I have been using ST to sync two local laptops on Win10 and Firefox–working on one and updating the other and it has been working fine.
Today however I started 1, loaded ST, started 2 and when I tried to load ST I got the above msg.
Pls help.
Please check Task Manager and see if Syncthing is actually running. If it is, I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’d start looking at the configuration file to see if that was a source of difficulty.
Thanx for responding.
You were correct – St was not running. But then the question is why? I have a shortcut on the desktop that loads
D:\SyncThing\syncthing.exe
and it was working. But now when I clicked on it it did not. Even stranger, when I recreated the shortcut it does work. I noticed that the autoupdate process creates a file syncting.exe.old – can this have anything to do with it?
The other strange thing I just noticed is that when I start one of the laptops, it automatically starts St with a shortcut named Start Syncing D:Stctl.exe --start, which I did not create and it does not exist in D:\Syncthing folder. There are two syncthing processes in Task Manager that I cannot terminate. So something is auto-starting St when I start one laptop, which I cannot terminate.
This shortcut also exists on the other laptop, but St does not autostart – I must start it myself.
What I really want is to start St myself on each laptop when I want to sync and terminate both until next time. How do I do that?
One more question: I know there is a way to load St without opening the config window – can you remind me how?
Thanks again.
The log might tell you why it didn’t launch.
Where do Syncthing logs go to?
“On Windows Syncthing by default also creates syncthing.log in Syncthing’s home directory…Command line option -logfile can be used to specify a user-defined logfile.”
I do not see any default logfile in the home folder and I have not created any user one.
Thanks.
Where are you checking specifically? The “home” folder in Syncthing terms on Windows is %LOCALAPPDATA%\Syncthing (see https://docs.syncthing.net/users/config). Just copy and paste the path into the address path in Explorer, then press Enter.
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I found the log, thanks.
I am attaching the latest part that might be relevant – 3/31 or 4/1. Since I am not that technical, I would appreciate if you could figure out what happened.
But I must admit it’s very strange: why would a shortcut stop loading ST and recreating it would fix that. st.txt (109.2 KB)
Syncthing is telling you that something is stopping it:
[67SUP] 2025/04/01 15:38:00 INFO: Lost primary connection to WZ2FCBG at [2601:645:8900:3630:95e9:5fd7:c912:595]:22000-[2601:645:8900:3630:da2:e31c:6c62:c8f1]:22000/tcp-server/TLS1.3-TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256/LAN-P10-61IAAQ1L25JNGRM00DMGDIKHHS: closed by remote: Syncthing is being stopped (0 remain)
Well, since it was working and nothing has changed at my end, without knowing WHAT stopped it…Anybody who had such an experience, or has any ideas?
I read your log and I cannot see any place where Syncthing is crashing or stopping itself.
Do you have antivirus software or similar that’s preventing Syncthing communications? That’s sending the process a command to stop?
Yes, I understand, but this is baffling. If it’s software, why hasn’t it stop it before?
The only thing that runs continuously is Windows Firewall, but I control with a utility that allows me to enable programs thru, and I made sure ST was enabled. Since I did not change that…
I notice that it says “closed by remote”, which means that the other laptop stopped it, which makes no sense to me–why would the remote stop ST on the “local”?
And I still don’t understand what starts ST automatically at startup – I checked my startup programs and ST is not one of them.
There are next to no clues here as to why Syncthing is stopping. Check your antivirus logs, check to see if anything else might have commanded the process to stop.
I suspect that “closed by remote” means that the remote device closed the connection, not closed Syncthing.
As to why Syncthing is running at startup, take a look at Starting Syncthing Automatically — Syncthing documentation and check those options. Task Scheduler in particular may be configured to start Syncthing and then stop it.
I will check the logs, but I only have monthly scanners, not AV running continuously.
The two laptops are identical–one is the clone of the other. I installed ST on both according to the remote and local instructions. I did not set anything up to start automatically, task scheduler neither.
