FFS created thousands of .jpg files

[money1334]

Hello,

I have two network drives mounted on a windows 7. Running FFS 11.14
Source = G
Destination = H

I select G:\ and H:\ as the two drives to be synced (contents of G will be copied to H )

When I initiate the sync, for every .jpg file in the source (G), a thumbnail size file about 5K is created in the H drive. All the .jpg files in G: already exists in H:. I can not exclude/filter .jpg files because sometimes additional .jpg files are added in G: that do not exist in H:

Then FFS starts deleting the thumbnail size files that just created which causes a simple sync to run for a many hours.

How can I prevent FFS from creating and then deleting these .jpg files. Files are created in $RECYCLE.BIN or .access_conf\thumbnails. Below is a picture

https://www.4shared.com/s/fvZa7tLGIea

[Plerry]

Obviously you don't want to add *.jpg to your Exclude Filter.

But very likely, there is no need to sync the content of the $RECYCLE.BIN folder.
So you can add \$RECYCLE.BIN\ to your Exclude Filter.
(By default that rule is already in the Exclude Filter, exactly for this reason. You may have removed it.)

Similar considerations may apply to .access_conf\thumbnails.
There is normally no need to sync thumbnails.

[xCSxXenon]

Also, your pictures show X: as the drive, not G or H

[money1334]

G and H are just example. Actual drives are Y and X. Content of Y drive is being copied to X. Sorry for the confusion. Should have used Y and X

[money1334]

Thank you for the quick reply. There were no exclusions in the filter and I did not delete them so now I included \$RECYCLE.BIN\ and .access_conf\thumbnails in the filter.

But the problem is not preventing the tool from backing up these thumbnail files. The problem is why tool created these thumbnail .jpg files during the initial scan only to delete them in the sync step? How to prevent the tool from creating and deleting these files? This problem only happens with .jpg files. Not any .doc , .txt , .bin ......

In the example below, 5 files of about 21.7KB total size were identified for backup but over 21,000 thumbnail .jpg files were created and then immediately deleted which takes nearly an hour. Below shows the example. Second picture shows error msg after all thumbnail .jpg files have been deleted.

https://www.4shared.com/s/fSb0qHzeMiq

https://www.4shared.com/s/fGElzdFM-iq

[therube]

WD MyBook?
Seem to recall from another post here, that that is one quirky, even brain-dead, beast.

a thumbnail size file about 5K is created in the H drive

I don't believe that is going to be FFS's doing - unless said files do exist on your Y: drive.

A directory starting with a period (like, .access_conf) is typically "hidden" (not seen by default) in the UNIX/Linux world. So if you are using some "file manager" that comes with the MyBook, you would think that directory might be hidden to you. (Windows Explorer should see it without issue [I'd hope].)

Content of Y drive is being copied to X

So is this is an Update sync, from Y to X?

Probably not, because:

In the example below

It is showing it wants to delete the X:\.access_conf directory, & if it were (only an) Update, there would be no deletion involved.

So what type of sync are you running?

[money1334]

There are two 1TB drives. Each is connected to a wireless router USB port (two routers). Both routers are on the same subnet.

Each drive is mounted through "map network drive" on a windows 7 computer.

The thumbnail .jpg files definitely do not exist on the source (Y) and destination (X) drives before mirror is started.
I can visually see .jpg files getting created in the thumbnails directory and I can visually see these files getting deleted from the directory by displaying the content of the thumbnails directory in X. This directory does not exist in Y drive. I can also see deletion of these files in FFS GUI screen.

Update...

I just did another run but this time I used "update". It scanned all the content of destination (X) drive but did not create/delete any .jpg thumbnail files.

I think an improvement to the tool that can significantly speed up the processes is to create a checksum for each directory. If that checksum has not changed, then content of directory should be skipped for any update/mirror function.

[xCSxXenon]

Those files are somehow being generated/deleted by something other than FFS on the source location. FFS can't sync data that isn't there. OR, what I have seen is the files may not actually be in the source, so it's deleting them in the destination, which makes sense. BUT, maybe the permissions aren't working correctly and they aren't actually being deleted from the source, causing them to be detected in following syncs. If you have "ignore errors" and "auto-close" set like I do, you may miss these issues. Try deleting that access_conf folder manually on the destination drive. Then run a compare and let's see what pops up

[money1334]

I finally resolved this issue. First of all, the thumbnail .jpg files do not exist on the source drive. These files are created and then immediately deleted on the destination drive when mirror function is selected. They are not created when update function is used.

I setup a new router for the destination drive and connected a new USB drive to it. This time no new thumbnail files were created using the mirror function. It seems the problem is caused by a combination of my router + mirror function.

I consider this problem resolved although I don't quite understand what is causing it.

Thank you everyone for your suggestion and feedback.

[xCSxXenon]

I wonder if the router was set at a "media device" and was auto generating thumbnails for previews

[money1334]

Yes, media server was on by default. I forgot to mention that I had turned it off as one of my experiments to root cause the problem and that solved the thumbnail creation/deletion problem. But again, this only happens when mirror function is used and not update.

[Plerry]

> But again, this only happens when mirror function is used and not update.

That makes perfect sense.
A Mirror sync will remove any content from the destination that is not present in the source.
Conversely, an Update sync will leave any content in the destination that is only present in the destination.