Scanning For Changes at Boot

Bugs and issues Windows
#1

Everytime I boot my computer, Insync will scan for changes at my folders. Problem is, it really slow down my computer (especially on startup) since the HDD in constantly accessed until the scanning completed as I have lots of files there.
Can you make the startup scanning more eficient please?
Thanks

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#2

Will be tagging our engineer @dipesh and he will get back to you.

#3

Hello @christantoan,

Yes we will work on improving the efficiency during initialization.

If the local files don’t change while Insync is not running, you may skip this local folder scan by disabling Insync auto-start on system startup and starting Insync via command-line with the following command:

%appdata%\Insync\App\Insync.exe --skip-local-scan

This will make it skip the local folder scan to scan for changes made while it wasn’t running and hence it would proceed to the transfers faster (note: this doesn’t affect the scan after pause-resume).

If you want to start Insync on the system startup with this flag set, kindly do the following:

  1. Go to %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
  2. Right click Insync shortcut -> click Properties
  3. In the “Target” field under the “Shortcut” tab append --skip-local-scan (See: https://mrkr.io/EIZWUDQYp2)
  4. Click Apply

Thanks

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Disk usage 100% on Windows 10 after restarts
#4

Hi @dipesh,

If I disable the startup scan, is there a way to trigger a scan if I need it?

I really hope you work on improving the startup scan as it takes close to 20 minutes every single time the computer starts up.

Thanks,
Evans

#5

@EvansT: Yes, you can simply pause-resume/restart Insync or you can do right click -> Insync -> Force sync to initiate a scan on a specific folder.

Just to explicitly mention it, when you disable the scan on startup, Insync would continue to detect the live changes being made on the Insync folder while it is running.

We will definitely work towards improving the performance during the start. Thanks for your feedback.

#6

I have the same problem I applied your instructions @dipesh to try and stop sync on local folders and it has not worked. The link has properties that say ‘AppData\Roaming\Insync\App\Insync.exe --skip-local-scan’

But the machine, still 10 minutes after restart, shows 100% disk usage. Insync being the main protagonist.

Additionally the insync icon does not appear in the notification box on my windows 10 machine. So I can’t stop it without waiting for the sync to stop.

Any advice would be appreciated.

#7

@Scott_Spence Sorry for not being able to respond any sooner. Are you still experiencing the 100% disk usage on startup? Is your Windows machine up to date?

Does Insync not show up even in the extended tray area as depicted below?

#8

Hi.

I seem to have the same problem here. Disk at 100% while checking for changes for at least 15 minutes.

Can you help ? Working on up-to-date Windows 10. I don’t have the same problem on my Linux machine at work.

#9

@lbusett Is the number of files+folders contained in the Insync folders same on both Windows and Linux?

If the number of files+folders in the Insync folder is large, the initial local folder scan every time you start Insync or do a pause-resume may take quite some time. This scan includes examination of every local file to see if it was changed while Insync wasn’t running/paused. During this phase Insync would just either say “X items queued” or “Scanning for changes…” and minimal transfers would happen.

We are working on improving this. In the meantime, I suggest that if local files do not change when Insync is not running, you may skip the local folder when Insync starts:

  1. Go to %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
  2. Right click Insync shortcut -> click Properties
  3. In the “Target” field under the “Shortcut” tab append --skip-local-scan (See: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3IOdW-9p9oLN0hXWHhVS1kxOEk/view)
  4. Click Apply
  5. Perform steps 2-4 to for the other Insync shortcut too: %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Insync.lnk

This will make it skip the local folder scan to look for changes made while it wasn’t running and hence it would proceed to the transfers faster. The changes that are done when Insync is running will continue to be detected.

Thanks

#10

@dipesh Any chance we can add an option in the GUI to turn this on/off on startup? The last update 1.3.15 wiped out the changes to the shortcuts so I had to set them up again.

#11

@inforr We will consider and discuss whether we should include this as a UI configuration.

Thanks

#12

18 months on (August 2017), and this issue is still not resolved. It brings a booting PC to a useless state for 10 minutes or more. Come on Insync - this is a major performance issue, and you will start to lose clients if it is not resolved SOON!

#13

The option “–skip-local-scan” doesn’t seem to work.

I’ve tried both methods, detailed above, to use it, but it seems to be behaving the same way as if it wasn’t there (the option that is).

And like everyone else is saying… this “scanning” is such a resource hog!

#14

I’m having the same issue, and the flag does not work.
It is very frustrating as I’m downloading 2TB dataset…
It is killing my disk…
I actually want’s a refund if this cannot be solved

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