On the remote, where ST starts automatically, in:
C:\users.…\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\StartMenu
Programs\SyncThing there is one shortcut
Start Syncing D:\SyncThing|\stctl.exe --start
On the local in the same folder I found 2 addl ST shortcuts:
Stop Syncing D:\Syncthing\stctl.exe --stop
Sincthing Configuration Page D:\Syncthing\ConfigurationPage.url
These were all created by the install.
- Are they starting ST automatically?
- Can I delete them to stop that?
- Why did install create diff shortcuts?
Thanx.
I don’t know how those shortcuts were created – how did you install Syncthing?
I recommend that you delete them and reboot.
There is some log output about Syncthing exiting itself, but it automatically started itself again (auto update).
[start] 2025/04/01 13:32:29 INFO: Upgrade available (current "v1.29.3" < latest "v1.29.4")
[start] 2025/04/01 13:32:35 INFO: Upgraded to "v1.29.4", exiting
[start] 2025/04/01 13:32:36 INFO: syncthing v1.29.4 "Gold Grasshopper" (go1.24.1 windows-amd64) builder@github.syncthing.net 2025-03-27 09:31:51 UTC
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As I said, I just used the documentation and followed the instructions.
It’s strange that (1) different number of shortcuts were created. (2) When there is only one, there’s automatic load; when there’s three, there isn’t. (3) The user is not notified about them.
I deleted them and I’ll monitor what happens.
Perhaps somebody can enlighten us as to when/how they are created.
Ah, so maybe the update stopped ST–the replacement of syncthing.exe defeated the shortcut. But my guess is the update does not take that long, and the problem persisted for quite a while and required recreateing the shortcut.
There’s more than one way to install Syncthing on Windows (see Syncthing | Downloads). Did you use the “Base Syncthing” distribution or the Windows Installer?
It looks like you or the Windows Installer used the “Run at user log on using the Startup folder” method of getting it to start.
Correct. The automated update restarted Syncthing 1 second after the executable got changed.
This is the output of something stopping it:
[67SUP] 2025/04/01 15:38:00 INFO: Lost primary connection to WZ2FCBG at [2601:645:8900:3630:95e9:5fd7:c912:595]:22000-[2601:645:8900:3630:da2:e31c:6c62:c8f1]:22000/tcp-server/TLS1.3-TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256/LAN-P10-61IAAQ1L25JNGRM00DMGDIKHHS: closed by remote: Syncthing is being stopped (0 remain)
[67SUP] 2025/04/01 15:38:00 INFO: Connection to WZ2FCBG at [2601:645:8900:3630:95e9:5fd7:c912:595]:22000-[2601:645:8900:3630:da2:e31c:6c62:c8f1]:22000/tcp-server/TLS1.3-TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256/LAN-P10-61IAAQ1L25JNGRM00DMGDIKHHS closed: closed by remote: Syncthing is being stopped
[67SUP] 2025/04/01 15:38:24 INFO: QUIC listener ([::]:22000) shutting down
[67SUP] 2025/04/01 15:38:24 INFO: Relay listener (dynamic+https://relays.syncthing.net/endpoint) shutting down
[67SUP] 2025/04/01 15:38:24 INFO: TCP listener ([::]:22000) shutting down
[67SUP] 2025/04/01 15:38:24 INFO: Exiting
And this is the output of it being started:
[start] 2025/04/02 12:55:23 INFO: syncthing v1.29.4 "Gold Grasshopper" (go1.24.1 windows-amd64) builder@github.syncthing.net 2025-03-27 09:31:51 UTC
You can see that it stopped on April 1 15:38:24, but it started on April 2 12:55:23. This long restart is expected, if you shut down your computer, and then you started it (and Syncthing) about a day later.
The automatic update stopped Syncthing on April 1 13:32:35, and then restarted it 1 second later on April 1 13:32:36.
The update may or may not have broke the shortcut, preventing you from using it.
Note that the (v1.29.4) update has only existed since April 1, so if you had this problem before that, it’s not caused by it.