Duplicate syncing problem: FFS thinks files don't exist on device when they do (FTP)

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Posts: 2
Joined: 10 Jan 2023

Deefs

I've switched to using FTP instead of MTP because MTP just wasn't working with my Android device.

This kind person had the solution here: viewtopic.php?t=8173#p28453

So I set up Wifi FTP Server - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.medhaapps.wififtpserver - and used these settings in FreeFileSync: Image

It seemed to work fine and I was very happy.

But when I clicked Compare again, FFS wants to create a ton of files on the right side (my phone) that really already exist on the phone (FFS just synced them itself a couple of minutes ago).

I wondered what would happen if I synced anyway, so I right-clicked just one file on the left and clicked Synchronise selection. What happened was another file was added alongside the original file on my phone with (1) appended to the file name.

This is obviously a bit of a disaster.

Am I doing something wrong? How can I stop this happening? Why isn't FFS seeing the files it just created (they're all images, by the way).

Thank you.

Windows 11 Home
Samsung S9
Posts: 10
Joined: 21 Jul 2020

manitz

You probably use WiFi FTP Server 2.x on Android 10 running on your Samsung S9.

I used to sync files between my Windows PC and my Phone with FreeFileSync and WiFi FTP Server on the phone. After updating WiFi FTP Server to version 2.x on my Huawei P30 Lite NE with Android 10, I observed the following new problem:

The server does not properly set file time stamps when writing to SD card or
internal memory. Also, WinSCP cannot delete files and directories on the Huawei
device. So synchronization did not work properly anymore with FreeFileSync.

From the author of WiFi FTP Server I got the following information:

"There is a known issue with mobile devices running Android 10 OS. A file
access API in Android 10 does not let us set the timestamp for a file.
Hence you might be facing issues with file synchronization. This was
working on earlier versions of the app as we were using an older API.
Google deprecated that API and forced everyone to use the new APIs and this
is an issue on Android 10. From Android 11 they introduced a new API and
that lets us update the timestamp."

So I replaced version 2.x of WiFi FTP Server with the older version 1.9.5 and have the problem solved. You can try this, too:

https://apkpure.com/de/wifi-ftp-server/com.medhaapps.wififtpserver/download/74-APK?from=versions%2Fversion

Good luck