[Question] How to sync junctions, symbolic links and hardlinks?

[Darth Agnon]

Dear FFS forum,

I recently started using Link Shell Extension (http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html) to try and backup the gamesaves of some old games from their data folders (i.e. these old games save user data to their install folders - I would rather avoid backing up their whole install folders). So I made junctions pointing to their savedata folders (and also some symbolic links to individual persistent savefiles) within a folder that I already back up.

FFS seems to backup symlinked objects just fine, but it ignores junctions, making an empty folder with the junctioned folder's name, but not backing up any contents of the junctioned folder. Is there a hidden setting to force FFS to follow junctions, and back up the contents of junctioned folders?

I think my problem's similar to a couple of old posts that I didn't want to commandeer/necro:
viewtopic.php?t=1809&p=7253&hilit=junction#p7253
viewtopic.php?t=1341&p=5720&hilit=junction#p5720

Many thanks for any help or advice!

Thank you for making such useful software, and for making it free!

Regards, and have a happy new year!

Darth Agnon

[Zenju]

FreeFileSync is supposed to treat Junktions just like Symlinks and should create latter when needed.

[Darth Agnon]

Thank you for the reply, Zenju!

As far as I've found with my gamesaves:

a) If I hardlink directly to a file, e.g. gameconfig.txt, that is backed up by FFS
b) If I junction to a folder, e.g. <C:\Program Files x86\game\SAVE\>, FFS simply does not back it up.
c) If I symlink to a folder, FFS again simply does not back it up.

b) and c) mean that I get backups of empty gamesave-folder container folders that I manually make (e.g. <C:\Users\Myname\Saved Games\Skyrim Game Save Container Folder\>), without all the save folders containing save files within them :'(

Is there something I'm doing wrong? or is Link Shell Extension perhaps just a bad plugin?

I guess, as an alternative, I could make an FFS backup plan just for gamesaves, and browse to them directly, but it would be a bit of a pain, as well as another file to keep up to date.

Regards,

Darth Agnon

[Zenju]

I believe you haven't set up FreeFileSync to include Symlinks:
https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=comparison-settings

[Darth Agnon]

Thank you so much, Zenju! That was the problem! I can't believe I was so blind as to miss that option (which was indeed unticked) in the settings.

Live long and prosper,

Darth Agnon

[David.P]

Dear all,

just a question of understanding on this topic:
if I use the option
"Include symbolic links -> Direct"
then, in particular, are junctions copied in the same way as with Link Shell Extension with Smart Copy, meaning that the junctions work at the destination exactly as they did at the source?

[samhayne]

Doing some search I ended up here... and yeah, it's a pity.
When FreeFileSync says "Symbolic Links" it only seems to mean directory symlinks.

If I use the "direct" setting and create a folder junction that junction is recreated on the other side.

But hardlinked FILES will just be fully copied... no matter what.


So I'm using Syncovery (starting at 35€, 30 days full trial) as somebody in this forum mentioned ages ago whenever I want to sync my hardlinked files. It can mirror the hardlinks successfully with the correct setting (Comparison -> More -> Detect Hard Links, Enforce Hard Links For Existing Files).

[David.P]

Interesting that you mention that Syncovery can do that. I had used Syncovery myself literally for decades, but I still never could figure out which of its zillion of settings (combinations) to use.

I'm now using GoodSync for other reasons, however GoodSync also can't sync hardlinks, symlinks etc. properly.

[samhayne]

Syncovery definitely can do it… though I‘d love to see FFS having it implemented.
Syncovery is way slower for me and so I‘m always doing a first run with FFS and then a second one with Syncovery to fix the hardlinks. Meh.

Again the setting in Syncovery you have to apply for each sync profile: