Insync can't remember where it is syncing

Bugs and issues Windows
#1

I started up Insync, and it was syncing to %HOME%/Google, I probably set that up before. But I need it to sync to S:/Google because I don’t have enough space on that drive. So I changed it in My Drive -> Change to be S:/Google, and it seemed to be making progress syncing there… but I checked later and nothing was happening. I checked the location it was syncing and it was back to %HOME/Google. I tried this 2 more times, and both times it just silently reverted to the old location.

What’s even worse is that it was in the process of syncing, and while all this was going on, I checked my Google drive trash folder, and lots of stuff was starting to appear there, as if Insync had started to become confused about where it was up to, saw stuff missing, decided that meant it should be deleted and started trashing all my files.

[Ed… tried it AGAIN, a 4th time, and again after 5 minutes it has reverted the folder to %HOME/Google ]

Another thing, changing where you sync to is not something one does often, but I think there needs to be a popup explaining what will happen… e.g. is it going to delete my stuff from the old location ,move it to the new and keep going? Or is it going to start a sync from scratch at the new location? Should I manually delete the folder at the old location? Or will it disappear on its own?

#2

I figured out that it was behaving badly because the new destination was out of space. I did get this error in the error tab on the last occasion, but I didn’t see it on the other occasions. HOWEVER, I think it’s disasterous to silently revert your sync location to the old place without your permission, or without telling you. Changing your config to something else (possibly much later) because there’s something wrong with the new config, but with no immediate feedback, is a terrible idea. Among the many reasons this is a bad idea, is the user may have started deleting the old location, then insync started deleting your files on Google drive because it’s silently changed where is it syncing from.

#3

My god, I decided to allow Insync to sync where it seemed to be insisting on at %HOME/Google, and freed up space. Came back later and found it had trashed ALL of my files, and NOW it decided it was going to do it in S:/Google after all, which was empty because of previous failures. So now all my files are trashed again. Come on Insync, this is an utter disaster, playing with your config invisibly in the backgrouind.

#4

Now the stupid thing is stuck on S:/Google and no matter how much I try won’t go back to %HOME%/Google. And now it’s getting flooded in the error log with out of drive space in S:/Google.

#5

Yet again, I think I’ll have to abandon this software as unusable. I change it to %HOME%/Google. The error logs gets cleared out (and yet the little “!” red warning badge stays there with 0 errors.) A few minutes later the program decides a big FU, and changes the sync location back to S:/Google and floods the log with out of drive space. Then trashes all my files on drive.google.com. None of this can ever have been tested, it’s just completely flake.

#6

Eventually decided to yank the S: drive out to force Insync to sit up and pay attention. Hitting “Change” on the sync location brings up an error "Unexpected error FileNotFoundError [WinError 3] The system cannot find the file specified ‘S:\’… buttons, Cancel or Choose another location… I hit “choose another location” and… nothing happens. At this point, you are done, it’s bricked.

#7

My apologies for the persistent issues on your base folder, @xpusostomos! It is definitely unacceptable that Insync silently decides where to sync your files and subsequently handle unwanted deletions. We would like to investigate this to prevent this kind of unruly behavior moving forward.

Could you please send the following to support@insynchq.com:

  • logs.db
  • out.txt
  • data folder
  • live folder

These can be found by following the instructions here: https://help.insynchq.com/en/articles/1834816-locating-the-log-files. Please update this thread once it has been sent so I am alerted accordingly. Thank you!