Error: no database record could be found for @dev

Thanks for the help, but still no dice — I installed the latest 5.x-dev and commented out the database records in my site alias. I searched my dev box for any other aliases.drushrc.php, but found no other. I then ran the following commands on the dev box:

drush sa

@self
@dev
@live
default

Ran each of the following commands separately and they each came back with:

drush @dev sql-conf --all
drush @live sql-conf --all


Array
(
    [default] => Array
        (
            [default] => Array
                (
                    [driver] => mysql
                    [username] => dbuser
                    [port] => 
                    [host] => localhost
                    [database] => websitedb
                )

        )

)

Ran each of the following commands separately and they each came back nearly identical output (save for the different live and dev environments):

drush sa @dev --with-db
drush sa @live --with-db


$aliases['dev'] = array (
  'root' => '/var/www/website.com',
  'uri' => 'website.local',
  'path-aliases' => 
  array (
    '%dump' => '/Users/username/drupal_dump/dump.sql',
    '%files' => '/var/www/website.com/sites/default/files',
  ),
  'databases' => 
  array (
    'default' => 
    array (
      'default' => 
      array (
        'driver' => 'mysql',
        'username' => 'dbuser',
        'port' => '',
        'host' => 'localhost',
        'database' => 'websitedb',
      ),
    ),
  ),
);

All with the same result:

drush sql-sync @dev @live
Error: no database record could be found for @dev	[error]

drush sql-sync @live @dev
Error: no database record could be found for @live	[error]

Does the sql-dump directory and file have to have special permissions? Could that be the issue?
I'm using D7 and XAMPP on Mac OS X for @dev and an Ubuntu LAMP for @live.

Thanks again for your help with this!!

Hmm... strange. Ok here is the output for drush sql-sync --debug @dev @live

Bootstrap to phase 0. [0.02 sec, 1.52 MB]					[bootstrap]
Drush bootstrap phase : _drush_bootstrap_drush() [0.02 sec, 1.64 MB]		[bootstrap]
Bootstrap to phase 0. [0.05 sec, 3.33 MB]					[bootstrap]
Found command: sql-sync (commandfile=sql) [0.05 sec, 3.33 MB]			[bootstrap]
Initializing drush commandfile: user [0.05 sec, 3.33 MB]			[bootstrap]
Including /Users/username/drush/commands/sql/sync.sql.inc [0.05 sec, 3.33 MB]	[bootstrap]
Calling drush command init function: drush_sql_sync_init [0.06 sec, 3.45 MB]	[bootstrap]
Load alias @live [0.06 sec, 3.45 MB]						[notice]
Load alias @dev [0.06 sec, 3.45 MB]						[notice]
Load alias @live [0.06 sec, 3.45 MB]						[notice]
Load alias @dev [0.06 sec, 3.46 MB]						[notice]
Load alias @live [0.06 sec, 3.46 MB]						[notice]
Error: no database record could be found for @dev [0.06 sec, 3.46 MB]		[error]
Command dispatch complete [0.06 sec, 3.45 MB]					[notice]
Peak memory usage was 3.55 MB [0.06 sec, 3.45 MB]				[memory]

You can see that @dev and @live get read twice for some reason... could that be a symptom?

Correction I'm using D6 in this instance — too many sites on the go ;)

Ok I did some digging. It seems that $source_db_url and target_db_url inside sync.sql.inc, starting at line 144 are not getting any values passed to them from reading the aliases file.

If I hard code the values:

$source_db_url = "mysql://dbuser:password@localhost/websitedb";

$target_db_url = "mysql://dbuser:password@localhost/websitedb";

It seems to work and I get the "You will destroy data from 1/1 and replace with data from 1/1" etc…

However there is a warning about using "temporary files to store and transfer sql-dump" — which is strange because I've defined these inside my aliases file as well — so something else is not getting passed.

After hitting "Y" to try the sync, I get the following:

ssh: Could not resolve hostname 1: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
ssh: Could not resolve hostname 1: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [receiver]
rsync error: unexplained error (code 255) at /SourceCache/rsync/rsync-40/rsync/io.c(452) [receiver=2.6.9]
ssh: Could not resolve hostname 1: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [sender]
rsync error: unexplained error (code 255) at /SourceCache/rsync/rsync-40/rsync/io.c(452) [sender=2.6.9]
ssh: Could not resolve hostname 1: nodename nor servname provided, or not known

Now that all said, if I do a drush status @live it's able to connect to live and give me the full status back, so it's not a connection issue. It seems variables are not getting passed to the sync function, that are getting passed to other functions.

My limited knowledge of drush is limiting my ability to diagnose any farther.

Any of this help? — using drush to sync sites would save so much time over the db dumps and gzip uploads every week.

I really appreciate your time and help!!