CURLE_OPERATION_TIMEDOUT on specific Google Drive files

[literalzebra]

Hi --

Loving FFS as always, and thanks Zenju for your previous help [1] in steering me to FFS's built-in Google Drive sync support.

Unfortunately, I've run into an intermittent but deterministic problem, which is that when I try to back up files from my Google Drive to my local hard drive, there are always a few files (the same ones each time) that produce the following error:

02:30:37 Error Cannot read file "<redacted>.pdf".
CURLE_OPERATION_TIMEDOUT: Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 15 seconds [curl_easy_perform]

Watching while it runs, the files never seem to transfer even a single byte.

After enough days of getting annoyed by the error message, I manually copy them with "rsync -a" from Google Drive for Desktop and the problem is resolved... until it happens with a new file.

What is remarkable is that it always gets hung up on exactly the same file(s), and it's one out of maybe a couple thousand files. (In total I've experienced it with around 5 files out of around 10K files.) I can't seem to figure out any rhyme or reason to which files fail -- because I work mainly with PDF's in drive, they've always been PDF's somewhere between 2 MB and 70 MB in size.

I've found a number of threads here relating to CURLE_OPERATION_TIMEDOUT but none seem to apply -- I'm on FFS 11.16 on a MacBook Air running Monterey, so the culprits suggested in other threads (Windows Defender, anti-virus, etc.) aren't relevant. And I've got a fast internet connection.

Indeed, the culprit seems to be Google itself -- I've just tried using drive.google.com, and when I attempt to download one offending PDF, it takes 19 seconds to start. Whereas other PDF's take between 0 and 5 seconds to start. It also pops up a message about "scanning for viruses" on all PDF's when I try to download. In any case, it seems that Google Drive simply takes longer than 15 seconds to initiate certain file downloads.

So it seems like the solution is to increase the timeout to at least 30 seconds, at least for Google Drive operations? Though 60 seconds might be even better -- if I've got a file that takes 19 seconds to start, it seems likely there might be others that could take twice that.

Thanks so much!

[1] viewtopic.php?t=8891&p=31825#p31825

[Zenju]

Indeed, the culprit seems to be Google itself -- [...] It also pops up a message about "scanning for viruses"

That's a great observation, and maybe the explanation for most (all?) intermittent CURLE_OPERATION_TIMEDOUT related to Google Drive. Since the default timeout is currently hard-coded to only 15 seconds, this means a user-configurable timeout is required!

Implemented for FFS 11.18: https://www.mediafire.com/file/8gzk1ts4wiodwq8/FreeFileSync_11.18_%255BBeta%255D_Windows_Setup%25282%2529.exe

[literalzebra]

Fantastic -- thanks so much!! Great news. I can't test the Windows version since I'm on a Mac but I'll let you know if I ever run into the problem again once 11.18 comes out.

[TomAD]

This is really great. It now works for me. I am able to retire the half-baked custom script that I wrote to download files from Google drive and use FreeFileSync as I had originally hoped to do.

[mariosm1cy]

Hi all, @Zenju

I am using ubuntu and face the same issue with FFS v11.18 and google drive. Could someone please advice in what file and what setting should I change in order fix this.

Error:
CURLE_OPERATION_TIMEDOUT: Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 15 seconds [curl_easy_perform]

[literalzebra]

Hi @mariosm1cy --

For me on a Mac, you can find the setting when, from the main window, you click the cloud icon next to the "Browse" button for the "source" or "destination" fields. That brings up the "connection type" dialog where you pick the cloud account, and Google Drive connections have a "Access timeout (in seconds)" field. I've set that to 30 which works for me (15 wasn't enough).

[mariosm1cy]

Thank you! I have set the access timeout to 30s and works fine now.