I have just discovered that two documents (at least!) have been overwritten by older versions. How do I track what is happening, find out why it happened, identify which other files may have suffered the same problem, and prevent it from happening again?
Hi @bmff.engagement,
Can you tell me what storage you are using?
Can you also describe your typical sync use? Are you regularly syncing files on multiple machines?
Syncing with Google Drive. Yes, I am syncing with multiple machines, but this is nothing to do with simultaneous updates on different machines.
Not sure what the question about ‘typical sync use’ means … I generally sync before accessing files when I am aware of having worked on another machine.
Hi @bmff.engagement,
With Google drive you can check check the history and retrieve previous versions. Use the “information” icon on the Google Drive web client.
For history on your entire drive, make sure you click on “My Drive” on the left side and then the “i” icon on the right side and select “Activity”
This page has more information on these Google Drive features:
https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2409045
Okay, I have another two files which are not syncing.
I have edited them both on one machine, odrive seems to be running fine, other files are being updated, but these two are not. I look on Google Drive and the older version of each file is just sitting there.
New files in the same directory are being uploaded, but a changed file is not.
What tests can I run to narrow down the source of the problem?
Hi @bmff.engagement,
If you rename those files, do they upload, or are they still stuck? What if you make a copy of them?
Do you see them listed in the waiting or not allowed sections in the odrive menu?
I have had a hunt around the Odrive site, and can’t find the waiting and not allowed sections, or even a plausible menu where I might find them. Sorry. Can you point me in the right direction, please?
I made a copy of the file and it sync’d within a minute or two. Not tried renaming it yet.
Hi @bmff.engagement,
You can find the odrive menu in your system tray. The waiting and not allowed sections will show up if there are any files/folders in them.
On Windows:
On MacOS:
Please take a look at this section of our usage guide for more information: https://docs.odrive.com/docs#section--using-windows-sync-
If you are using Linux, you can use the status --waiting and status --not_allowed commands. This post has more details on that: How can I use the CLI to check odrive status?
I’m using Linux, so it is the command line interface. The instructions given are horrible! And they don’t work on my machine. But a small tweak gives me the status, the last part of which shows this:
Sync Requests: 0
Background Requests: 0
Uploads: 0
Downloads: 0
Trash: 17
Waiting: 0
Not Allowed: 30
I then checked the ‘not_allowed’ option and was given 30 lines, all of which looked like this one:
/home/paul/C/Old_Google_Docs/Before you write.gdocx - Please manage and edit your Google Doc files via the Google Drive web client.
The problem files reported are all .gdocx, but the files which are not syncing are not - I checked and they are not on the list of not_allowed files.
Hi @bmff.engagement,
Apologies for the instructions in that post. They pertained to MacOS in terms of actually accessing the terminal. In the Linux case it is assumed you already know how to use the CLI, so the important part is just the commands to run, like status.
For the two files that are not syncing can you cd into the folder and run the CLI command:
syncstate [filename here]
to see what if it shows synced or not synced?
If you touch the two files in question and then use the CLI command:
refresh .
Will they upload?
Sadly, of the two files, one has been updated multiple times and the last time finally triggered a sync. The other one, I did as you suggested and renamed it, and the renamed file synced. The original file is still present on the second machine, so odrive must have treated the renamed file as a new file.
But this means I don’t have any files now to test this on. Next time …
Thanks for your help.
No worries @bmff.engagement. The important thing is that things are moving forward and in sync. Just let me know if you hit this situation again.