FreeFileSync Forum

@LarsErikOsterud:
You have three partitions on one physical disk, this means one is placed in the innermost ring, one in the middle and one in the outer ring. When scanning a single partition, the HDD seek header still moves in a random-access pattern, but with a limited amplitude, while when ...

Folder scanning is inherently random-access. Even with a single thread the HDD read head would jump between file locations which are all scattered over the surface.¹

1) Exception: "very small files": https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/askcore/the-four-stages-of-ntfs-file-growth

Screenshots would help: The result of FreeFileSync comparison with rar files missing and Windows Explorer showing the same files as existing.

Hi. I have several RAR archives in a source folder, each from 2.8Gb to 26Gb. FreeFileSync doesn't see them when I click Browse on that folder's button in Source list.

This doesn't make sense as xCSxXenon already pointed out. The folder picker doesn't show files.

This has nothing to do with ...

I've switched to

#!/usr/bin/env bash

which hopefully is an overall improvement.

Not sure about the brackets, though. Other than NixOS, I'm not aware of any issues.

I have a hunch that the folder was not really renamed at the file system level, but only at the Windows shell level.

In other words, you have a desktop.ini file that contains the display name, while the "real" folder name remained unchanged.

A bit obscure, but why not. FFS already skips ADS if they cause access denied errors, or bogus "file not found" errors:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/49j72ddlwirkzjz/FreeFileSync_14.11_%255BBeta%255D_Windows_Setup%25282%2529.exe

This doesn't appear to be the case anymore - both these comparison methods still show me the modification time error ("Warning: Cannot write modification time of "<the file in question>". Server does not support the MFMT command.") as a warning dialog, and mark the synchronisation with a warning ...

Fixed for next release: https://www.mediafire.com/file/icj0kdefdeq8z9w/FreeFileSync_14.11_%255BBeta%255D_Windows_Setup.exe

ok, it's caused by latest libcurl 8.21.0, previous 8.20.0 works: https://github.com/curl/curl/issues/22225

I can reproduce this. It's caused by either the update to latest libcurl or OpenSSL.

This is native system behavor, not by FreeFileSync:
"GTK explicitly chose to show grayed-out files in folder pickers so users have spatial awareness of where they are."

That said, GTK offers exactly the option you asked for, and it's even globally persistent:

: folders-before-files.png (33.14 KiB) Viewed 27 times

"Browse" panel is the panel where to specify the folder to work, accessible from Tools >Options. Antonio.A, 24 Jun 2026, 08:08

There are four "Browse" buttons on this page. Which do you mean?

The error happens after authentication, so this is not the issue.

If the server is running Windows, let's try something. Does the following version work (it additionally requests write access):
https://www.mediafire.com/file/p1xlotb1etkmla2/FreeFileSync_14.10_%255BBeta%255D_Windows_Setup.exe

What is "folders first"? And which "Browse"?

Your installation's resource files are corrupted, please reinstall. The unhelpful error message will be fixed in the next release.

PC1 → USB (mirroring) → .ffs_db is saved to USB
→ But USB is "external" & portable
→ Next time it's plugged in:
Use OLD DB → no changes detected

No, that's not how it works. Sorry I don't have much time currently, just wanted to clarify that it doesn't make a difference for "mirroring" if ...

you can use

vssadmin list providers

to find out what other VSS providers are installed on your system. Quite possible you find another one blocked by KB5083769.

The blocked kernel driver ist psmounterex.sys , created by Paramount Software UK for Macrium Reflect. If this affects FFS's use of Volume Shadow copy, the workaround would be to either uninstall Macrium and their kernel driver, or update to their latest version which apparently is not affected by ...

viewtopic.php?t=12856#p49903

Standard 32-bit process limit:
→ 2 GB user-mode memory per process

With Large Address Aware (LAA) enabled:
→ Up to 4 GB per process on a 64-bit OS

see: viewtopic.php?t=12799#p49651

Solution: Update to Windows Server 2016 or later

Sure why not, although it's a bit early for GCC 16.

In my tests *both* main window and popup dialog are moved to the first monitor after resume from sleep, even though both were at the second monitor before going to sleep.

Here the detailed reproduction steps:
- Start FFS and place it on the additional monitor
- Start an action -> progress popup appears
- Select for 'after finished' the option 'System: Save energy'
- Let the action finish and the system go into 'energy safe'
- Unplug the docking station
- Startup ...

If you mouse-hover over the filter button, you'll see all include/exclude settings at a glance.

If you checkmark "Use database file to detect changes", that database contains the file-IDs of your left-side, respectively right-side files as per the end of a sync. If a file is modified, its file-ID is changed by the OS. So, if the present file-ID of a given file differs from its file-ID at the ...

This has been fixed in the next FreeFileSync 14.9.

WIN-SHFT + an arror key to move it to your monitor xCSxXenon, 29 Mar 2026, 01:45

This is so cool! I always did this crazy dance instead: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20090511-00/?p=18303

@DirkW: Please try again with FreeFileSync 14.9, where I rewrote large parts of the positioning logic.

Yes, I suspect this is a race condition due to file system buffering. FFS tries to create the directory, which fails (because it's already existing), after that it checks if the directory is already existing (and receives the incorrect/stale info that directory is not existing). Had FFS received the ...

Is it possible that you have multiple RTS instances running, which then will start multiple FFS processes at the exact same time?

viewtopic.php?t=12835#p49832

I'm assuming this is not reproducible?
Unfortunately the failed access check after mkdir is not reported by FFS, which could have given further clues. I've added it for the next release.

Thanks for the awesome follow-up and explanation, Grga! I wish everybody who gets a solution in a forum would share it, with explanation, like that.

This! Thanks to your before/after posts of "ip link show" the problem becomes clear:

eno1 and eno2 are bonded, thous return a locally ...

You forgot to exclude "\DATA 1 Backup\" for the first folder pair. Also you probably have "ignore errors" active, otherwise you would have seen the warning *before* starting the sync.

when I try to uninstall FFS, a pop-up warned me that there's no directory of the software, so I'm doing a different way to uninstall Buzzaa, 09 Mar 2026, 13:29

Sounds like you deleted the installation directory manually.

uninstall.sh still exists. OP is using a non-official build from somewhere else.

What do you mean? These strings are not part of FreeFileSync.

Interesting, I always thought the OS had to have it configured to work at all. I just always have that configured anyway, so I assumed that's why FFS worked fine. Nice to know it works even if the OS isn't configured for it

Yes, lesser software needs the registry setting :D

FFS has been supporting long file paths since forever. There is nothing that needs to be set up, it's the default. Your target drive apparently doesn't allow them.

Thanks, fixed!

".DocumentRevisions-V100" is excluded by default. In your case the leading dot is missing for some reason.

"=" for folders is "shallow", i.e. the child items don't matter. As long as both sides exist and have the same name, they are "=", which means no sync action is required for the folder object.
Also from UX perspective users generally are interested to see what's different. For this reason ...

This is the old usability issue that folders are also considered "=" and are part of the list.

I'm assuming that "*.blend" files were present in the newly created folder "F_Models\Game Dev Models\Sniper Game"?

This would have the folder implicitly participate in the second folder pair, although excluded, because copying child *.blend files requires that all parent folders are created first ...

What does the (full) warning message say?

; is not the correct separator, | is: https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=exclude-files

Which operating system version is this? What kind of drive is O:\?

you've setup your versioning folder to "W:"

Is the error message different than before?
Where in Windows have you set up the proxy?
Can you give an example of the syntax used for the proxy settings?

Is this an rclone ad?

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