Insync won't create folder in Drive - child files are parentless

Bugs and issues Linux
#1

I have a very large and complex directory structure in Linux (Mint xfce 17.3) that’s synced with Drive. I’m running headless.

At some point I lost a critical folder named ‘software’ on Drive. I’ve restored the folder locally, but Insync won’t recreate it in Drive - complains about ‘Insufficient permissions’, though owner, group, and permissions are the same as everything else. I tried renaming it to ‘code’ with no success. Here are the current errors:

Can’t upload tools - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload diffs - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t process code - Insufficient permissions for this file

Tried force_sync for the ‘code’ folder as well as a file in the folder - no joy.

I can see the files in Drive that are in the missing folder if I search for them by name. They have no parent folder, so they don’t appear in ‘My Drive’, but they do show up in search results. Using App Script I can put them in a folder, but there are thousands of them - not practical.

How do I resolve this?

#2

@Bill_Kuhns: Is there a folder named “software” in your Drive account that contains folders named “tools” and “diffs”?

For the insufficient permissions, this is usually caused by the folder being shared to you read only. Please confirm if this is the case and ask for write permissions from the owner if so.

#3

I have three folders named ‘software’. The one you mention is in my the ‘My Drive’ root folder. It’s there because I restored that branch from backup to that location. It’s not the working folder that I’m talking about, and I’ve renamed it to software-md. There’s another with a single file in it that is in another directory tree restored from backup (this problem has been going on for a while). I’ve renamed this one software-bu. Finally, there’s one in trash that I deleted yesterday. It was one that I had created yesterday to try and have a folder with the right name in the right place. I’ve restored it, but it has virtually nothing in it. I’ve renamed it software-del.

I’m running insync-headless as root. Here’s the permissions of the code directory and some others managed by Insync:
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root cldusers 178 Apr 5 12:04 Build Information.gddoc
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root cldusers 214 Jan 3 2013 Build Information.gddoc~
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root cldusers 178 Apr 5 12:04 Building Energy Management.gddoc
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root cldusers 214 Jul 28 2014 Building Energy Management.gddoc~
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root cldusers 545 Apr 5 12:04 Building Energy Mangement.gdlink
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root cldusers 581 Jul 16 2014 Building Energy Mangement.gdlink~
drwxrwsrwx 21 root cldusers 4096 Jun 22 06:58 code

#4

The Insync root is /home/insync/vecs.

The folder ‘diffs’ exists in three places on the local drive:
/home/insync/vecs/Business-Files/VECSControllerBusiness/Design/code/diffs
/home/insync/vecs/orphans/diffs
/home/insync/vecs/software-md/diffs

The first is in the correct folder that will not sync. This folder was named ‘software’ until yesterday morning.

The ‘orphans’ folder was created by insync today. It contains files and folders that were orphans in Drive - they had no parent folder, so they could only be found by searching or via Apps script.

The third is in the renamed software folder that was restored from backup.

Here are my errors this morning. Why is it still complaining about the ‘software’ folder?

Can’t upload network-dual-ip.txt - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload bacnet-stack-0.8.3.tgz - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload etc - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload network-dual-ip-eth1.txt - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload logicAnalyzer - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload arm-linux-gnueabihf - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload baseline_image - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload bb.org-overlays-master.zip - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t process Surface treatment results.gdsheet - File not found: 1Mmw0ZNPTe0pEZ6ylVXRJ7kTx1lNvtHbYdv-3gJwGju0
Can’t upload bacnet-stack-0.8.3 - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload 1wire - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload vesta_3.0_update - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload bbb-debian-image - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload test - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload samples - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload exploringBB - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload tools - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t upload diffs - parent folder software not found on Drive
Can’t process code - Insufficient permissions for this file

#5

@Bill_Kuhns: I see. This looks to be more complicated than I thought. Please send your logs to support@insynchq.com for investigation: How to find the log files.

#6

Will do. I’ve since fixed all the ‘orphans’ and placed them in an orphans folder.

What I really need to do is re-sync without deleting - leave matching files as they are, but copy new local files to Drive and vice versa. Is there a way to do that?

#7

@Bill_Kuhns: I received your logs, thanks. What is the status of Insync now? Has it finished processing the orphaned files? Do you mean that changes in your Insync folder are not being synced to Drive?

#8

I am not running insync now. I can’t take the risk that it will create more orphans in Drive. I’ve been painstakingly rebuilding my local file system from other backups.

You’ve had my logs for a couple weeks - what do you see there?

I also need an answer to my previous question:

Is there a way to resync without deleting - leave matching files as they are, but copy new local files to Drive and vice versa?

If there is a way to do that, what happens to files that exist in both places but are different?

#9

@Bill_Kuhns: You can resync your account while leaving matching files as is by removing your account and re-adding it while choosing your old Insync folder as your new Insync folder. I recommend that you do this after you have finished rebuilding your local file system.

Different files that exist in both places would be synced, so you would have to resolve them manually.