I have two Mac systems that both MobileMe sync, and use Mozy. One is on a free account, the other is on unlimited service.
And, today, I had to turn off MobileMe Preference Sync. I’ve stumbled on something that isn’t is a bug, but is a limitation of how the two products work together. Actually, Apple would argue that it’s a bug since apps are supposed to handle machine-specific preferences differently.
When Mozy backs up, it loads a configuration file… which tells it what folders and file types you want to back up. This is a preference file, stored in the preferences folder. Well, when MobileMe Sync takes place, guess what happens? The newest Mozy preferences are spread to all my computers.
Oddly enough, this doesn’t affect the login process… just the designated set of what files and folders to back up. I suspect those are two separate plist files…
But, sure enough, my MozyHome Free computer wanted to back up my entire Apple Mail and iTunes Libraries (which I do want my Mozy unlimited computer to do). The first couple of times I encountered this, I thought it was Mozy not saving the preferences… now I know why.
What can Mozy do to fix this? Simple. Follow Apple’s directives for handling machine-specific settings. Specifically, they should be in a separate file, with an additional extension. For example ~/Library/Application Support/Mozy/Mozy-ComputerName/com.mozy.filestobackup.plist
Update: As shown in the comments, Mozy has been a class act in working on solving the issues. Same tech support quality I’ve seen with email support. I continue to highly recommend them, plus, you know, it’s free for the first 2 GB.