Could not be sync'd - no permission

#1

Hey there,

I’m having trouble syncing my entire User folder on Windows 10. For the sake of clarity, the user name is “John”.

When I select the folder to sync, it acts as though it works but does not sync. If I go to oDrive > Sync To oDrive > Open John folder [invalid], it opens up an oDrive window that tells me “John in C:\Users could not be synced. No permission.”

I have tried following the steps here to make the group Administrators to the owner of the folder, but no change:

Any other thoughts? Thanks.

#2

Hi @psymbionic,
You won’t be able to sync your entire user folder because that will include the odrive default folder, along with the odrive configuration information, sync databases, etc. You can end up with an infinite sync loop that way because odrive will be syncing itself.

Instead, try syncing specific folders in your user directory. Usually this is Documents, Desktop, Downloads, Pictures, Music, Videos, etc.

#3

I forgot to mention, the first thing I did was move the oDrive folder. Is it actually impossible to do?

#4

Hi @pysmbionic,
Yeah, you will still not be able to because of the application data in our configuration folder. It will start syncing its own configs, which will change the configs, which will sync the configs… ad infinitum.

Aside from that, there are files inside the user folder that can change constantly that aren’t files you should be syncing (application caches/databases/binaries/configurations and general temporary files, for example). Attempting to sync this type of stuff can end up leading to a poor user experience because of the constant activity and overhead. A lot of those structures end up being very extensive, too, which exacerbates the issue.

Since odrive is a real-time sync product, which is constantly monitoring both the local and remote side for changes, it is focused on syncing your user-generated data, instead of operating system and app generated configuration data. The later type of data is better managed by traditional backup, where only local changes (as opposed to local and remote changes) need to be accounted for and the backup process is periodically scheduled instead of running in real-time, all the time.