Hi,
I have just installed and am testing odrive on a windows 7pro system with amazon cloud as storage. I set up a new encrypted folder called ‘odrive encrypted folder’ using the steps on the odrive site. It created a windows folder called encryptor within which this folder resides. I then did the passphrase on the folder and then tested by dropping a file into this folder and syncing and everything went well. When i log into amazon cloud drive i could see in the encrypted folder a file with a cryptic filename. On the desktop I could still see the underlying file and open it. So far so good.
I then synced a complete folder with subfolders and files from my computer (right clicking on the folder to sync). It opened up an explorer page into odrive and asked me to pick a location. I picked the ‘odrive encrypted folder’ location. Everything seemed fine. I then waited for about half a day and now checked and see that in the computer encryptor folder under the originally created ‘odrive encrypted folder’ there is still just the one original file and nothing new has been added. However when I log into amazon cloud drive through the desktop app, there are now a bunch of folders and files within the same encrypted folder but they are not encrypted; as in i can open them from the amazon cloud drive itself.
So what am I doing wrong? I know i can drag and drop a file into the encrypted folder but can I not sync folders, files from a different part of the computer in the way I did? Or do I have to copy every folder that I wish to encrypt into this encrypted folder?
In our current app design, to encrypt your data, everything has to be placed inside "Encryptor" folder (e.g. in your case "/Encryptor/odrive encrypted folder). If you directly upload files into “odrive encrypted folder” folder it won’t encrypt your data at all since it has to go through encryptor as processor.
This means, currently this isn’t possible, but we are looking at offering this in our future version of encryption. In new encryption flow, user will be able to encrypt any folder / sub-folder mounted to odrive (default folder or external folders). I cannot promise when these changes will be available to end users but I can ensure you, it is in our roadmap and we are working hard to bring this out to users as early as possible.
Hi @AsifNisarr
Thanks for the quick reply. So at this moment, the only option is to manually copy folders/files using the windows folder setup into the encryptor folder. It will make the process slower this way. Also as this will duplicate my files, I guess after it is done, I can unsync the files under the encryptor folder ?
tad
I’ve posted some of this in a few different places but I wanted to mention it here too:
We don’t officially support user-created junctions/symlinks/hardlinks for a number of reasons. The short of it is that the behavior can be unpredictable and users can get into some disastrous situations in certain circumstances, especially with certain types of storage sources. I saw a case during my testing where the entire source folder was destroyed after a remote rename of a symlinked directory. It also complicates sync substantially and can create issues with reflection/pick-up of changes, issues with permissions, CPU heat, disk churn, inaccurate scans, and other problems.
Storage sources without a “trash” (FTP, WebDAV, SFTP, for example) are even more risky because you can create reactions on the storage source that cannot be corrected or recovered. The bad results I spoke of above were actually on Dropbox, but I don’t consider it more susceptible than others.
This all being said, even though we don’t officially support them, it is ultimately your system and you are free to do whatever you feel is best for your own use case and skill set. I realize there is a strong case for trying them in this scenario because we do not yet support encryption on external folder mounts (sync to odrive). You can use these types of file system-level links with success if you know what you are doing and understand the limitations and caveats. It is just not something we test anymore and we can’t recommend them for the average user.
Hi @Tony and @pkoenighofer
Thanks for the suggestions and potential issues. I will have to read more to understand as you say the risks about using hardlinks.
In fact, I am facing a new strange issue now. I was a short time back looking through my folders in my hard drive and the only folder (F:/Home/My documents/my pictures/ Folder name/) that I synced yesterday to the encrypted odrive folder (but as we discussed above did not encrypt) is now near empty!! It now just has two files. The time stamp for last modification for this folder is 6:07pm today. But i did not move anything at that time today. One file reads as “.odrive” and has a 1kb file size. The other is a file with a jumbled file name ie an encrypted file and has a file size of 5395 kB. This file size corresponds to the only file i did encrypt correctly yesterday by dragging to the encryptor folder (actually it has a file size of 5394kb but near same). I am not sure how this encrypted file landed in my original folder location in my hard drive.
All my other files and subfolders are missing from the original location. All these folders, files are in the “odrive/amazon cloud folder/pictures subfolder”. So i have not lost anything. I just dont understand what happened. Is this expected on syncing?
