1/ the situation
We use Google suite for mydomain.be
Our Windows 2016 server uses odrive to synch externally some project folder.
All users are on the same domain and have a google account users@mydomain.be.
We use the account admin@mydomain.be on the Windows 2016 server
We mount several project folders on the admin@mydomain.be google drive and we share those folders with someuser@mydomain.be working from distant location.
We use this command to mount one project folder: E:.odrive-agent\bin\odrive mount “E:\Data\AllProjectsFolders\Project_010” “/Google Drive/Data/Main/AllProjectsFolders/Project_010”
2/ the facts
During a training, oneuser@mydomain.be saved picture from his Android mobile phone in one sub-folder “Visites” that he created during the process of saving within the project folder he has access to
"/Google Drive/Shared with me/Project_010/Pictures/Visites"
This folder does not synch on the windows server for some strange reasons (all the Project_010 sub-folders synchronise, except this Visites subfolder
3/ trying to understand
3.1/ I did not unmount/mount the Project_010 folder yet … and I am not sure it will solve the problem
3.2/ I tried the following command on the windows server E:.odrive-agent\bin\odrive sync "/Google Drive/Data/AllProjectsFolders/Project_010/PHOTOS/Visites"
and I get this error message E:.odrive-agent\bin\odrive : Unable to sync Visites. This file is not inside an odrive folder.
3.3/ then I added manually a folder Visites on the windows server and discover that it was synchronising directly on the google drive … BUT NOW I HAVE TWO “Visites” SUB-FOLDERS ON MY GOOGLE DRIVE
3.4/ If I move or copy one picture from sub-folder Visites created in point 2 in the subfolder Visites created in point 3.3, pictures are then visible on the windows server after synch.
I do not have any clue, and could not check in a logbook or whatever system what’s happening and why this folder does not synch.
Really strange … first time it happens to me, odrive working quite well.
It could help if some additional tools could show why for which reason all this happens
Hi @phm,
It sounds like you have a fairly complex setup with network shares being used via Windows systems that are overlaid on top of odrive syncing folders. I would normally not recommend this type of setup, and instead share folder via the odrive app itself, but it sounds like it is working for you and your current issue shouldn’t be affected by the setup.
For this folder syncing issue, it may be possible that the folder on the remote side has an invisible character in it, like a leading or trailing space, which would prevent it from syncing down. Can you try renaming that folder on the remote side, via the odrive web client or the Google Drive web client, and giving it a simple name like ‘a’? If you do that, does the folder become syncable?
1/ Indeed, the folder Visites had a trailing space character at the end "Visites "
Removing the space synch the sub-folder and its content … WHOAA so simple, I should have thought about it, typically stupid “bug” … I will ask Google to remove trailing space when creating à folder !
Thanks for you advice …
2/ Regarding your first paragraph, I do not understand why you do not recommend our setup? Any more information from you will be highly appreciated.
We have a main share on the windows server “E:\Data\Main"
which is mapped as a network drive Z:\ on the client PC’s and the Office WIndows network.
Below that main share we have the projects sub-folders “E:\Data\Main\AllProjectsFolders\Project_008" “E:\Data\Main\AllProjectsFolders\Project_009" “E:\Data\Main\AllProjectsFolders\Project_010" “E:\Data\Main\AllProjectsFolders\Project_011"
etc.
We synchronise on the google drive only few project sub-folders in order to be accessible via users google drive shared with me section (no need to use vpn connection, and the project folder is accessible through google drive for all smartphone applications accessing to google drive without additional config) E:.odrive-agent\bin\odrive.exe mount “E:\Data\Main\AllProjectsFolders\Project_010” “/Google Drive/Data/Main/AllProjectsFolders/Project_010”
Hi @phm,
Thanks for the follow-up. I’m glad you were able to get it sorted out!
Sharing odrive folders can be problematic when dealing with placeholder files, since the clients accessing via the network share cannot sync placeholders and will rely on the server to do it. As the data sets get larger, or activity increases you could see delays with that.
It sounds like the majority of the access is done directly, via the main network-shared storage, so you may not run into this problem as often, if only mobile and remote users are interfacing via Google Drive.