Error message about delete and file name too long for Recycle Bin for folders/files no one is modifying

We are evaluating ODrive as a replacement for Procore Sync. One of my testers keeps getting popups like these:
15be9907-a308-4819-8b7f-68b5dee82356 c446b612-f171-4be9-8423-3264d9942998

These particular folders and files are for finished change orders that no one is modifying. So far he is telling it no because he fears it is going to delete the data.

Hi @Brett_B,
Thanks for reaching out.

When you see this pop-up, it means odrive no longer sees the item where it originally was on Procore storage, and is trying to sync that change down to the local system. This means that someone already moved or deleted the folder in Procore. odrive always does its best to preserve data, so it is attempting to move this folder to the local Windows Recycle Bin, but Windows is rejecting the attempt because of the path length.

Can you confirm you still see these items listed in Procore storage? If so, it may be that the folder was moved to another location, “out of view” of what is currently synced on the user’s local system.

The important thing to keep in mind is that odrive is not initiating or causing the delete. It is just trying to match what has already taken place on Procore storage.

Can you also send a diagnostic from the odrive tray menu from this user’s system? We can take a closer look at the configuration and activity.

We narrowed it down. Under the folder they have a Submitted and Approved folders. The errors are being generated when someone moves a subfolder from submitted to approved and ODrive is trying to remove the previous folder from Submitted.

I explained to him that for now just tell it yes to delete and we are going to work on reducing some file/folder names.

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odrive, itself, is compatible with long paths. Unfortunately you can still run into these types of issues with other applications. It is a bit baffling that Microsoft still hasn’t completely solved this issue in Windows.

You can skip to the bottom of this message for a very short summary (In summary) of how to handle this, but I will also provide all of the context about why this is happening, below:



The short answer for what is happening and how to immediately resolve it:

This message indicates that someone has deleted an item with a long path within the remote storage (that item no longer exists on the remote storage). odrive has detected this change within the remote storage and is trying to sync that change to the local computer (delete the local item because its remote counterpart no longer exists). The “too long” pop-up you are seeing is actually from Windows, and happens when the path of the item is too long for Windows to put it into its Recycle Bin.

Clicking “Yes” will confirm that you are okay with just deleting the item instead of having it placed in the Windows Recycle Bin (which Windows is unable to do because of the long path).

Read further for a way to automate this.



The long, detailed answer:

When an item is deleted on your remote storage, odrive will see this and want to sync the delete to the local machine. When it does, it tries to do it in the safest way possible, by moving the item to the OS recycle bin to allow recovery, if needed.

Unfortunately Windows has issues with compatibility with long paths, so when odrive asks Windows to move an item with a long path to the recycle bin, Windows produces this message stating that it cannot move it, and if you would like the item to be “permanently” deleted from the local system instead of moved to the recycle bin. If you click “yes”, the item will be deleted and the message will go away. If you click “no”, the item will not be deleted and then odrive will attempt to sync the delete again, at a later time, which will pop this message up, again.

We added an advanced feature to recent versions of odrive to allow an override to specify that odrive should automatically “permanently” delete the item from the local system if an error is hit when trying to move to the recycle bin. The documentation for that feature is here: Advanced client options

To utilize this feature, you will want to:

  1. Check if the “osTrashOverride” option exists in the “odrive_user_general_conf.txt” file in the root of the odrive folder (just double-click on the file to open it). If that option doesn’t exist, continue to step 2., otherwise skip to step 5.

  2. Exit odrive

  3. Download the latest version from here: Set Up Your odrive and then install.

  4. Once installed, check if the “osTrashOverride” option exists now. If that option still doesn’t exist, delete the “odrive_user_general_conf.txt”. A new file will be generated, automatically, with the new “osTrashOverride” option available.

  5. In the “odrive_user_general_conf.txt” file change:
    "osTrashOverride": 0,
    to
    "osTrashOverride": 1,
    and then save the file. The change will take effect within about 30 seconds.



In summary:

odrive is trying to sync that remote delete to your local system by moving it to the Windows Recycle Bin (which will allow recovery), but Windows has poor long path support.

To deal with this, do one of the following:

  • Choose “Yes” in the Windows pop-up that appears when this happens

or

  • Enable the “osTrashOverride” option, as above, and the Recycle Bin will be automatically skipped when there is an issue moving something to it.