Sync issues

deeemm said 1 year ago:

Hi.

I’m another mac user trying to find a suitable replacement for the soon to be defunct apple mobileme service. I have set up auto syncing for several folders so that i can use my online storage for sharing information between machines.

What I have noticed is that in the workspace desktop app, if the file sync is interrupted, the whole transfer process starts again. In effect this means that the first folder sync I added to the list NEVER completes. Whats worse is that the dozen or so folder syncs that are after this in the list NEVER run.

It appears to me that my data never actually syncs. i am not sure if my data is available online or not. Additionally, trying to manually run each sync seems not to work.

To speed things along I have even tried manually uploading the folder contents to my online storage (i zipped it up and manually transferred vie the online interface it as the upload was simply too slow). However the sync does not seem to compare the source and destination folders, it simply seems to want to upload the whole thing again.

In total I currently have about 6 gigs worth of data that i wish to share between machines using online storage. In time this size will grow as more info is added. I am really worried that this solution is simply not scalable. If I am having trouble with 6 gigs, what happens when I start to get towards the limit of the storage, say 60 gigs or more??? For clarity my current data amounts to approx 6 folders of a gig a piece.

Can anyone explain to me how the auto sync actually works? I am at a loss to find any info on what triggers the sync.

My questions…

- What triggers the sync
- Does workspace desktop need to be running for the sync to work
- Can an interrupted sync continue from where it left off
- How can I manually run a sync
- How does the auto sync determine what needs to be updated, or does it simply update everything again?
- if a sync gets interrupted, how are later syncs in the list run?

Frustrated.

/DM

timb said 1 year ago:

@deeemm

There are four different options you can select from regarding when the sync takes place. You may want to review the following help article for additional information on these settings along with answers to how you can manually run a sync and what options you have regarding what is updated with each sync:

Managing Workspace Desktop Sync Folders Settings on a Mac

If interrupted, the sync will not continue from where it left off, it will need to be restarted.

Tim B

deeemm said 1 year ago:

Hi Tim thanks for th quick reply.

I have already red that article, unfortunately it does not help answer my questions. In fact I have a few more…

- Pease define ‘many times a day’
- Does the sync get triggered the instant a file gets updated or added?

With respect to the sync restarting if it is interrupted. So far every day this week I have got to work and opened the workspace desktop app. This appears to start the sync process. Unfortunately the actual process is so slow that by the time I have to leave work to go home it still has not finished the FIRST sync transfer on my list. The sync gets interrupted and so the whole process starts again when I get home.

All this service seems to be doing is eating up bandwidth for no outcome.

is anyone able to answer my questions.?

T.I.A.

/DM

timb said 1 year ago:

@deeemm

I am not certain exactly how often the automatic sync is run. You can review the sync log for the actual sync task, under the V icon you click ‘show log’ and it will display a detailed list of every time it runs with time stamps. In order to determine why your sync is not completing while at work we would need you to provide the offsyncservice.log, desktoptools.log, and the log file for the sync task to our Support Team for an additional review.

Tim B

deeemm said 1 year ago:

Are my posts even getting posted?

Posted to this thread twice now and nothing has shown

/DM

deeemm said 1 year ago:

Great so two very verbose posts lost. I can see that these forums are about as reliable as the sync service.

As I am determined to get this resolved so I will type it all out again.

The Sync does not complete as it is too slow. My first sync folder is over 2 gigs and it simply does not finish in the 6 hours that I am at work. As a result none of my sync folders get synced.

I checked the sync logs and the sync appears to run only once a day. I also noticed that there are a lot of sync failures yet no reason is recorded in the log as to why the failure occurred; this is pretty hopeless, what chance does anyone have of fixing the issue?

Also noticed that there are a lot of ‘failed to log in’ messages. This is REALLY frustrating as the progress bar shows the file transfer progress happening, you can even see the file name changing giving the appearance that the files are being transferred when in fact there is an authentication error. Clicking on the Login tab in the workspace desktop shows that login verification is required, when I click on this my login is verified but the current sync transfer fails. What i would like to know is what is the client doing showing files being uploaded when clearly this is not the case. Does the workspace desktop client simply throw files down my internet pipe in the hope that they might end up at my online storage folder?

Come to thing of it, why do I even need to manually log in? I can understand having to do this once the very first time that i use the client, but not every time. this is ridiculous and yet another contributor towards the reliability issues I am seeing. I expect that once I have added my account details to the workspace client I should never need to have anything to do with them again.

Anyhows, back to the sync issues…

So far I have noticed that each sync is run in order.
if a sync is interrupted it will start again from the beginning regardless of what has already been transferred.
The last few syncs on my sync list have yet to be run as a result.
I cannot delete a sync from my sync list
Once a folder has been added to the sync list I can then no longer rename the folder on my mac – even if I select a different folder from in sync list – it retains the yellow folder icon and will not allow me to edit it.
There is no prioritisation or cacheing of uploads. it starts from the beginning every time.
Syncs randomly fail for no apparent reason.

I am very frustrated. This service appears to be so unreliable as to be worthless.

I would like someone to give clarification on how this service is supposed to work. There is no documentation and I am pretty much in the dark as to how it is supposed to function. I am having so much trouble trying to sync 10 odd gigs worth of data, I shudder to think what will happen if I want to sync 100gigs.

I would also like clarification of my earlier unanswered questions.

Please pass this on to you techs if you are unable to answer my questions.

/DM

deeemm said 1 year ago:

Additionally and perhaps tellingly. I have just noticed after arriving at work this morning that the progress indicator and the file name continues to indicate that files are being transferred even though I do not actually have a network connection.

There is obviously no error checking in this application.

