Sync stuck in a loop with certain "tilde" files

[mattialandoni]

Hi

I really love BitTorrent Sync, and I am using it massively with good results. However, I have a little annoying problem.

First of all, I have Sync installed on three computers. Two of them are Windows 8 machines, and one is Windows 7.

Every so often, the Sync program seems to get stuck in a loop. The symptoms are as follows.

- Upload and download speed is zero, but the tray icon is spinning like the program is working
- There is some file named "~filename.ext!Sync" that doesn't go away, even if I delete or rename "filename.ext". If I delete it, it gets recreated.
- Occasionally, the "~" file gets uploaded or downloaded

Anyone has any idea of what's going on??

It happened twice so far. The first time I was able to make it go away but I don't remember how. This time there seems to be nothing to do.

Thanks for listening,

Matt

[GreatMarko]

Anyone has any idea of what's going on??

Filenames beginning with a "~" are generally temporary files created by other applications. For example, when you open a file in Microsoft Office, it creates a temporary/lock file that starts with a "~".

 

Sync is unable to sync files when they are open/locked/in use by other applications, as is generally the case with "~" files.

 

To fix your current issue, stop Sync on all your devices, delete any .!Sync files on all you devices, then restart Sync on your devices

 

Then, to prevent a repeat of this, you should probably consider excluding files starting with a "~" character from syncing by using your .SyncIgnore files.

[mattialandoni]

Thank you.

 

What I called "~" files are always .!Sync files created by Sync itself, so locking by other applications shouldn't be a problem. (There is no concurrent software like Dropbox, to anticipate an obvious question). These get usually created and destroyed in the normal sync process, but every so often it seems Sync starts to think that one of these files is not its own temporary file, but it's a legit file that needs to be synced. I might be wrong though.

 

I agree that stopping Sync on all my devices at once and deleting all !Sync files would work, but that would require taking my work computer home, or viceversa, which is not something I can do on a sustainable basis. Also, I am not very familiar with the use of .SyncIgnore, but am I right to think that I need to set that separately in every directory? Is there a way to ask Sync to ignore all files starting with "~" by default?

 

Thanks again and best,

 

Matt

[ctismer]

About controlling all your machines at once, I recommend LogMeIn to you.

The free version is all you need to set up once, and then you can forget about

The simutaneous stop-adjust-fix-restart btsync problem.