Loss of data

[groomedmonkey]

Unfortunately I didn't have logging on but I just witnessed 3gb or so of data removed from all synced machines. I decided to sync my 20gb of project/work files between a Windows 8 machine and OSX. Everything seemed to work fine until I started editing Libre Office files on OSX (not sure if this is just incidental) and then all files within the folder tree the document was in vanished with the only clue being "removed [blah] before stasrting {various paths}" and "before server sync\ {various paths}*" messages in the History tab.

Luckily I backed up before diving in and only lost an hour or so work. Needless to say my confidence is totally shaken and won't be able to bring myself to using this app for anything serious until it is more stable (though who qualifies its stability I'm not sure). I was very excited about it and its prospects but so far Dropbox wins hands down, to my disappointment.

Anyone have similar experience with loss of data and what could of caused it? I'd love to restore my confidence :-S

[GreatMarko]

Luckily I backed up before diving in and only lost an hour or so work.

BitTorrent Sync will also, by default, backup any files it deletes - these can be found in the folder you're syncing's ".SyncTrash" folder

Needless to say my confidence is totally shaken and won't be able to bring myself to using this app for anything serious until it is more stable (though who qualifies its stability I'm not sure).

Please remember that this software is currently only an "alpha", and therefore, it is not recommended to use "alpha" software for syncing important/sensitive/critical data. If you're worried about losing data, you're perhaps best waiting until BitTorrent Sync matures out of "alpha", and "beta", until a "stable" release becomes available..

In the meantime, however, If you encounter issues using this "alpha" software, please see this thread

[groomedmonkey]

Hey Marko,

Thanks for response. Didn't realise that deleted files go somewhere - that is great! And yeah, I admit that I thought this was beta not alpha (my fault). I shall wait in heated anticipation and in meantime turn logging on and use it on smaller folders. It was roughly 45k files @ 20gb, if that is of any use.

[GreatMarko]

It was roughly 45k files @ 20gb, if that is of any use.

Hmmm.. that in itself shouldn't be the issue - BitTorrent Sync is currently capable of handling up to 1 million files (in total)

I suspect it may be some kind of peculiarity with the way Libre Office handles open files - I don't use Libre myself, but several other popular Office suites do tend to "lock" and/or create temporary "working" copies of files in the same directory when you're editing a document - which maybe what's causing BitTorrent Sync to trip up?

...in which case as a potential "work around" you could try using the .SyncIgnore files of BitTorrent Sync to "exclude" such temporary/lock files from syncing, so that only your actual correct Libre Office files sync?

[groomedmonkey]

Ahh I had wondered about those temp doc files. I will do some tests and see if I can reproduce what happened and then see if the exclusion file helps.

Also if BTSync is using a GIT structure where its mostly not going to be a GIT-friendly environment (lots of binary blob files changing all the time), then won't the .SyncTrash folder quickly become unwieldy and massive in most situations? Will there be, or is there already, provision to truncate or even automatically bracket the contents of this folder? I know tools like Synk does this as a "number of days to keep deleted files".

Sure enough I found the missing 3gb in there with frozen .~lock.filname.odt files.

[GreatMarko]

... won't the .SyncTrash folder quickly become unwieldy and massive in most situations? Will there be, or is there already, provision to truncate or even automatically bracket the contents of this folder? I know tools like Synk does this as a "number of days to keep deleted files".

Yes, this has been requested a number of times, so the developers are certainly aware of this need. Right now, files in .SyncTrash persist until you manually remove them, so you're right, you could end up with a lot of clutter in there! ...and as this is a "hidden" folder, not all users may even be aware of its existence and then wonder where all their free disk space has gone!

Anyway, as I say, the devs are aware of this, so hopefully we'll see either some form of "Empty Trash" button or "keep files in trash for X days" option coming soon!