Can't unsync files: "No permission" error

Troubleshooting
1

I use odrive to sync my files to my Amazon Cloud Drive, and usually everything works just fine.

Recently I updated my Amazon desktop app, and used it to upload the contents of a couple of folders to my drive. I uploaded them to the correct location, so odrive recognizes that the files are synced. However, when I right-click a file and select “unsync”, I get the “No permission” error.
I should point out that other files on the system are unsynced without any issues. Any ideas?

Thanks.

2

Hi,
Can you clarify the flow of data in this scenario? It sounds like you used the Amazon Drive Desktop client to import data into Amazon Drive. Did you then sync that data down to your computer?

No permission indicates that we are trying to unsync, but the OS is not letting us. The most direct thing to look at it permissions to those files (and the parent folder) in this case.

If you add a new file alongside these files, are you able to unsync that?

There was a lengthy thread for this type of error here, where the issue ended up being the ACLs, which are more obscure than standard permissions:

3

The data flow is:

  • I have an odrive folder where all my files are located.
  • Odrive has created a matching folder for the one I wish to sync on my cloud drive, but it is empty
  • I use the Amazon desktop app to upload files from my local folder to the matching one created on the drive
  • After doing so, I have the little green circle icon on my file, indicating it is synced with the drive
  • I then right-click the file and try to unsync it.

Permissions are fine, both for the folder, parent folder and the files inside. I also restarted my computer a couple of times, in case that releases some handles or something, but that didn’t work.
In order to unsync it I need it to be on the drive first. Which method do you want me to use to get it to the drive?

I’ll have a look at that discussion and see if it helps.

Thanks.

4

Hi,
Can you provide a couple of screenshots so I can see what you are looking at? Some of what you describe doesn’t make sense to me, but I have also not used the Amazon desktop client for a while.

What I would expect is something like this:

  • You have a folder with your files in it that you want to get up to Amazon. ex: ~/My Photos/
  • You choose to upload ~/My Photos/ to “My Photos” folder in Amazon
  • In the corresponding odrive folder (~/odrive/Amazon Cloud Drive/My Photos) you would start to see .cloud files appearing as the Amazon desktop client uploads those files. Those files may download if you have set the “Auto Download Limit” in the odrive tray menu to an appropriate value. There are also folder sync rules that could be applied to cause the files to download automatically too, but I don’t want to make this too complicated yet (too late?)

Since there are a number of possible scenarios, I just want to make sure I am clear on yours.

Thanks!

5

The discussion you sent seems to be Mac related, I’m using Windows 10.
This is what a folder looks like:

Pasted image1056×428 54.2 KB

As you can see, once I upload the files to Amazon with their app, they are not deleted from the source folder. Odrive then considers them synced, as they are located both locally and on the drive in matching paths.
I have the option of unsyncing them, which usually works by replacing them with the place holder files, but for some reason doesn’t work in a couple of folders right now.

Didn’t quite follow what you meant at the end of the post though :slight_smile:

6

Thanks.

I guess where I am confused is I don’t understand where the Amazon desktop app fits in here. The odrive app will sync things up and down automatically, so if you put items into the odrive folder they will sync up, get badged, and then you can unsync all without needing to use the Amazon desktop client at all.

From what you are saying it sounds like you are using the Amazon Desktop app and odrive from the same place…?

As an experiment, can you add another file into the folder you show in the screenshot above (just copy a file in from somewhere), wait till it syncs (green badge) and then try to unsync it? I just want to test the process without the Amazon desktop client being in the mix.

7

You’re exactly right, I am using them from the same place. The reason I’m doing so is that there are so many files in the odrive folder, and it takes odrive ages to get through them all. Since some files are more important to me I’d like to sync them first, but odrive syncs automatically, and I can’t dictate the order of the sync, so I stopped the odrive sync, letting the Amazon app upload things manually instead.

Since this is the case, and the sync queue is extremely long, I’m not quite sure how to get odrive to sync the new file I created in the problematic folder. Is there a way to get odrive to sync a specific file?

8

Hi,

I have de same problem! I didn’t use the client of amazon. I only use the odrive and didn’t work -.-

Is tell me you don’t have permission…

Print:

Help!

9

@SivanBH92,
For items that you want to prioritize, it is possible to kick these off by manually right-click->refreshing the folder in question. This will not work all the time if the folder is inside a folder that is currently active already.

I have a feeling that the Amazon app may be doing something to the files to prevent us from removing them. Did the experiment to add a file to that same folder (without using the Amazon app) work?

10

@vaniaxsantos
Are you able to unsync items inside that folder, or do the items inside also give you that error? Sometimes this can be caused by strange permissions of some items or because some items are currently open or in-use, which prevents us from uncaching them.

11

It did work, the file was unsynced without a hitch.
Files uploaded from the same folder using the app still cannot be unsynced.
The weird thing is, that I can change the file names and move them, I mean the files seem to be free to move around, so why can’t odrive touch them?

12

Just to be clear, if you add a new file into that folder and upload it, it will not unsync? Just trying to get a clear scenario I can investigate here.

Thanks!

13

Yes - if I add a file and then upload it using the app, and then try to unsync it with odrive, it will not unsync. However, if the file was automatically synced by odrive, then I can unsync it.

14

Really strange. The only thing I can think of is that the Amazon app is doing something funky to the files. I’ll see if I can test it today on my own system.

15

Thank you very much!

16

I found some time to test this, but I don’t see the same issue you are. If you exit odrive, exit the Amazon Desktop client (make sure you do it from their tray menu), and then restart odrive do you still see the unsync error?

17

Yes, I do.
I also restarted my computer a couple of times, nothing seems to fix this.

18

We can try running the following command for a file that does unsync fine and a file that is showing this issue? We can compare to see if the ones that have issues have any funky permissions or attributes with this command from a command prompt:

powershell -command "& {$the_file=\"$env:userprofile\odrive\PATH_TO_FILE_HERE\";Get-Acl \"$the_file\" | Format-List; dir \"$the_file\";}"

You would run this command once for a file that can unsync just fine and then once for a file that is showing this problem. Change PATH_TO_FILE_HERE to your correct path. For example, it should look something like: Amazon Cloud Drive\Music\something.mp3

19

The owner, group and access sections are identical for both files.
The mode is slightly different: both files have ‘a’ but the problematic file also has ‘r’.

20

Thanks. The “r” means the file is marked as “read only”. If you remove that setting then it should unsync properly. I don’t know why it would be set as such, but it seems like the Amazon app is doing something funky to the file when uploading.