Summary: Did you come across the 'fsroot tree is invalid' error in checking the fsroot tree on macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra with First Aid? This post will introduce what the error is and tell you how to solve the invalid fsroot tree problem on APFS volumes without data loss. If your data becomes inaccessible and you don't have backups, recover lost data with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac first.
On your Mac, click the Finder icon in the Dock to open a Finder window. Select the folder you want to change, then click a View button: Icon, List, Column, or Gallery. Choose View Show View Options, then set the options you want. Have the folder always open in this view: Select the “Always open in” checkbox. Download MacFamilyTree 9 for macOS 10.13.0 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. Discover your personal family history! Genealogy gets a facelift with MacFamilyTree 9: modern, interactive, convenient, and fast. Explore your family tree and your family history in a way that would have amazed generations of chroniclers before you. Create visually. $ sudo apt install tree. If you are using Apple OS X, type: brew install tree. Display the tree hierarchy of a directory $ tree -a./GFG. List files with entered pattern $ tree -P sample. List those directories which have greater ‘N’ number of files/diectories $ tree -filelimit 3./GFG. List files with.
Using First Aid from Disk Utility to fix minor disk problems is a common operation on Mac. When you use First Aid to check and repair APFS volumes in macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra, 'fsroot tree is invalid' is an error you might encounter after checking the fsroot tree. Once the error shows up, the APFS volume probably is seriously corrupted and all stored data becomes inaccessible.
Before you go to the tutorial about how to solve the fsroot tree invalid problem and recover lost data from the corrupted APFS volume, take a look at what fsroot tree is.
What is fsroot tree?
Fsroot tree is the top-level directory in the directory structure of an APFS-formatted volume. All data created by users is categorized into subdirectories which associates with the root directory (fsroot tree).
But First Aid may tells you that the fsroot tree is invalid, or First Aid gets stuck on checking the fsroot tree. It means the macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra can't find all subdirectories as well as the necessary data. In other words, you can't access your important files on it unless you fix the corruption.
The 'fsroot tree is invalid' error shows up after checking the fsroot tree of your disk, and the dialogues in the First Aid report window might different from case to to case. Here is an example from Apple Community:
I have a late 2016 MacBook Pro, and had an issue some time back with a file not being accessible. I mounted the APFS volume in Disk Utility, ran first aid on it. I get the following
Error: Invalid dstream size (some numbers) is greater than dsteam.allocated_size(different numbers).
Error: xf: INO_EXT_TYPE_DSTREAM : Invalid dstream
error: inode_val: object (tid 0x2003d78c4) invalid xfields
fsroot tree is invalid
the volume /dev/rdisk2s1 could not be verified completely
File system check exit code is 0
If you are looking for a solution as the user above, read ahead to learn how to solve the fsroot tree invalid problem on APFS volumes.
How to solve the fsroot tree invalid problem on non-startup APFS volume?
Before you start to fix the APFS 'fsroot tree is invalid' problem on Mac, you have to make sure you have adequate backup of important data on the corrupted APFS volume. That is because reformatting is the only and most efficient way to fix the error. However, reformatting the APFS volume will delete all data and might cause permanent data loss. Therefore, if you haven't backed up data yet, you need to recover lost data from the corrupted APFS volume first.
Follow the steps below, you will know how to solve the fsroot tree invalid problem in macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra without losing data.
Recover lost data from the corrupted APFS volume
Even though you can't access the data on the APFS volume which has an invalid fsroot tree, the data still stays on the volume. In this situation, you will need professional data recovery software to help you out. iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is introduced and recommended in this post.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is the best APFS data recovery software in the market. It can recover lost data from APFS volumes showing 'fsroot tree is invalid' in First Aid. Moreover, even though the APFS is encrypted, the software can recover deleted or lost files from the encrypted APFS volume. In addition, it can recover photos, videos, documents and other files from formatted, unmountable, unreadable, or corrupted APFS volumes. Moreover, it is capable of finding deleted or lost APFS volumes and recover lost data from them.
In addition to APFS data recovery capabilities, this Mac data recovery software can also recover lost data from various storage media with HFS, HFS+, exFAT, or FAT file system. It can recover lost data from external hard drives, SD cards, pen drives and so on.
Steps to recover lost data from the APFS volume with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac:
Mac Tree Service
- 1. Download, install and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
- 2. Select the APFS drive which shows 'fsroot tree is invalid' error and click the Next button to scan for lost files.
- 3. Preview the searching results, choose files you want to get back, and click the Recover button.
- 4. Check to ensure you have got all lost data back.
After you have recovered all important data, go ahead to reformat the APFS volume by following the tutorial below.
• Tutorial to reformat APFS volume and external hard drives on Mac
Note: You won't see Scheme option unless you are going to reformat the whole disk.
Hopefully, so far you have repaired the APFS volume which shows 'fsroot tree is invalid' error. If you see the 'fsroot tree is invalid' error message shows up when you are using First Aid to fix the startup APFS volume which contains macOS in macOS Recovery mode, you will learn how to solve the fsroot tree invalid problem on startup APFS volume in next section.
How to solve the fsroot tree invalid problem on startup APFS volume?