To clarify, the only change i made this afternoon around 1230pm was that i moved the synced contents within ACD using the odrive folder structure (ie moved folder contents except the encrypted file from odrive/amazon cloud drive/odrive encrypted folder to a different location namely odrive/amazon cloud drive/pictures as it made more sense). All this movement was done around 1230 pm and seemed near instantaneous. Could this move have caused some error when the original folder resynced itself later this evening?
If so i will have to very careful syncing folders. Again i have multiple backups so I am fine, but wanted to check with the experts to see how i landed in this position and what i should do in the future if I wish to move folder/files that were previously synced.
thanks for taking the time reading my issue and your suggestions
Hi,
Can you send a diagnostic from the odrive tray menu?
Is this correct?:
You had F:/Home/My documents/my pictures/Folder name/ mapped to an Encryptor folder (sync to odrive)
Inside Encryptor you saw that the data was not being encrypted and instead was being stored in its native format.
You selected this non-encrypted data in Encryptor and moved it to a location in odrive/amazon cloud drive/pictures
If this is the case, the move from encryptor would have moved the items from that location (in Encryptor) to the new one (odrive/amazon cloud drive/pictures). This would’ve resulted in a removal of the corresponding items in the F:/Home/My documents/my pictures/Folder name/ since it is mapped to the location where the data was removed from, and is now empty.
What it sounds like you should do is remove the “sync to odrive” mapping on F:/Home/My documents/my pictures/Folder name/ (right-click->remove sync) and then re-enable it (right-click->sync to odrive), pointing to the proper folder in odrive/amazon cloud drive/pictures
Almost.
It sounds confusing but under Odrive i have two folders: ACD and Encryptor. Encryptor has one folder: ‘Odrive encrypted folder’. The only file there was the encrypted file (that i could read) that i had correctly put in there. The files from my F drive I had synced were never seen there. Rather when I clicked ACD, there was a similar named ‘Odrive Encrypted Folder’ and under that were all the subfolders and files as well as the one encrypted file (which here was cryptic). So basically it seems like the software presents the encrypted folder in two locations. It was from this location (not encryptor) that i moved files to the other location called pictures.
I sent u the log just now, thanks (PS Meant to add that i have copied other folders instead of syncing into the ACD pictures folder unrelated to this issue. U will probably see that when u examine the logs)
I will do the unsync u mentioned on my source F drive folder and then reenable to see if those files pop back. If not, i can remount my old backups and copy them I guess.
So for future reference, once i sync folders, I should not move them around in the folder structures in Odrive, correct?
This makes sense. The confusion is that we have a couple different layers of abstraction/redirection.
Remember that Encryptor folders point to folders in your storage somewhere. It sounds like this location is “odrive/ACD/Odrive Encrypted Folder”. When you expand that folder you see all files that exist in there, both encrypted and not encrypted. The “odrive/Encryptor/Odrive Encrypted Folder” folder, however, will not show unencrypted files that may exist in the target encrypted folder, which is why you didn’t see the files mapped in from "F:/Home/My documents/my pictures/Folder name/ " in the Encryptor folder, but you did see them in the “regular” ACD folder.
When you moved the files from the “regular” ACD folder (“odrive/ACD/Odrive Encrypted Folder”), this ended up translating to a removal of the files from the “F:/Home/My documents/my pictures/Folder name/” folder because it is mapped to the “odrive/Encryptor/Odrive Encrypted Folder” which is mapped to the “odrive/ACD/Odrive Encrypted Folder” … oh no I’ve gone cross-eyed…
To answer your last question, you can move things around. Normally the moves are straightforward. In this case, though, we were moving through some wormholes.
Thank you for getting back to me so fast. Its amazing the speed of all your responses.
So i unsynced and resynced the original folder. I now see placeholders in the original location folder. As I would like to retain the files at that original location rather than placeholders, is the process to doubleclick each subfolder or is there an easier way that will apply to the entire folder? Also i still see the encrypted file in that original source folder even though it doesnt exist on the currently mapped folder in ACD. I am not sure why it persists.
For future reference. When a source folder is synced to a cloud folder say on ACD, what is the best way to move these folders and files around in ACD or any other cloud storage without disturbing my original source folders?
