hannahbanana Posted December 17, 2017 Report Share Posted December 17, 2017 I use sync across 3 macs on a local network. And I have lost count of the number of times this has happened to me - driving me crazy. I have 15TB+ of data synced, and every time I have to re-sync you're killing my hard drives. I have my machines set on a schedule to reboot / install updates periodically. I believe this is when it must happen - fairly unacceptable that Sync can't just fall back to the last saved version of the identity when this happens, rather than prompt for a new one. When I've poked around in application files - resilio sync etc there do seem to be backups that Sync is creating - what is the point of these if not to prevent this kind of crap happening? I also have each computer backed up with Time Machine. I've tried restoring the Sync files in Application Support, to no avail. Oddly, when I go ahead and create the new identity, it seems to remember my preferences (schedule, rate limits etc), just not my identity / folder indexing. If Sync isn't able to fall back to the last saved version, help me out - how do I do it via time machine? Is there no way to back up sync??? Very simple - what file / folder do I need to restore to get my old identity back and not have to re-index everything? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted December 19, 2017 Report Share Posted December 19, 2017 Have you also checked this thread? On 12/17/2017 at 3:15 PM, hannahbanana said: Sync can't just fall back to the last saved version of the identity when this happens well, actually it does. You can see two files sync.dat and sync.dat.old. The latter is the 'last saved version of the identity'. If both are corrupt and nonreadable, you're prompted for new identity. So you might want to backup these two somewhere On 12/17/2017 at 3:15 PM, hannahbanana said: resilio sync etc there do seem to be backups that Sync is creating I guess you're talking about sync-v2.X.X-######.backup folder? It's created after each update, just in case, but Sync does not look into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hannahbanana Posted December 21, 2017 Author Report Share Posted December 21, 2017 Hi helen yes sync.dat and sync.dat.old are backed up, they are the ones I’ve tried restoring to no avail. Upon being prompted for a new identity, ive quit sync, then restored, then restarted sync. I’ve tried numerous times - first just restoring sync.dat, also trying with sync.dat.old, restoring both, and restoring the entire sync folder from the <user>/ application settings, to no avail. How and what exactly should I restore to make this work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted December 22, 2017 Report Share Posted December 22, 2017 1) sync.dat and sync.dat.old from storage; if they don't work -> 2) sync.dat from storage\sync-v2.X.X-######.backup folder; if it won't work -> any sync.dat that you might have backed up any where; if that won't work, then there are no any other backups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr.canada Posted January 17, 2018 Report Share Posted January 17, 2018 On 2017-12-21 at 4:03 AM, hannahbanana said: Hi helen yes sync.dat and sync.dat.old are backed up, they are the ones I’ve tried restoring to no avail. Upon being prompted for a new identity, ive quit sync, then restored, then restarted sync. I’ve tried numerous times - first just restoring sync.dat, also trying with sync.dat.old, restoring both, and restoring the entire sync folder from the <user>/ application settings, to no avail. How and what exactly should I restore to make this work? I'm having the same problem, and I'm trying the same things you are, and I'm making no progress. I have a TimeMachine backup going back a year. My machine froze yesterday and I had to do a hard reboot. When Sync launches, it wanted to create a new identity. So I found this thread and followed Helen's instructions, restoring sync.dat from backup. Same problem. The instructions on how to restore a corrupt settings file from backup after a crash are clearly incomplete. there must be a step that we're missing. old backups of a good file don't just "go bad". Please, what else can we try to restore our identify from backup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr.canada Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 @Helen, can you look deeper into this issue and offer a solution - it is very clear that it's easy to make sync.dat become corrupt by forcing a Mac to reboot. once it is corrupt, restoring a good copy from backup is not enough. there must be another step that we don't know about. Help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hannahbanana Posted January 18, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 (edited) Yes there is clearly a step missing. I can use time machine to restore the entire application folder to 3 days before the identity was lost, to no avail. There ha to be something else. Strangely, when I