deleted all my Files in 10 seconds without asking!

Posts: 7212 · Zenju 10 Jun 2013, 11:01

@Gully: No, the keyboard input focus is still on the configuration panel, so all your inputs are redirected to this control. You almost certainly lost your files unknowingly some time before doing this.

Posts: 12 · gullyravine 12 Jun 2013, 15:47

OK - thanks for letting me know. I will work it out one day ...

Posts: 23 · optokl 12 Jun 2013, 15:59

I have followed this thread for some time, so I *think* I did not do any error when ffs suggested to me today to delete files (with the extra notice there is no wastepaper basket available due to the remote disk).

I think the following should not have happened:

setting: add files in one direction only (update)

compare dirs. on local PC and on network (the drive is associated to a drive letter on local PC).
The local harddisk is suspected of controller or hardware error, so I wanted to copy some files over.

Had 4 files with identical date, but size on left side was 0. (yes, there seems to be a hardware problem).

deselected these 4 files with the checkbox in the middle of the screen. They are greyed out and text says something like they will not be copied.

press sync
press start

then ffs complains that the wastebasket is not available and files will be permanently deleted. It did not give any file names at that point.

**** why should they be deleted? I think I just excluded them from the sync?

After reading all this thread in the last days, I think I did it right. Or?
I declined permission to delete so nothing bad happened.

Oh, and ffs is installed on another physical drive, so it should be not affected by drive problems.

what do you think?

Klaus

Posts: 7212 · Zenju 12 Jun 2013, 17:24

@Klaus, the warning that recycler is not available is unrelated to your deselections. In v5.16 FFS always checks if recycler is available, even if no deletions are scheduled. The next version v5.17 will only check for recycler if actual deletions are planned.

Posts: 4 · lcurran59 6 Sep 2013, 01:34

PS:
10GB Where in the Windows-litterbox, most of the other stuff I'm restoring with undelete-tool "recuva". But this is really really stupid and should be fixed very quickly. The data where obsiosly first moved to the windows litterbox, but then deleted cause its too small.....
It can't be, that with one wrong click everything is lost in seconds on both drives! Make a warning-window, when something is going to be deleted!bowflow

I just did a very similar thing. Compare, then uncheck some folders Synch and now those folders are gone.

There definitely is a bug or very poorly worded action / option. If I compare and then deselect some folders before Sync it should not delete the files in the folders period!

Posts: 4 · lcurran59 6 Sep 2013, 02:00

No of course not. But you probably lost your files while doing something different. Maybe you deleted directories on overview panel or the main grid?Zenju

Zenju, I'm guessing you are the app developer. From a user point of view and the people that have had similar issues including me. A programmer from the old days, there is a logic bug with the options available to the user. I just lost over 26,000 photos that I now have to recover on my backup drive and some that were on my PC that I didn't want to backup. Guess I'm not capable of following the logic within the application as you have it. I will try the program again on some test files before using it on real data.
Do you have any suggestion on an undelete/data recovery program that doesn't cost a fortune?
I like how FreeFileSync appears to function with the compare then the sync, just messed up on the logic somewhere on my choices on what and how to sync.
Just my two cents worth as a programmer. And yes, I red the warnings/captions.

Posts: 4 · lcurran59 6 Sep 2013, 02:04

It might be a set up issue, I will check. However, it was a simple Mirror of four folders from a hard drive to an external drive, set up to run daily via a Windows schedule and was working fine. I was trying to amend it to run on 'PC start-up' and decided to delete the batch job and recreate it in line with this new schedule. I had Windows Explorer open at the same time and was amazed to see the files disappearing after deleting the job - especially from both drives. There were no warning messages given at any stage.gullyravine

This sounds almost exactly like my sequence of events.
Oh well, need to test with dummy data to know exactly how to set everything.
With that in mind, I probably wont use this software anymore too much chance for missing a setting/option selection and having files deleted in error.

Posts: 7212 · Zenju 6 Sep 2013, 09:50

I just did a very similar thing. Compare, then uncheck some folders Synch and now those folders are gone.

There definitely is a bug or very poorly worded action / option. If I compare and then deselect some folders before Sync it should not delete the files in the folders period!lcurran59

> If I compare and then deselect some folders before Sync it should not delete the files in the folders period!

Do you have steps how this problem can be reproduced?

Posts: 4 · lcurran59 9 Sep 2013, 16:32

If I get a chance I'll try to recreate the action that resulted in my files being deleted.
I do know I did a compare, then unchecked some folders I did not want to sync.
Don't remember beyond that.
may take me a while to try it again on some test data. I'll let you know