FreeFileSync Forum

Specifically with cron, there is no default environment variables. Historically, cron has always completely wiped the environment, including PATH. So it's worth setting DISPLAY=:0 in crontab. A user should always set every environment variable that matters.

It's possible that your DISPLAY is a different value. Perhaps when you've logged off, and your computer is just at the login screen, the DISPLAY might be :0.0 or :10 . That's not very likely, but possible. If you've left your session logged in, then most likely DISPLAY=:0 would still suffice ...

If you can stomach disabling dark mode, I finally got a patch set up: https://gitlab.com/bgstack15/stackrpms/-/blob/master/freefilesync/debian/patches/no-wx3.3.0.patch?ref_type=heads

Reality check: when running a program by name, you have to specify a directory as part of the command, unless the program is in one of the directories listed in your PATH environment variable. For example, if you want to run install.run from the current directory (also known as "."), you would have ...

rsync is good for the cli users who like to read man pages. FreeFileSync works better for regular desktop users. They definitely do not use the same configuration files/settings/options, so depending on the complexity of your FreeFileSync config, you might not find rsync suitable. If all you do is ...

or check the timestamp of the log file? That would be when it was last modified, so when the last action of the sync process occurred.
stat --format '%y' /path/to/logfile
If FreeFileSync doesn't make such a useful log, then maybe capturing standard output from cron might be useful (assuming ...

GTK3 and now 4 have always had their own bizarre choices and ignore any downstream developers and users. It's a nice toolkit, if the quirks aren't breaking features you wish to use.

Depending on the cron implementation in Ubuntu, and where you are storing your cron job, you might need to (get to) specify the user that should run the command.
For example, when I place a cron job in /etc/cron.d/40_myappname_cron I use this format:
00 13 * * * bgstack15 DISPLAY=:0 /opt ...

Hm, perhaps that can be a feature request: to ignore trailing spaces with a checkbox in the settings dialog.

Depending on your cron implementation and where your cronjob is, you might need to add the username. For example, you wouldn't need to add the user if you are using `crontab -e`. But if you are editing `/etc/cron.d/80_freefilesync_cron` you probably would need to specify the user:
0 * * * * ineuw ...

@daviank, what you missed is that the user ran crontab -l as a regular user, so it was just going to use his user, with no field for setting it because he cannot change it. Otherwise, in a root-controlled /etc/crontab or /etc/cron.d/ file, you can set the username.

Does SUSE Tumblewood/your setup use Wayland?

Does KDE still use SDDM for the display manager (login screen)? Maybe you can do this, from https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SDDM#X_authority_(aka_MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE)_file:

33 0 * * * DISPLAY=:0 XAUTHORITY="$( find /var/run/sddm/ -type f )" /usr/local ...

Is it possible that flatpak needs more environment variables to correctly connect to the desktop or otherwise run? Have you tried with some other flatpak program in cron, to see if it operates?

Can you try inserting the DISPLAY=:0 on the same line with the command, in front of the command flatpak ...

Look for the config file. It's probably in ~/.config/FreeFileSync (Linux) or %APPDATA% (Windows). I think it's named GlobalSettings.xml.
edit: did you try the Tools menu -> "Reset layout" option?

Ubuntu tends to fork from Debian unstable (sid), which does have FreeFileSync 13.3 . Not sure which version(s) of Ubuntu would still be tracking this closely to Debian unstable, but FreeFileSync of any version number is at least in the two previous "stable" releases of Debian (as seen on the page I ...

You are probably missing the DISPLAY environment variable. See my old post.

You might try wrapping FreeFileSync with Xvfb, which you will need inside your docker container. It sets up a "X virtual frame buffer" which can also be called a dummy display.

In Arch Linux the package to install gtk2 is named gtk2, based on https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GTK#Installation

If somebody were to bother to go through the steps required to convert the FreeFileSync package into a WD My Cloud app (https://community.wd.com/t/my-cloud-os5-app-template/286542) it could be done.

A list of available apps for that series of devices is listed at https://support-en.wd.com/app ...

I compile this software from the source tarball for every new release. But that's on a development-friendly operating system (GNU+Linux). Perhaps compiling on Windows is easy for Windows developers. But on GNU+Linux, it's easier for someone like me to compile software. Normally you just need gcc and ...

In Bodhi Linux, you will want to install a few packages:
sudo apt-get install cifs-utils
This will allow you then to run sudo mount -t cifs . CIFS is another name for SMB/Samba.

You might want something like:
sudo mount -t cifs //hp/photos/Miscellaneous /net
Where /net is the mount point (empty ...

Thanks, Zenju!

Hello Zenju,

I am trying to compile 12.5 on Devuan GNU+Linux as always, I get this error:
g++-12 -std=c++23 -pipe -DWXINTL_NO_GETTEXT_MACRO -I../.. -I../../zenXml -include "zen/i18n.h" -include "zen/warn_static.h" -Wall -Wfatal-errors -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wswitch-enum -Wcast-align -Wnon-virtual ...

Ah, so the FreeFileSync installer wants to control /usr/local/bin (normal behavior), but on this device, /usr/local/bin/ is mounted read-only. Perhaps you should try the per-user installation option. I expect it would deploy the binaries to ~/bin or ~/.local/bin/ (suggested by https://specifications ...

I haven't examined the latest version, but I know that the config files themselves are versioned at least for config-version. Perhaps FFS 12.3 updated to a newer version of the config file (which determines which attributes about the sync job are stored, as the app has added features over time), and ...

Zenju uses the GPL-3.0 primarily for his source code ( version 12.3 , the current version listed at the Download page). Additionally some components he licenses under the OpenSSL license , curl license , something labeled the libssh2 license (which vaguely resembles the MIT to me at first glance; I ...

It's a tough question. A few years ago, the make target "install" was removed as well! Would following instructions for Debian or Fedora Linux help you? https://gitlab.com/bgstack15/stackrpms/-/tree/master/freefilesync

Dear Zenju, why is the "unread messages" icon now a gray envelope?! It blends in with the background. Please stop making these changes. Please revert to the original design and color scheme. The only reason I knew this thread had new content was because it said "Zenju, 56 minutes ago" and I just got ...

I was being polite. This new forum layout is unpleasant and makes me want to visit less often.

Perhaps you could make a poll to ask the users if they like the new layout better than before? Perhaps I'm in the minority.

It appears that mousing over the "5 hours ago" section will take you to the "#unread" part of a thread, which actually sounds like it could be incorrect. If the thread has multiple unread posts for a signed-in user, I would expect the list of threads would show the most-recent comment in the thread ...