The startup volume of a Mac computer running macOS Big Sur 11/10.15/10.14/10.13 will be formatted to APFS automatically since APFS is the default file system on those Mac operating systems. If your Mac won't boot and then you are trying to repair the startup APFS volume using First Aid in macOS Recovery mode, the 'fsroot tree is invalid' error is very likely to appear when checking the fsroot tree with First Aid, meaning the startup APFS volume is corrupted.
In this situation, you are not able to access the macOS and all the data on Mac internal disk. You will need to solve the issue by doing the followings to make your Mac work properly again:
1. Recover files from the Mac that won't turn on
These following steps will delete all previously stored data on Mac hard drive, reformat the hard drive, and reinstall macOS on it, so the first thing you should do is to make sure you have backups of important data or recover lost data from Mac that won't boot.
2. Boot the Mac into macOS Recovery mode
macOS Recovery, also referred to Mac Recovery Mode, can help users to troubleshoot the issues on Mac, especially when there are issues about the volume containing macOS. It allows users to reinstall macOS either from the Internet (your Mac needs to be connected to the Internet) or from the pre-installed macOS on Mac.
3. Reinstall macOS
During the reinstallation of macOS, the Mac hard drive will be automatically formatted to the file system that is compatible with the macOS. All data will be deleted. Moreover, the reinstallation of macOS might overwrite some data and cause permanent data loss. It is always recommended that you recover lost data before reinstalling macOS.
4. Restore data to the Mac
If you have backed up data or recovered data from the unbootable Mac, your Mac will be ready to go as usual after you restore data to it.
Conclusion:
Family Tree Software For Mac
That checking the fsroot tree but gets the 'fsroot tree is invalid' errpr on APFS volume is actually a file system error in macOS Catalina, Mojave or High Sierra, which makes your important files inaccessible. We hope this post has solved the invalid fsroot tree problem on APFS volume for you without data loss. The key point is to recover lost data first with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac before reformatting the APFS volume.
Ancestry.com has released the third version of their Family Tree Maker (FTM) application for the Mac (yes there was an older version a decade or so ago, but I’m ignoring that). The first version was released in 2010, and in fact was the subject of the very first post on this blog. It was actually the subject of several posts, as I tested it out to see if it made sense to switch from using Reunion to FTM Mac. In the end I decided against switching, due to several reasons. The most important reason was simply that he software seemed a little too buggy at the time.
Another issue which bothered me, which seems minor, was that you could not take a single photo and use it to create multiple head shots to represent many different people in your tree. For example, if you have a single family portrait representing a branch of your tree that has ten individuals in it, in Reunion you could add the same photo to all ten people’s records, and then crop it to show just the individual you want. In fact, you could add the same photo twice to a record, and crop it differently each time. This is useful if you want to put in a full photograph with background as part of that person’s multimedia record, but want a simple cropped headshot for the person when showing them in a tree, for example.
One thing that bothered many Mac users with the initial version, was that it wasn’t based on the then current Windows version (FTM 2011) but on an older version (FTM 2010). Even then, the features of FTM for Mac were not on par with FTM 2010 for Windows. There was a time when this kind of thing was common for Mac users, but it’s fairly rare nowadays. To add insult to injury, Ancestry charged more for the Mac version with less features than the Windows version.
The second version of FTM for Mac was released in 2011. It brought one major feature with it, TreeSync, which allows you to sync your tree in FTM with a tree on Ancestry.com. A pretty big feature. It always makes me wonder when they release minor updates or even major updates like the new version 3, however, that they always add ‘Improved TreeSync’ as a feature of the update. Clearly there were some problems with the implementation of TreeSync in FTM for Mac 2. FTM for Mac 2 kind of felt like FTM for Mac 1 was a beta version, and this was the real version 1. It was better, but still not up to par with the Windows version, and still more expensive.
Now FTM for Mac 3 has been released. The big differences are not in the features it seems. The big difference is in the beginning of treating Mac users on a more equal footing with Windows users. For the first time, the price of FTM for Mac is the same as the Windows version – $39.99 (currently on sale for $29.99). Also for the first time, FTM for Mac shares the same file format as the current Windows version. That is the most significant change to me. Now people on Mac and Windows can exchange their full data files without having to do any kind of conversion (earlier version came with a Windows application for converting the Windows files – but if you had the Windows file already and you were on a Mac – no luck) or by using GEDCOM. This version is still not at feature parity to the current Windows version (FTM 2014) but at least it seems like they’re setting the groundwork for that in the future.
One test I tried with this new version was to try to import a FTM 2012 Windows file. Oddly it started the import process, but then quit in the middle and said the file wasn’t supported. This brought back memories of past experiences with the older version where the error messages seemed bizarre. Why should it even try to import the file if it’s not compatible? Why it wouldn’t do a version check before doing the import is beyond me.
The First Tree Mac
Although the file formats are now the same, it seem FTM Mac 3 still cannot import older files from Windows. I think it actually might be able to import really old FTM for Windows files (up to version 16 from 2008), but none from the more recent generation of the software.
The First Tree For Mac Catalina
My next test will be to see if I can sync a tree from a cousin who uses FTM on Windows through Ancestry.com. It’s unlikely I will switch from Reunion to FTM for Mac 3, especially with my pet-feature of cropping multiple faces out of a single photo still missing, but I am looking forward to trying to collaborate with my cousin through TreeSync. We’ll see how that goes…