Can you please update the application / clients so that they function as advertised. Your side by side ‘ours versus theirs’ comparison infers that your online storage is a cut above the opposition feature wise. Unfortunately as far as speed and reliability are concerned it should not even be on the same table.

Getting very frustrated with this now.

Are any techs able to answer my questions?

deeemm said 1 year ago:

And another thing….

in addition to not being able to edit folder names that are included within a sync, I can also now lo longer add folders to my sidebar.

Why does your sync client need to mess with my operating system?? There is really no need for this.

PLEASE FIX THIS.

deeemm said 1 year ago:

AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH.

Your sync client has really screwed up my operating system.

As well as all of the other issues that I am experiencing with folders marked as sync folders I have now discovered that when I try to move a folder it will not let me. Instead it tries to copy the folder instead.

So now I’m sitting here trying to correlate some data to give to a client AND I CANNOT MOVE THE FOLDER as your client has locked it.

WHY IS THIS NECESSARY??

I CANNOT REMOVE THE FOLDER FROM MY SYNCS
I CANNOT DELETE THE SYNC
I CANNOT DO ANYTHING WITH THE FOLDER AS IT IS LOCKED.

When I purchased this and installed the client I expected it to sync / backup my files not mess with my operating system. I am now facing one very frustrated client who i will no doubt lose as a result of your amateurish software.

PLEASE FIX THIS (FAST).

Over being frustrated, now just plain angry.

/DM

emteec said 1 year ago:

I’ve found that:

a) Scan/comparison to see which files need uploading at start of every run takes ages…
b) a significant number of unchanged local files are re-uploaded for no reason.
c) often a number of files in an upload will fail for no particular reason.
d) when I log an issue with technical support:
i) They have no idea in which directories their own log files are stored.
ii) I need to repeatedly send them the same error details again & again…

deeemm said 1 year ago:

Agreed. Plus…

e) they do not seem to know how their product functions.

I’ve asked several times how I can delete a sync from the list. No one can tell me. There’s no delete button.

I managed to fix the hijacked folder issue, but this involved resetting permissions via sudo through the terminal, not something that I should have to do. Not sure why this happened, it’s been okay since. This issue may / may not be related to the client. At this stage I’m happy to put it down to an isolated issue, but the other problems are still making it unusable.

The client seems to recursively check EVERY file and folder. There is simply no need for this.

There is also no download caching, therefore if a download is interrupted it has to start again, not good.

As far as the log files go, I shouldn’t have to go looking in hidden folders for things – this is OSX not Windows. If the app is written correctly all errors should be posted to the error console. Expecting customers to hack their system to diagnose the fault is not on.

I tend to think that this app is simply ill conceived, to me it’s more a proof of concept than fully fledged product. I would not even give this a beta status. it has a long way to go. That said, I hope that they actually fix the issues. If not I will be looking for another webdav based sync client.

timb said 1 year ago:

@deeemm

I see that you were able to contact our support team with the requested log. Our team is reviewing this for you and will reply to your email as quickly as possible. If I receive any update prior to their response that is not account specific I will post it here.

Tim B

deeemm said 1 year ago:

Yes Tim, 5 days ago. I have received no correspondence since.

deeemm said 1 year ago:

Been having a bit of email ping pong with the support team and have finally managed to get to the bottom of the sync issues. Unfortunately there is no fix as the issues are due to limitations in the current client.

Thought I’d post an update to let anyone else with similar issues make some sense of the problem.

In a nutshell the current client functions like this…

- Auto syncs will recurse through ALL FILES to determine if they have been updated. In essence this is why it takes forever for my machine to do a sync. (now a total of 20 gigs)
- If an auto sync is interrupted it has to start again. (There is no caching of sync data.)
- Auto syncs are triggered approximately every 30 minutes
- Syncs cannot / are not run in parallel
- Delete button only shown on workspace desktop if sync not running
- If any scheduled sync is running delete button will be hidden for all syncs (a bug IMHO)
- Workspace desktop does not need to be running for syncs to occur
- The reason for errors not is recorded in log file is basically because there is no checking of error log size. Eventually error logs will consume hard drive and so for this reason verbose error logs disabled by default.
- You can run extended logging on a sync by holding down the Control key on your keyboard, then selecting “Run” from the sync menu

In addition I have been advised that Auto sync is no good for large syncs like mine…

In short I personally believe that the client is far from robust enough to be relied upon. It’s nowhere near as good as those offered by other online storage providers and is full of fundamental mistakes such as comparing dates of ALL files instead of comparing the dates of root level folders before selectively recursing though them and also not limiting the size of error logs. The fact that it is suggested that it should not be used for large syncs when in fact it is offered with the 100gigs of storage space is almost laughable.

All in all this means that if you are trying to use the client to sync large amounts of data you will likely suffer the same issues that I have. I have eventually managed to get things to sync by leaving my desktop running continuously for the past week, but due to the fact that the client recurses through ALL files to check what needs syncing even the subsequent updates it carries out are still taking ages. In essence this simply means that it is not reliable enough to use if you are reliant on data being available across other machines as I am.

However, complaints aside, I cannot lose sight of the fact that the price of the storage is a fraction of the opposition and it is not the only method of using the storage. I personally have opted to use my FTP client to sync data until such time as the client has been updated and is more reliable. Support have also been very helpful and have eventually answered all of my questions. They have also informed me that several improvements are being made to the way that the client operates although they cannot tell me when an updated client is likely to be released.

2/10 for the client
8/10 for support
10/10 for very cheap online storage

/DM

timb said 1 year ago:

@deeemm

Glad to hear our support team was able to address your sync issues and thank you for posting the resolution and feedback for other users.

Tim B