FreeFileSync Error (Error Cannot move file)

[jimmacmillan]

I've recently been seeing this error. I've checked both local and remote machines and don't see these files (with File Explorer set to show hidden files):

7:58:17 AM Error Cannot move file
"\\office\Users\James\Documents\My Documents~744c.ffs_tmp" to
"\\office\Users\James\Documents\My Documents.ffs_gui".
Error Code 183: Cannot create a file when that file already exists. [MoveFileEx]


Any idea what's going on?

Thanks
Jim

[jimmacmillan]

Anyone have any thoughts on this error? If it's relevant I'm running the Donation Edition.

Thanks
Jim

[jimmacmillan]

Very frustrated that I paid for this software and it doesn't work properly. I sent en eMail and posted here for help to the developer to no avail.

Very Disappointing :-(
Jim

[Zenju]

This is unlikely to be an FFS issue, but if you want I can have a look at a Process Monitor trace: https://freefilesync.org/faq.php#trace

[xCSxXenon]

Can you manually go into that folder and confirm whether that file exists or not?
Also, you donated, not paid for support.

[jimmacmillan]

Can you manually go into that folder and confirm whether that file exists or not?
Also, you donated, not paid for support.

As mentioned in the Op "I've checked both local and remote machines and don't see these files (with File Explorer set to show hidden files)".

One would think that with a donation their post wouldn't have to be bumped. Nonetheless I'm not going to argue as I've already moved on.

[xCSxXenon]

Are you able to move that file manually and attempt the sync again?

[a2cworks]

[Translate:English]
I had the same event and just resolved it.
I think there is a folder or file with the same name in the source folder.

In Jim's case, there may be the following folders or files in "\\office\Users\James\Documents\".
Assumption 1: "My Documents.ffs_gui" and "my documents.ffs_gui".
Assumption 2: "My Documents" and "My Documents.ffs_gui"
----
[In Japanese]
私も同じ事象が発生して、先程解決しました。
ソースフォルダに同じ名前のフォルダやファイルが有ると思われます。

Jimさんの場合、"\\office\Users\James\Documents\"に下記のフォルダやファイルがあるかもしれません。
想定１： "My Documents.ffs_gui" and "my documents.ffs_gui"
想定２： "My Documents" and "My Documents.ffs_gui"

[xCSxXenon]

Is that the only file?
It looks like that file is the FFS config file, does FFS lock the config files when open? That may be causing the operation to fail

[mohamed.arief]

any one can advise how to resolve this error

Cannot move file
"D:\Project-260\dc\P260 - DC\6. QA-QC\2. WIR\11. Street Light (SL)\RN-02-00001-06-11-SL-WBG-WI-000035 - WIR for Cast-in-Situ Foundation for 10m high street light poles (including Anchor bolts with accessories,\RN-02-00001-06-11-SL-WBG-WI-000035[00] - WIR for Cast-in-Situ Foundation for 10m high street light poles ~fecb.ffs_tmp" to
"D:\Project-260\dc\P260 - DC\6. QA-QC\2. WIR\11. Street Light (SL)\RN-02-00001-06-11-SL-WBG-WI-000035 - WIR for Cast-in-Situ Foundation for 10m high street light poles (including Anchor bolts with accessories,\RN-02-00001-06-11-SL-WBG-WI-000035[00] - WIR for Cast-in-Situ Foundation for 10m high street light poles (including Anchor bolts with accessories, steel reinforcement , shuttering for capping and bitumen paint).PDF".
ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS: Cannot create a file when that file already exists. [MoveFileEx]

[Zenju]

Could be a corrupted disk, fixable via Windows error checking: viewtopic.php?t=9776#p36079

[GrayGirling]

[Translate:English]
I had the same event and just resolved it.
I think there is a folder or file with the same name in the source folder.

In Jim's case, there may be the following folders or files in "\\office\Users\James\Documents\".
Assumption 1: "My Documents.ffs_gui" and "my documents.ffs_gui".
Assumption 2: "My Documents" and "My Documents.ffs_gui"

I have had the same issue and I hypothesize that it is an error in FreeFileSync that occurs when a file has been changed both in content and in terms of the case of letters in its file name (which can only occur on file systems that do not ignore the difference in case, e.g. Linux, Android or those in many NASes).

I suspect that a file being synced (e.g. perhaps called "Name.Ext") is divided into these stages:
[1] copy to Name.fs_tmp
[2] delete Name.Ext
[3] rename Name.fs_tmp as Name.Ext

I think this error occurs in [3] because there is already a file called "Name.Ext" with a different capitalization which causes the rename to fail. Stage [2] would normally remove this file but I imagine is deleting only files with exactly the spelling Name.Ext.

Example:
So when we update the content of Photo.JPG and simultaneously change its name to photo.jpg it will be sync'ed.
[1] will work fine
[2] will not delete the existing Photo.JPG because it deletes only files called photo.jpg
[3] will fail because the rename can't overwrite photo.jpg (which is the same file as Photo.JPG on
a file system that ignores file case)

If that were the problem it might be fixed in FreeFileSync by using a "normal" delete operation at [2] which should delete photo.jpg if the deletion of Photo.JPG was requested.

[GrayGirling]

It seems you will also get this error in the case where you have only read access to one of the directories being sync'ed.

Check that you can write to the directory in which the error is reported (e.g. create a new file there then delete it if that was successful).

[RCRalph]

I've been having this issue for a while now and I fixed it just today. It turned out to be a corrupted NTFS partition error, fixable by booting into Windows and running disk checking. After that everything worked fine. In my example that was because I daily drive GNU/Linux on my system and since it doesn't have any maintenance tools for NTFS, which I had on drives which I hardly-ever used while dual-booting Windows, the drives ran into issues.