Free File Sync wants to sync identical data again and again.

[Arunderan]

Hello,

I have a problem with synching. The compare method is date and time. The sync method is mirroring. FreeFileSync Version is 8.2

I mirror four drives completely. And the compare always shows me around 97 gb to sync that is already identical. Same size, same creation date, same data. But Free File Sync wants to sync it again and again, with every new compare.

I have even deleted those data meanwhille. And have let Free File Sync move the data in question. But no luck. The data in question still shows up in the compare as needed to sync, even after this action.

I am clueless. Any ideas how i could fix this?

Kind regards

Arunderan

[Zenju]

Could be a silent driver failure when setting modification times, e.g. viewtopic.php?t=2401
Or some over-zealous AV software messing with the dates, e.g. viewtopic.php?t=550
Or some other software that changes these files' dates.

[Arunderan]

Hi Zenju,

Thanks for your thoughts. How could we come from a "could be" to a "this is it?" Do you have a specific advice for me? Do you need more information? Just tell me what you need to know :)

No antivirus software is running. So that's this one out. What runs is Comodo firewall. But this should not play a role since i have turned off Defense+ and anything else that is not firewall.

The data discovered by Free File Sync and Windows Explorer is that the local data is older than the one at the backup. Which is normal. The file size is identical too. So there should be no reaso that Free File Sync finds a difference here that triggers the need to sync again.

There is no other software accessing the data. It goes from an internal hdd drive that is not connected with the system partition (system partition is at an SSD) directly to an external USB 3 drive.

What is curious is that not all data is affected. It's not the whole drive. But just some specific files / folders.

Kind regards
Arunderan

[Zenju]

What runs is Comodo firewall. But this should not play a role

Comodo is *exactly* what is causing this problem in the second link.

https://freefilesync.org/faq.php#different-after-sync

[Arunderan]

Ah thanks for the hint. But as told, everything else but the firewall is disabled. The auto sandbox is off. Hips is off. It should not cause a problem.

I will disable Comodo for some further tests now, and will check back then :)

[Arunderan]

Turned off Comodo and did a rescan. Result: no problems anymore. Super curious, since, as told, everything is turned off already in Comodo.

Anyways, problem solved. Many thanks :)

[NightOwl]

@ Arunderan

hello, i had the same problem:

reason seems to be that Comodo adds ADS streams to the files it has checked, purposedly to make later scannings faster, etc., which explains why not all your files are re-synced, but as this alters the file-dates, it may result in a continuous re-sync (and although not globally "activated" by the user, some modules may still be running in the background)

'cause i didn't want to give up Comodo, i did some testing, maybe this may also be helpfull to you:

to run Comodo with firewall and antivirus enabled and syncing without problems (at least on my machine, i primary use the firewall and the anti-virus, while the other protection options (Viruscope, HIPS) are only used when testing suspicious things, etc.)

in Comodo settings:

> disable the SandBox, and be sure to disable the 'File Source Tracking' option
> disable 'Stateful' in the Anti-Virus settings, and do not use it (e.g. use it in 'On access' mode)
> disable 'Scanning optimizations' (also in Anti-Virus settings)

hope this helps, greetz