Cosmetic issue - idle with 4000+ different files

[m.holmes (mycroft holmes)]

Sorry if this question was asked too many times.

I have two machines, Speedball2 and Speedball. Speedball2/Music is shared “send only”. Speedball2 reports that everything is idle/green/in sync. Speedball reports that the folder is green and up to date BUT the remote device Speedball2 is permanently at 95%, and there are about 4050 files not up to date (but none is being downloaded!).

The files are indeed identical (md5), and do exist on both sides. The issue persists since probably 4 or 5 months.

Is there a quick fix? e.g. delete the database? I would guess the the issue is on Speedball (i.e. the receiver).

p.s. this seems a common problem, so I would suggest to take countermeasures in the software itself (it’s definitely not normal that a device is not up-to-date, but ALSO idle… if this persists for more than N days, I would expect the software to do something… wipe its own database and restart, or so).

[AudriusButkevicius]

I suspect the content might be the same, but the metadata (mtime, permissioms etc) are probably different, hence its out of sync.

It’s not actually might not be cosmetical.

[m.holmes (mycroft holmes)]

permissions are ignored (on the receive side).

is there a way to get the list of these files from the db? I am unsure whether the simplest fix would be to delete the files or delete the entire db.

[AudriusButkevicius]

I mean, sure, whatever is easiest, but without understanding the cause, you’ll probably ene up in the same situation again, so

Deleting things randomly can also lead to bad state, situations, so suggest you backup before you go on your deletion spree.

[m.holmes (mycroft holmes)]

So, what would you advise to investigate, precisely?

One simple thing I could do is MOVE away a couple of folders, let syncthing think that the files were deleted, and after a while stop the service and put back the files.

[AudriusButkevicius]

I suggest you compare the out of sync files to see why they are really out of sync, on more than content.

[m.holmes (mycroft holmes)]

FYI, here’s how I solved. I just noticed that all the out of sync files were in two specific folders, so I connected with ssh and moved the two folders away. Syncthing (it’s a receive-only machine), did a rescan and decided that there were local changes. At this point, I paused the folder, put the files back, un-paused and clicked on “revert local changes”.

This fixed everything, but it didn’t solve the mystery. It was neither a file content issue, nor a file attribute issue (as I put back all the files exactly as they were).

[m.holmes (mycroft holmes)]

ok, I think I have an update.

The two machines deterministically go back in this state. But I have no clue why.

Summarizing:

1. the sender says “up to date” and it’s idle
2. the sender says the receiver is at 98%, 1800 files out of sync
3. the receiver is idle (in the sender)

files that are listed as out-of-sync were not touched e.g.

Library/Anime/Unknown Album/Love Hurts Every Time.mp3	3.99 MiB	2005-12-31 12:16:52

Do you have any advice on what to investigate, precisely? TIA

[AudriusButkevicius]

I already suggested what you should check. Never touched by you doesn’t mean they were never touched by some OS process.

[m.holmes (mycroft holmes)]

as far as I know, nothing ever touches these files. and even if something did, syncthing should just sync the “changes” (given it’s a simple send-only folder, and the receiver has “ignore permissions” set), not stay idle forever…

[AudriusButkevicius]

DO you have screenshots of both sides to better explaint he situation?

[m.holmes (mycroft holmes)]

thanks for your help. here are the screenshots:

sample file:

[/share/Music/Library/Anime/Nurse Angel Ririka/Unknown Album] # ls -l
-rw-rw-rw- 1 admin administrators 4186112 2005-12-31 12:16 Love Hurts Every Time.mp3

[/share/Music/Library/Anime/Nurse Angel Ririka/Unknown Album] # md5sum Love\ Hurts\ Every\ Time.mp3 
35bb28114eaa67c3414d70358c127fcf  Love Hurts Every Time.mp3

[/share/Music/Library/Anime/Nurse Angel Ririka/Unknown Album] # grep 35bb28114eaa67c3414d70358c127fcf /share/Music/MD5/*     

/share/Music/MD5/hybris_2016_05_21.txt:35bb28114eaa67c3414d70358c127fcf  F:\Music\Music\Nurse Angel Ririka\Unknown Album\Love Hurts Every Time.mp3
                        ^^^^^^^^^^
[...]

note that the file is unchanged since 2016. md5 matches on both sides. neither the file nor its attributes were changes in ages.

what’s even stranger is that the receiver now is perfectly happy:

however “speedball2” reports 39,053 files and “speedball” (the receiver) only 37,234.

so it may have deleted the files locally (this machine is in a remote location, I don’t have direct access to it).

Does this imply that there’s an issue in the sender?

[m.holmes (mycroft holmes)]

Additional info: the receiver did delete the files, but not the folders. IF I ssh into it, and rmdir one of those, Syncthing will say “local additions”. So it’s indeed convinced that the folder is empty…

[AudriusButkevicius]

Are all the other folders up to date?

Also, the one that is visible, not sure what that status means? The color looks orange, but I assume it means its synchronized?

[AudriusButkevicius]

Can you post screenshots of both of the folder states from each of the devices.

I assume all the problems are in one folder?

[m.holmes (mycroft holmes)]

Sorry for the excessive blurring. I removed the things that are not relevant to this ticket.

1. the screenshots show exactly the folder states for the sender (you can see the name speedball2 above) and the receiver (speedball, the last two).
2. the sender says “folder up to date” but it thinks that the receiver is still downloading (you can see Syncing (98%... and 1819 items).
3. the person I asked to take the screenshot was using an Italian locale in the browser, but yes, it prints “synchronised” in green).
4. everything else is green/idle/correctly synchronised
5. not sure if it matters, but new changes to the music folder are correctly picked up

[m.holmes (mycroft holmes)]

this is the folder state in the sender

[AudriusButkevicius]

Global and local states disagree. Suggest you remove the folder on both sides and add it again. If its been setup since some old version, could be the cause as there were bugs. If its been setup in a recent version, then there still are bugs