The below errors happened after a directory sync operation. I had already backed all my files in my /home/me directory onto a blank USB drive using the command:
This took 36 hours. Now I need to back up again. I want to copy over only what has changed, and so I am using FreeFileSync to do so. FreeFileSync output many file sync errors. Pasted below is a sample of them:
10:06:10 Error Cannot open file "/home/me/snap/anbox/common/runtime/anbox/sockets/qemu_pipe". Unsupported item type. [socket, 0140000] 10:06:20 Error Cannot open file "/home/me/.cxoffice/logs/install_LabVIEW2021_Unlisted_application_7.cxlog.fifo". Unsupported item type. [FIFO, named pipe, 0010000] 10:09:29 Error Cannot write file "/media/me/AADE755ADE75202D/home/me/.firestorm_x64 2020-01-09/logs/dump-1e2b6572-��]�~763f.ffs_tmp". EILSEQ: Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character [open]
It appears there are file types the cp command did copy, that FreeFileSync cannot. Why cannot FreFileSync do the same as cp? What can be done about these errors?
This is a Linux-specific problem. Sockets and named pipes are special filetypes; they are used by the computer at run-time; they are not standard files that you would expect to store contents in for next time. A socket is used as a communication point between multiple processes, and the same for a named pipe. It is not a problem that FreeFileSync does not copy these files. These files will not be useful if copied elsewhere.
The dump file that you refer to is probably a large binary file (dump file being a file that stores a memory dump from a program that has crashed) that is useful when debugging a program or giving to a support team who will debug the program. I don't know much about that type of error message, but you probably don't actually need this file in the new location either.
