After Sync and no Changes The Software wants to sync all files again

Posts: 3 · bmoritz 25 Oct 2023, 12:38

hey there,

I have sync problems.

When I sync to folder everything works fine. However, when I click compare directly afterwards. The program detects changes on all files again and supposes to sync all again. For a small folder that is not a problem but I use FreeFileSync also to back up a 4 TB SSD.

Thus the software wants to sync the whole ssd instead of just the changes.

I am using a
- Mac Book pro Version 14.0 (23A344)
- FreeFileSync Version 13.1
- Cryptomator in which the Data of the two ssd is encrypted. Version 1.6.17

Can somebody help? :)

Posts: 4058 · xCSxXenon 25 Oct 2023, 14:20

Run and compare and post a screenshot of the results. The middle column will tell you why FFS wants to sync the files, or maybe the option to filter out equivalent files isn't selected, or something with your environment is messing with timestamps

Posts: 3 · bmoritz 25 Oct 2023, 14:35

Run and compare and post a screenshot of the results. The middle column will tell you why FFS wants to sync the files, or maybe the option to filter out equivalent files isn't selected, or something with your environment is messing with timestamps xCSxXenon, 25 Oct 2023, 14:20

hey hey,
ok i see.

: Screenshot 2023-10-25 at 16.33.34 Medium.jpeg (30.68 KiB) Viewed 6854 times

The synced files are acutally more up to date then the original onces. And thus i might always see a difference.

how can i solve this? :/

Posts: 4058 · xCSxXenon 25 Oct 2023, 15:02

You might need to switch to comparing by file content or file size. Either the use of Google Drive or Cryptomator is likely the cause of the timestamps being lost

Posts: 3 · bmoritz 27 Oct 2023, 07:51

You might need to switch to comparing by file content or file size. Either the use of Google Drive or Cryptomator is likely the cause of the timestamps being lost xCSxXenon, 25 Oct 2023, 15:02

Hey, ok i see. But could it be that changed files will not be synced since the software might not detect a change in size? or how minimal is this detection?

and regarding file content. In my experience this method takes way longer. Is that true or am i wrong?

Thanks in advance :)

Posts: 10 · dennisb 27 Oct 2023, 13:39

You might need to switch to comparing by file content or file size. Either the use of Google Drive or Cryptomator is likely the cause of the timestamps being lost xCSxXenon, 25 Oct 2023, 15:02

Same thing happened to me and I was able to isolate the cause to a recent Cryptomator release. If my vault was stored on a local disk (PC in my case) then time stamps were retained. If the vault was on my NAS, then time stamps were lost. I suspect that Google drive and OneDrive would have the same issue since they are not local file systems.

Posts: 2453 · Plerry 29 Oct 2023, 12:33

> If the vault was on my NAS, then time stamps were lost.

That very likely depends on the protocol by which you access your NAS.
If you use the SMB/CIFS protocol, your timestamps should be retained (at least they are in case of a Synology NAS).
However, if you use the FTP protocol in most (all?) cases, the timestamp is not retained.

Posts: 7212 · Zenju 29 Oct 2023, 12:37

> If the vault was on my NAS, then time stamps were lost.

That very likely depends on the protocol by which you access your NAS.
If you use the SMB/CIFS protocol, your timestamps should be retained (at least they are in case of a Synology NAS).
However, if you use the FTP protocol in most (all?) cases, the timestamp is not retained. Plerry, 29 Oct 2023, 12:33

FTP, the protocol, is not the issue. All but the most ancient FTP servers support setting modification times.

And then there's mobile phones. I don't know why phones often (but not always) don't support setting modification times. My guess is Google/Apple don't like external sync tools and prefer to have your data on their cloud.

Posts: 2453 · Plerry 29 Oct 2023, 12:49

I replied to dennisb's remark about the timestamp being lost on his NAS.
But I agree that mobile phones are very often still a disaster in retaining timestamp (or renaming files, for that matter).

> FTP is not the issue. All but the most ancient FTP servers support setting modification times.

Well, then apparently both my NAS and my Internet provider are still using ancient FTP servers.

Posts: 7212 · Zenju 29 Oct 2023, 13:10

Most web hoster's FTP does in fact support the MFMT FTP command to set file modification times. So it is indeed working fine in these cases. In other cases, maybe it's not that old FTP server software is used. My feeling is that users are deliberately disincentivized from using FTP by using a shabby implementation.