harold19

Having just lost a buch of files to this bug, I am having to remove Bittorrent Sync from all of my machines. Several of my files subject to this bug were overwritten by older files from another machine. I do wish they would sort it out, or at least try to respond to work with users -- there is little point progressing this software (or commercializing it, which would seem very worthwhile) when critical bugs (i.e . those that lead to data loss and reputational loss) remain unaddressed.

Having just lost a buch of files to this bug, I am having to remove Bittorrent Sync from all of my machines. Several of my files subject to this bug were overwritten by older files from another machine. I do wish they would sort it out, or at least try to respond to work with users -- there is little point progressing this software (or commercializing it, which would seem very worthwhile) when critical bugs (i.e . those that lead to data loss and reputational loss) remain unaddressed.

Yup, I agree that it is potentially good to transfer an open file before it is closed. But why oh why is Synch seeing an open file as not existing, transferring files back from another server, and then when sending the changed file back again going around in an infinite loop at the receiving end. Many folk seem to be having this issue, e.g http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/23392-forever-scrolling-history-of-failed-to-download-and-finished-syncing/

However, we should add that there is a problem (an unresolved bug discussed on various threads) to do with how BitTorrent Sync handles some open files. If files are open it seems that connected machines somehow see the file as missing and requiring transferring back to the machine with the open file. It it is possible to overwrite the open file then this results in potential (and actual) data loss. For example many text editors open files, but do not lock them. The open file will then be overwritten by an identical or older version of the file from a different server. The editor might alert the user to the fact that the currently edited file has be altered by another process (or might simply reload the older version of the file). It seems to me that this is a critical issue affecting safety aspects of the software, and must be addressed soon.

Does anyone have any idea as to progress on sorting out this problem. It is going to be a showstopper for me -- unfortunate given that Sync is the most exciting software I have encountered in a while. It seems to relate to files which are somehow open (but not locked) - in my case, bits of my firefox profile and also files open in a text-editor. The receiving computer somehow manages to send a changed file (identical but slightly time touched) back to the computer on which the file is open. This then leads to potential data loss as the receiver tries to send outdated files back (in my text editor I see this as a message "an external application has altered your text file - do you want to load the modified file" - if I do so then I lose all my edits since my last save. I am using Win 8.1 on the computer where files are actually altered, and XP on the passive recipient (in terms of all of these files). Both computers are time synchronised to within a second. It would seem to be a pretty serious bug (and one that should be pretty easy to debug) yet this has been going on for some time. Any help much appreciated to enable me to continue using BTS with less trepidation. Below is a snatch of my endlessly repeated log file (in this case part of a firefox profile on a the "receiving" computer which does not use this profile in firefox and yet send unmodified "old" files back to the computer that opened the files. [2014-02-14 00:16:02.359] Torrent \\?\X:\TheData\Firefox Profiles\aks7663b.default\Cache\C\68\6BEA5m01 status:137 error:<NULL> meta:1 conns:1 io:0 [2014-02-14 00:16:02.359] Torrent \\?\X:\TheData\Firefox Profiles\aks7663b.default\Cache\B\8C\53ADAm01 status:152 error:PostDownload: Cannot create a file when that file already exists. meta:1 conns:0 io:0 [2014-02-14 00:16:02.359] Error downloading file Firefox Profiles\aks7663b.default\Cache\B\8C\53ADAm01: PostDownload: Cannot create a file when that file already exists. [2014-02-14 00:16:02.359] Force unloading torrent \\?\X:\TheData\Firefox Profiles\aks7663b.default\Cache\B\8C\53ADAm01 [2014-02-14 00:16:02.359] Torrent \\?\X:\TheData\Firefox Profiles\aks7663b.default\Cache\A\4A\55BA6d01 status:137 error:<NULL> meta:1 conns:1 io:0 [2014-02-14 00:16:02.359] Torrent \\?\X:\TheData\Firefox Profiles\aks7663b.default\Cache\9\F0\5B1E9d01 status:152 error:PostDownload: Cannot create a file when that file already exists. meta:1 conns:0 io:0