After successfully mirroring the content of a folder, repeating this action would delete the copies unexpectedly

[Schmart]

I recently installed FFS (14.3) on a HP ZBook 17 G4 of 2018 with Windows 10 Pro.

First I defined the mirroring of all 3 folders and their content of a partition of an USB-HDD (NTFS) to another USB-HDD (NTFS) without any excludes and it worked fine. I saved these settings in a name.ffs_gui to repeat it when needed.

Second I added the mirroring of the content of the "Download" folder located on the system SSD (NTFS) to the same USB-HDD (NTFS) in this name.ffs_gui, with defining the exclusion of bigger files:

\*.avi
\*.mp4
\4K Video Downloader+\*.avi
\4K Video Downloader+\*.mp4

This name.ffs_gui worked fine just as wanted - but only when processing it the first time!

When I apply the "compare" function of FFS with these settings again, it predicts, that files added to the "Download" folder after mirroring would be mirrored as well (as I expected), but the previous mirrored files and folders of the download folder (the right hand side) would be deleted - as if they would no longer exist in the "Download" folder.

But they still are existing in this folder, when I check this with my file explorer.

The comparison predicted furthermore, that no file of the first defined pair would be affected by the repetition of the mirroring. I tried this and exactly that happened, what was predicted!

What is it, I don't understand of this function? Where are these differences founded in handling the files?

Many thanks in advance for every hint or solution!

[xCSxXenon]

Post a screenshot of your FFS window after a comparison

[Plerry]

Your description is not quite clear.
But apparently you now have two separate FFS Mirror syncs.
From what I read, the destination of those two Mirror syncs is one and the same USB-HDD destination drive.
The phenomenon you describe, suggests you may be writing those two Mirror syncs to one and the same folder or to the root of the destination drive.

A Mirror sync makes the contents of the destination equal to the source, deleting all files in the destination that do not exist in the source.

If the right-side base location of your two syncs would be one and the same, when running Sync2 after Sync1 all Sync1 files in the destination that do not exist in the source of Sync2 will be deleted from the destination. Similarly, when then running Sync1, all Sync2 files in the destination that do not exist in the source of Sync1 will be deleted from the destination.

Therefore, in general, but particularly in the case of Mirror syncs, you should make sure the destination folder (FFS right-side base location) for your two syncs is different, e.g. [DestinationDrive]\Backup1 for Sync1 and [DestinationDrive]\Backup2 for Sync2.

[Schmart]

Thank You for your help. I hope I solved the problem!
The problem was caused by using the same folder on the right hand side for Sync1 AND Sync2.

I defined the following 2 Syncs in my procedure SyncSettings_name.ffs_gui:

Sync1 (mirroring): J:\ (three folders+their content: documents, music, pictures) -> G:\Backup Data\
Sync2 (mirroring): C:\Users\Martin\Downloads (content, except *.mp4, *.avi) -> G:\Backup Data\

But what I don't understand:
FFS created a folder Downloads in G:\Backup Data\ before mirroring the content of the left folder Downloads, when it didn't exist on the right hand side. When it did exist previously, the content of C:\Users\Martin\Downloads was mirrored into it as intended.

But in both cases the subsequently started function "compare" told me, that this folder and its content would be deleted, when I would apply the same procedure a second time, because it no longer seemed to exist on the left hand side!?
But it still exists, as the file explorer showed to me.

And I found a strange error message in a protocol, written 14 times in a 5 second intervall:
"File "G:\Backup Data\Downloads\sync.ffs_lock" cannot be written. ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND.". Maybe this was cause by the non-existing folder "Downloads"?

Now I defined the following 4 Syncs in my procedure SyncSettings_name.ffs_gui:

Sync1 (mirroring): J:\music (content) -> G:\Backup Data\music
Sync2 (mirroring): J:\documents (content) -> G:\Backup Data\documents
Sync3 (mirroring): J:\pictures (content) -> G:\Backup Data\pictures
Sync4 (mirroring): C:\Users\Martin\Downloads (content, except *.mp4, *.avi) -> G:\Backup Data\Downloads

and it seems to work, when I tested it step by step.

But I still have to wait for some hours, because I totally cleaned the right hand side as a precaution ...

[Schmart]

The new procedure worked as planned!

@xCSxXenon + @Plerry:
Thank you again for the hints and your readiness to help.

[Plerry]

There are many ways to skin your cat.
But I am glad to see you found at least one way that works for you.