivan said:

I was having the exact same problem today following an upgrade to Catalina and FMS18 and called Claris support.

SOLUTION: Open System Preferences-->Security-->Privacy-->Full Disk Access and enable "fmserver_helperd". It's a new Catalina security measure, and unlike other application installers, the FileMaker Server installer doesn't let you know you need to enable this.

It worked. Thank you @jayivan

I'm running FMS 19.2.1 on Mojave 10.14.6 (and yes FMS 19 is qualified on Mojave), have enabled Full Disk Access for fmserver_helperd and continue to get "The path is not valid" error when setting a Backups folder. The "Backups" folder has Permissions for fmserver and admin set to full Read & Write.

5 hours ago, Will Loving said:

I'm running FMS 19.2.1 on Mojave 10.14.6 (and yes FMS 19 is qualified on Mojave), have enabled Full Disk Access for fmserver_helperd and continue to get "The path is not valid" error when setting a Backups folder. The "Backups" folder has Permissions for fmserver and admin set to full Read & Write.

In addition to Full Disk permission to fmserver_helperd, make sure "fmserver" user have Read & Write permission for entire path. Volume name, any top level folders and Backups folder.

And also make sure path starts with "filemac:/" and ends with a "/"

 

Edited February 4, 20214 yr by Siva D

Everything was correct except the enclosing folder which was Desktop and did not have permissions (it was a test...I would not normally do backups to the desktop). When I moved the folder to the root level of the HD, it worked.

filemac:/Macintosh HD/Backups/