# "readdirent" error for a folder on an external SSD.
**URL:** https://forum.syncthing.net/t/readdirent-error-for-a-folder-on-an-external-ssd/12563
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 13, 2018, 5:48pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/readdirent-error-for-a-folder-on-an-external-ssd/12563 "2018-12-13T17:48:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cecoates](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/cecoates)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2018, 5:48pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/readdirent-error-for-a-folder-on-an-external-ssd/12563/1 "2018-12-13T17:48:09Z")
This error started about 2 months ago, but I’ve been out of town so mostly ignoring it.
I have a folder named “Movies” that syncs to my QNAP NAS.
However, on my desktop, SyncThing always displays the following error:
"Filesystem Watcher Errors
For the following folders an error occurred while starting to watch for changes. It will be retried every minute, so the errors might go away soon. If they persist, try to fix the underlying issue and ask for help if you can’t. [Support](https://forum.syncthing.net)
Movies readdirent: input/output error"
Then, under the entry for that folder, SyncThing also says this under “Rescans”:
"1h Failed to setup, retrying
Periodic scanning at given interval and failed setting up watching for changes, retrying every 1m: readdirent: input/output error "
It only seems to affect that one folder, which is on that one external SSD, a Crucial MX500 2TB disk.
As far as I can tell, the folder _does_ still sync correctly, and changes are synced to the destination folder on my QNAP NAS as expected.
But overall I’m still puzzled about that error and haven’t been able to find out more about it. Has anyone else experienced something similar before?
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### Author:  [@calmh](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/calmh)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2018, 7:40pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/readdirent-error-for-a-folder-on-an-external-ssd/12563/2 "2018-12-13T19:40:25Z")
> [@cecoates](#):
>
> readdirent: input/output error
This _should_ mean roughly “the disk is bad”. I’d run some fsck / chkdsk / similar thing on it.
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### Author:  [@cecoates](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/cecoates)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2018, 10:31pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/readdirent-error-for-a-folder-on-an-external-ssd/12563/4 "2018-12-14T22:31:22Z")
Thanks for the feedback, y’all. Following the advice here I ran all the SMART tests via Gnome-Disks, and so far everything came back as “OK”.
Waiting on:
sudo smartctl -t long -a /dev/sda
To see what that yields, but:
sudo smartctl -t short -a /dev/sda
Came back as “completed without error” too.
That’s what’s odd, is the drive seems to be functioning fine, and Syncthing seems to be syncing it fine, I just can’t figure out why the one error persists.
Are there any better SSD tests I should run, or other items I could check for?
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### