Error when trying to duplicate files to shared server - applescript

Question

I'm trying to get duplicate home folders (desktop, movies, music, home, etc..) to a shared server. I was finally able to get the drive mounted using a concatenation of string and variables. But now i'm getting an error on the duplication line. If I mount the drive manually, this code works, but doesn't seem to work when mounting the drive through applescript
--Assigns variable to username
tell application "System Events"
set user_name to name of current user
end tell
--Prompts for eraider as string
set returnedName to (display dialog "Enter Raider Name:" default answer "eRaider" buttons {"Continue"} default button 1 giving up after 5)
--Sets string as variable
set work_name to text returned of returnedName
--Sets department list
set deptList to {"dept1", "dept2", "dept3", "dept4"}
set dept_name to {choose from list deptList} as string
--Tells Finder to mount shared drive
tell application "Finder"
mount volume ("smb://vserver/athletics/"&dept_name&"/"&work_name)
end tell
--Sets sever as variable
set vserver to POSIX file ("/Volumes/" & work_name)
--Copies Documents to Server
set source to POSIX file ("/Users/" & user_name & "/Documents")
tell application "Finder"
duplicate source to vserver with replacing
end tell
I get this error
error "Finder got an error: AppleEvent handler failed." number -10000
On this line: duplicate source to vserver with replacing

Answer 1

You have a few strange things in your code. Most of them do not affect your error however they should be corrected. For example the "mount volume" command is not a Finder command, it's an applescript command and thus you should not tell the Finder to perform that command. Next, the "choose file" line... why do you have brackets around it? Plus other small things. So I cleaned up the code.
To get to your specific problem it could be 2 things. First, I use an if statement to ensure the disk is mounted before trying to duplicate the files. Second, the "POSIX File" command could also cause problems. It's an unusual command in that it doesn't always work the way you expect. Therefore in this code, to ensure we avoid any issues with that command, I coerce it to text and then in the duplicate command I put it in the proper format by using the word "folder" in front of it.
So I did not test this code but it should work. I hope it helps.
--Assigns variable to username
tell application "System Events" to set user_name to name of current user
--Prompts for eraider as string
set work_name to text returned of (display dialog "Enter Raider Name:" default answer "eRaider" buttons {"Continue"} default button 1 giving up after 5)
--Sets department list
set deptList to {"dept1", "dept2", "dept3", "dept4"}
set dept_name to item 1 of (choose from list deptList)
--mount shared drive
mount volume ("smb://vserver/athletics/" & dept_name & "/" & work_name)
if work_name is in (list disks) then
--Copies Documents to Server
set source to (POSIX file ("/Users/" & user_name & "/Documents")) as text
tell application "Finder" to duplicate folder source to disk work_name with replacing
else
display dialog "Disk " & work_name & " is not mounted"
end if
An even better way would be to use the "path to" command to establish the path to your documents folder. This way you don't need to use "POSIX File" or even know the user name because the "path to" command automatically works for the current user. Plus I would do a little more error checking on the mount volume stuff. So really this is how I would write your code... I didn't test this either!
--Prompts for eraider as string
set work_name to text returned of (display dialog "Enter Raider Name:" default answer "eRaider" buttons {"Continue"} default button 1 giving up after 5)
--Sets department list
set deptList to {"dept1", "dept2", "dept3", "dept4"}
set dept_name to item 1 of (choose from list deptList)
--mount shared drive
set isMounted to false
if work_name is not in (list disks) then
mount volume ("smb://vserver/athletics/" & dept_name & "/" & work_name)
-- wait for the volume to be mounted but only wait for a limited time before failing (10 seconds in this case)
set inTime to current date
repeat
delay 0.2
if work_name is in (list disks) then
set isMounted to true
exit repeat
end if
if (current date) - inTime is greater than 10 then exit repeat
end repeat
else
set isMounted to true
end if
--Copies Documents to Server
if isMounted then
set source to path to documents folder
tell application "Finder" to duplicate source to disk work_name with replacing
else
display dialog "There was an error mounting disk " & work_name buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end if