Files missing from hard drive but appear online on A360 drive

[nardus]

Good day

I'm not sure why this happens, but sometimes when my A360 drive is syncing, some of the files disappear from my hard drive (sync folder). I'm quite sure this is not supposed to happen. Please see the attached photos for clarification. Any ideas?
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[BrettWright]

Hi Nardus,

Strangely enough, this is by design when you're using your A360 Drive, the A360 Desktop Sync tool, and sharing your Drive Folders with others that also are using the A360 Desktop Sync tool.

Here is where i see this happen, so let me know if this isn't the case for you.

• You first set up your DRIVE, and A360 Desktop "sync" so that your local folders are getting synced to your online DRIVE.

• Then, you share that online DRIVE folder with others that are also using the A360 Desktop "sync" tool, to keep their local files sync'd to that online folder

• What happens then, is that any files these other shared members add to their locally shared folder, will then be synced to the same online DRIVE folder that you shared, and will also be downloaded to your local folder.
• Remember that  "sync's" job is to make sure that all files in the local shared folder or the online Drive folder are replicated the same at all locations, so that would be you and anyone that you've shared the folder with.

• Then, the same thing will happen if someone deletes a file either at the online Drive location, or within their local folder. once the file is deleted, it'll be deleted at all locations via "sync"

For this reason alone we always caution people to NOT use A360 Drive, or Team as back up systems, and to always have another system/process to handle your backups offline.

[nardus]

Thank you for the reply Brett

Maybe you should look at changing this, removing the actual file from the computer (I have no idea how this is possible) shouldn't happen. What if I didn't have a proper internet connection, the file would have been online, but I would not have had any means to access it, and it is was not on my hard drive anymore as the sync function removed it? The main file (hard drive) should always be available.

In our case, we do share the sync folders on our local network, but no one worked on that project except me so nobody deleted the file. This morning when I returned to the office the files were all back on my hard drive.

I've decided to simply pause the sync function during the day and start it again over night so that I don't have a repeat of yesterdays problem

[BrettWright]

Nardus,

I'll share your thoughts here with the team as i agree it's not a common thought that if things are deleted, then they'll be deleted in all locations.

Yes, your concern re: no internet connection is valid, and to your point, it makes sense that you'd look for the file in your local A360 Desktop folders if you couldn't get to your online Drive.

My best recommendation would be to warn all shared members to not Delete files unless you all agree that it's ok and that you have a backup in a different location.

Specific to your issue, i'm not sure why the file disappeared then reappeared, so keep me posted if you see any other strange behaviors like that.

[BrettWright]

Nardus, 

A couple of other questions for you so that we can look into this further for you.

1. Can you tell me what version of "Sync" you're using? (right click on the desktop sync tray icon)

2. Can you pull your log files by following the steps in this post HERE? i'll then send them off to the team to review.

I talked my colleague here, and what might be going on is what we call a "base line reset" where sync deletes your local files, then resyncs them from your online Drive. We didn't think this was suppose to still happen in the current versions of A360 Desktop, however, we'll find out and let you know.

[nardus]

Good morning Brett

I'm using the version 7.3.6.1809, I think it updated the other day.

I've added the files as requested. I've added the filelist to the log zip file

I hope this can be fixed easily.

Regards
Nardus

[BrettWright]

ok thank you Nardus,

i've sent your log files and will get back to you when i hear back from the team.

[BrettWright · Accepted solution]

Nardus,

A quick update here for you from our team.

• The missing files seem to have been sync’d at 2017-03-15T18:26:32Z.
• Unfortunately log is available only from 16^th. So we can’t find out what happened on 15^th.
• We see that these files are owned and not shared.
• Is the customer able to reproduce the issue?
• If the issue occurs again can he send the log files immediately (all the logs and db)?

 Let me know if you're still having issues on your end.

[nardus]

Hi Brett

Sorry we had a public holiday yesterday.

The files have been synced, and I'm working like normal. Now I just pause the sync during the day and switch it on before leaving in the evenings. I'm not really able to replicate the event as I have no idea how it happened. But if it does, I'll be sure to send the log files again.

Regards
Nardus

[BrettWright]

ok Nardus,

Keep us posted if you have further issues.