Files not syncing but show on odrive.com

[joncroco]

Hello,

Having an issue of files showing on odrive.com but they are not syncing locally. The blue checkmark shows. And I have done the “sync everything” and include sub-folders. Thoughts? This is happening several places on my ODrive.

[Tony]

Hi @joncroco,
Are the files showing up as placeholders (.cloud files), or not showing at all?

If they aren’t showing at all, do you see anything listed in the “not allowed” section of the odrive menu? It could be that the files that are missing have characters that are not allowed by the computer’s operating system.

[joncroco]

There are no placeholders or files. Its like the subfolder is just not syncing at all.

There are quite a few files in the Not Allowed. But its not even syncing folders. But I do see some of the folders and files that I am looking for in there.

Is there a reason for this? Could this be it?

[Tony]

Hi @joncroco,
Yes it could be. If you click on the items listed in the “not allowed” list, it will display the reason it is not allowed. Does it indicated that the items have illegal characters?

[joncroco]

Yes I have clicked on a few and they all said illegal file name. This is for folders and files. What does this mean? These files sync for GDrive just fine.

[Tony]

Hi @joncroco,
Please take a look at this post for more details on the characters to look out for.

Why are some of my files/folders missing from odrive? (Google Drive and others)

UPDATE: We have released a new version that will convert the illegal characters into legal equivalents while still trying to maintain similarity to the original characters. Missing file and folders should be rarely seen after updating. Previous post Some sources (especially Google Drive) allow characters in file and folder names that are considered “illegal” on some operating systems. When this happens, odrive can’t create the file or folder on the local system, so it is not shown. You …

Google Drive’s desktop app may be performing character substitution on your system to get around the Operating System requirements. This is something odrive used to do, but it ended up causing more problems than it solved, so we removed it. It is possible it will return in a later version, but there are no immediate plans for it.

[joncroco]

Oh. Boo. Thats no good. Then it cant actually sync everything. And I guess I dont understand how a file name is illegal if its allowed on the OS. I can name a file on Windows with these characters but Odrive isnt allowing it. Ok, thanks.

[Tony]

Hi @joncroco,
Can you provide an example of the files/folders that you are seeing in not allowed that should be allowed on Windows? In most cases odrive actually tries to write the file/folder to your system and then Windows rejects the name, which is when odrive lists it in the “not allowed” list.

If you are seeing that valid names are being rejected then we’ll want to investigate that.

Additionally, you can use the “send diagnostics” option in the odrive tray menu to generate a file named “current_odrive_status.txt” in the root of the odrive folder. This should list all of the items in the “not allowed” list, along with the reason they are not allowed.