Some files don't sync to OneDrive for Business

Troubleshooting
1

I just installed odrive 5332 on my desktop (Mac OS X 10.11.4) and the first impression is good. It is much faster (CPU wise) than the official MS OneDrive client for a start.
However, some files fail to upload. I have 19 files under “Not Allowed” category and I am fine with that as I know OneDrive for Business puts a lot of restrictions on extensions, filenames, directory length etc.
But I also have 16 files in “Waiting” category. They are just normal files ranging in size from 16MB to 1.1GB. No strange characters or extensions, no deep folders. What I see is that each of these files goes through “Syncing” stage every 30 seconds or so, but goes back to waiting in less than a second afterwards.
Is this a known problem? I could not find any error message associated.

2

We need to add error messages to files in WAITING. I’ll increase the priority of that item.

Files are in WAITING when we there are temporary errors. Rate limiting is an example of a temporary error. Unless the source is giving us the wrong error code, files in WAITING should eventually resolve itself. Give it a day and update this thread if it is still WAITING.

3

One 16MB long file is on the “Waiting” list for over 24h despite that sync is retried once or twice a minute. I have synced quite a few files succesfuly in the last 24h thus I have doubts it is a temporary error.

4

Indeed. Can you send a diagnostic from the system menu? This will give us a look at what’s happening on your system. After you send it, ping this thread and we’ll have engineering take a peek.

thanks

5

I sent diagnostic data. Check the last one. There are 21 files that don’t sync. And further 8 files in “Not Allowed” group with error “There is an item already with that name”.

6

Thanks for the data. We can see the state of those files. The 21 files that do not sync are getting unspecified errors from OneDrive. Can you restart your odrive and see if that makes any difference?

Also, try uploading those files directly through OneDrive to see if it reveals any more information.

7

I restarted odrive several times but it did not help. I uploaded those files already via the web, but not with OneDrive client. OneDrive client is useless on a Mac so I do not know how to try really.

Anything else I can try?

8

Were you able to upload those files using the odrive web client or the native OneDrive web client?

9

Sorry for late reply. I tried to upload via odrive web but it failed again. I do not use OneDrive client as it is useless (CPU hog if you use anything over 10 files).

Then I logged to OneDrive for Business via the web and I noticed quite a few ~temp_ files. Indeed, all the files that did not sync had a ~temp_… file placeholder. I deleted them online and files synced successfuly. I did not see those files on my hard drive or on odrive web. Maybe you can make it more robust.

Does this affect ODfB filename restrictions even further? I know there are quite a few restrictions regarding filename, size etc.

10

I was able to reproduce the problem. Quit odrive while it is uploading files to OneDrive for Business. After restart, files will stay in “Waiting” list until you delete ~temp_ files on the web.

11

I found another case where this happens. I have bunch of files in one directory. I moved them to OneDrive using mv command in Terminal. odrive started to sync them immediatelly and many of the files were copied only partially. I had to go online and delete ~temp files to get sync completed.

12

Hi @damjan,

Thanks for bring your findings to us. Unfortunately, this is a known problem with OneDrive for Business source.

These are remote server’s failures which should be technically handled by server itself not by client (e.g. odrive app). Microsoft need to clean up these temp files but they don’t as of now =(

These are known cases which may lead to this problem:

  1. Internet / network faults during file upload
  2. Server/ request errors during file upload
  3. Exit and re-launch odrive app during file upload
  4. Select the file, Right click --> Stop during file upload
  5. Goto tray menu --> Syncing list, click on file name and press OK to stop the in-progress file upload.
  6. more… (means anything which may interrupt file upload)

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Asif

13

Hi @AsifNisarr,

That is is really terrible. Do you know if MS is working on solving this? Have you been in touch with them regarding this issue?

14

Hi @damjan,

Yes, we have already reached to them but their previous response indicated that there won’t be any immediate action. We’ll ping them again and see what is priority / status of this item.

Unfortunately, user need to remove these staging / temp files from OneDrive for Business when upload interrupts, until they pushes fix for this problem.

Thanks,
Asif

15

I’m having the same problem, but can’t figure out a way of batch deleting these hundreds of ~temp files from the search across directories without installing the crippled Onedrive Business desktop client. The onedrive business interface doesn’t seem to allow it. Am I missing some straightforward way of getting rid of these ~temp things?

16

Unfortunately, there is currently no other option available to delete these temp files from OneDrive for Business. We fully understand that it is very painful for end-users to look for temp files and individually remove these files from the source but there is nothing much we can do =(

We’ll provide an update to our users as soon as Microsoft resolves this problem.

Thanks,
Asif

17

Hi @AsifNisarr,

Any update from Microsoft on this matter?

18

Hi @damjan,
There isn’t any update on this yet, unfortunately.