re-add the folders to sync with the new identity, it recognises that it was previously owned by another instance. Not sure if that is useful information? Edited January 18, 2018 by hannahbanana Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr.canada Posted January 19, 2018 Report Share Posted January 19, 2018 my log file shows these messages on the first time Sync ran upon rebooting after the machine froze... [20180116 18:24:06.712] VerifyFileWithHash failed on file /Users/admin/Library/Application Support/Resilio Sync//sync.dat with status 4. [20180116 18:24:06.713] VerifyFileWithHash failed on file /Users/admin/Library/Application Support/Resilio Sync//sync.dat with status 2. [20180116 18:24:06.714] VerifyFileWithHash failed on file /Users/admin/Library/Application Support/Resilio Sync//sync.dat with status 4. [20180116 18:24:06.715] Unsupported or empty sync.dat file I've resorted this file from backup, but I continue to get the same error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted January 22, 2018 Report Share Posted January 22, 2018 Quote 1) check that you indeed have only 1 sync process especially on a linux. Check that Sync uses the same storage folder each time you start it. Covers >50% of reports. 2) check that you quit Sync correctly and give it time to save settings. Especially if you've just made some changes to identity - added advanced folders, linked devices, applied license, etc. Especially if you have a lot of sync shares with big database - shutting down will take a while. Don't do kill -9 or just press power button and don't 'shut down anyway' on windows. Covers ~45% of reports. 3) Check that you're on today's latest Sync version. Some old version indeed had troubles with saving settings in some cases, all of them are addressed. Covers around 3% of reports. 4) Some other undiscovered issue. With these, please contact support directly, send the debug logs to them and some details about your setup - if there's anything special about it, the pattern for the problem, etc. Thank you. looks shutting down the machine does not let sync save settings all right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hannahbanana Posted January 22, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2018 (edited) We know that an improper shutdown causes the identity to be lost - but sometimes improper shutdown is unavoidable, if the system freezes or occasionally during an update. The main issue is that we cannot back up our identities somehow. Why should the backup identity and everything else also be corrupted? Including versions in time machine that were saved a week prior to the improper shutdown? We know how to shut down properly - it’s just sometimes isn’t possible. That shouldn’t mean we have to restart our identities from scratch. Edited January 22, 2018 by hannahbanana Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoninSix Posted January 26, 2018 Report Share Posted January 26, 2018 ^ I thought it was only me who had this problem. I posted it here "https://forum.resilio.com/topic/43932-closed-suddenly-linked-devices-are-lost-on-1pc-now-re-syncing-or-doing-something/ - however no proper resolution for me except to resync again. My only advice (as I don't completely trust my understanding of Resilio of the process of syncing) - especially when trying to sync two existing directory (even if they should be the same...) I deleted all files from my target computer so that it synced from the original. - couldn't bear the risk of Resilio somehow deleting any files as I've seen happen in dropbox quite a few times. At least I am confident that dropbox keeps an archive. Would like to know if you guys do find a solution to this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted January 26, 2018 Report Share Posted January 26, 2018 Sync also keeps archive. Plus, there's no need to re-sync anything - you can just reconnect the already synced folders. To investigate "identity lost" issue, please DO contact support! Thank you!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr.canada Posted January 26, 2018 Report Share Posted January 26, 2018 my best guess is that Resilio's settings file - sync.dat and maybe others, are held in an open state all the time. this would explain why they often go "corrupt" when your machine looses power, and why backup programs fail to accurately back them up. newest version of Resilio's release notes says it improves on this problem, but I don't know how. real solution is to not hold these files open all the time. perhaps I should make a new habit - each time I change an important setting or add a new synced folder, I should quit resilio, backup it's sync.dat file, and start it again. I'll just run around to all the machines that I sync folders with and make copies of this obscure settings file. or maybe, just maybe, the next version of resilio could just do this for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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