Hello,
I use FFS to backup a lot of data overnight. So this issue doesn't really affect me much, other than making the whole task longer than it should be. Today, I manually hit the compare button as I added another folder pair and wanted to see the impact it would have on the entire backup.
What I've noticed is that while scanning, every once in a while, FFS seemed to be frozen. If I waited long enough, it continued its scan. So I started looking into the folders whenever it paused like this, and it seems to be when one of the sub folder is empty is when it is pausing. I haven't timed it, but I would say it's pausing for somewhere between 1 and 2 minutes. The problem is, there are a lot of empty folders (probably about 100-150 or so) in there (and it is intentional from the software creating those folders). Is there any reason why FFS would struggle on empty folders?
thank you.
Very long delay on empty folders
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- Joined: 10 Sep 2018
- Posts: 10
- Joined: 10 Sep 2018
In addition to the above, I am now finding a situation where FFS is totally stuck. I can hit the cancel button, and it will say "stop requested"... but then it's frozen. Here's what happened.
I ran a compare today to find out which files, were not backed up over night as I had a different file count between the source and destination folders pair. So it started scanning, and at some point, just stopped. I let it sit there for 15-20 minutes, nothing changed. Looking at resources monitor, there's no files in use by FFS. So I tried cancelling, and 10 minutes later, it was still cancelling. Clicking anywhere got me a "not responding" from Windows. So I forced closed FFS, checked and made sure there was no FFS tasks running in the background, and restarted the scan. It reached the exact same point, and got stuck again. Tried a 3rd time, exactly the same.
The folder where it gets stuck is empty. There's nothing at all, not even hidden files in that folder. However, the full path to that folder is quite long. No special characters, just the regular a-z alphabet, some numbers, some hyphen, and some spaces. Nothing out of the ordinary. The full path is 108 characters long, including spaces. I am really not sure how to get past that point in the scan. But I can tell, by looking at the folder "one up" from there, that there are subfolders that were missed in last night's session.
Sadly, there is no log files, I am guessing because I end-task to stop the program.
Suggestions?
I ran a compare today to find out which files, were not backed up over night as I had a different file count between the source and destination folders pair. So it started scanning, and at some point, just stopped. I let it sit there for 15-20 minutes, nothing changed. Looking at resources monitor, there's no files in use by FFS. So I tried cancelling, and 10 minutes later, it was still cancelling. Clicking anywhere got me a "not responding" from Windows. So I forced closed FFS, checked and made sure there was no FFS tasks running in the background, and restarted the scan. It reached the exact same point, and got stuck again. Tried a 3rd time, exactly the same.
The folder where it gets stuck is empty. There's nothing at all, not even hidden files in that folder. However, the full path to that folder is quite long. No special characters, just the regular a-z alphabet, some numbers, some hyphen, and some spaces. Nothing out of the ordinary. The full path is 108 characters long, including spaces. I am really not sure how to get past that point in the scan. But I can tell, by looking at the folder "one up" from there, that there are subfolders that were missed in last night's session.
Sadly, there is no log files, I am guessing because I end-task to stop the program.
Suggestions?
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- Joined: 10 Sep 2018
ok, more information. It is more complicated than I thought... Looks like I can only go to a certain number of folders deep. The destination for the backup is a network storage, which I have tried as a mapped drive letter, and as UNC.
\\NAS\City\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4\Folder5\Folder6
When I reach Folder 6, the destination is empty. And it is the same for any folder at that level. So for instance, if you had:
\\NAS\City\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4\Folder5a\Folder6
Folder 6 is empty in that (5a) path as well. I am really confused.
\\NAS\City\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4\Folder5\Folder6
When I reach Folder 6, the destination is empty. And it is the same for any folder at that level. So for instance, if you had:
\\NAS\City\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Folder4\Folder5a\Folder6
Folder 6 is empty in that (5a) path as well. I am really confused.
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FreeFileSync is stuck waiting for a system call to return, which doesn't happen for some reason. The system call is supposed to get the content of the following folder:
As a test, can you run the XP-version of FreeFileSync and see if this makes a difference regarding the hang?M:\BackupFolderDoNotTouch\FARLC01v\DATA\Sugars\20180831 TOTAL SUGARS KK1 2018-09-04 10-09-09\023-0101.D
"C:\Program Files\FreeFileSync\Bin\FreeFileSync_XP.exe"
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- Joined: 10 Sep 2018
thanks Zenju. I am trying this now.
While it is scanning....
Here is some additional information I forgot to mention originally, I am not sure if it would have any impact.
- The source and destination folders are geographically at different locations, connected to each other over VPN.
- The source is a local disk to the computer running FFS and destination is a NAS at the second location.
Bad news... an hour and 1.9 million files later, looks like it stopped again. Based on the path displayed on screen, looks like approximately the same path as before.
I will email you the link to the zipped dump file as soon as it's done uploading.
While it is scanning....
Here is some additional information I forgot to mention originally, I am not sure if it would have any impact.
- The source and destination folders are geographically at different locations, connected to each other over VPN.
- The source is a local disk to the computer running FFS and destination is a NAS at the second location.
Bad news... an hour and 1.9 million files later, looks like it stopped again. Based on the path displayed on screen, looks like approximately the same path as before.
I will email you the link to the zipped dump file as soon as it's done uploading.
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The FreeFileSync XP-version is also hanging while waiting on a system call, this time on the NAS side:
\\nas-edmfs2\Farmington\BackupFolderDoNotTouch\FARLC02\DATA\Caffeine\20170525 CALIBRATION CAFFEINE AS 2017-05-25 16-30-14\002-0204.D
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That was actually from the same device. In the first sample, the NAS was mapped as a network drive.
Secondly, that particular folder does not exist (yet) in that path. It does exist in the source. So I'm really confused as to why it is waiting for a folder that does not exist.
Do you have any suggestions?
Here is some additional information I just thought of. This runs through a scheduled task in Windows task scheduler. Because we can only do the backup outside of business hours, the task is set to start at 11pm, and then, forced stop (if it is still running) at 7am. In a normal scenario, it would never take that long, as I only copy the new/modified files. (Update). However, as this is a new setup, it is expected that the first run would take much more than taht 8 hour window. The assumption was that after a few nights of catching up, it would eventually make it through.
I am thinking, maybe the abrupt task end at 7am might have cause some issues which prevents FFS from getting past that point, as for some reason, the NAS isn't responding?
I did a health check on the NAS last night, and the file system was ok. As we are entering the weekend, I think I will erase that partial backup from the NAS and then will manually run the backup (not via task scheduler) and let it run past the 8 hour window to see if it will make it through. If it does, then maybe the second pass will not choke on the empty or non-existing folders. I will report back on Monday.
Thank you for the awesome software. I have been using it at home to backup my important documents for a couple of years, and never had a problem with it. I do appreciate all the work you put into this.
Secondly, that particular folder does not exist (yet) in that path. It does exist in the source. So I'm really confused as to why it is waiting for a folder that does not exist.
Do you have any suggestions?
Here is some additional information I just thought of. This runs through a scheduled task in Windows task scheduler. Because we can only do the backup outside of business hours, the task is set to start at 11pm, and then, forced stop (if it is still running) at 7am. In a normal scenario, it would never take that long, as I only copy the new/modified files. (Update). However, as this is a new setup, it is expected that the first run would take much more than taht 8 hour window. The assumption was that after a few nights of catching up, it would eventually make it through.
I am thinking, maybe the abrupt task end at 7am might have cause some issues which prevents FFS from getting past that point, as for some reason, the NAS isn't responding?
I did a health check on the NAS last night, and the file system was ok. As we are entering the weekend, I think I will erase that partial backup from the NAS and then will manually run the backup (not via task scheduler) and let it run past the 8 hour window to see if it will make it through. If it does, then maybe the second pass will not choke on the empty or non-existing folders. I will report back on Monday.
Thank you for the awesome software. I have been using it at home to backup my important documents for a couple of years, and never had a problem with it. I do appreciate all the work you put into this.
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- Joined: 10 Sep 2018
In addition to the above, while getting that computer ready for the weekend project, I see in task manager that "FFS Folder Comparison" was still running. My assumption on that is that the "End task" in the task scheduler does NOT successfully terminate FFS.
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This path definitively does exist as far as FreeFileSync is concerned, or it wouldn't have found its name while scanning the parent folder. Maybe this is a hint towards a bigger problem with the network share.Secondly, that particular folder does not exist (yet) in that path. It does exist in the source. So I'm really confused as to why it is waiting for a folder that does not exist. realm, 14 Sep 2018, 14:32
This is likely related to the network hang. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040723-00/?p=38363/In addition to the above, while getting that computer ready for the weekend project, I see in task manager that "FFS Folder Comparison" was still running. My assumption on that is that the "End task" in the task scheduler does NOT successfully terminate FFS. realm, 14 Sep 2018, 14:46
Now it's a network driver issue, not FFS's problem anymore. Hooray?
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Just thought I would report back.. I tried a different software, and I'm having the same issue (It transferred about 1GB in 36 hours). So I would say it's definitely a network issue. Sorry for the false alarm, and thanks again for the very prompt response.
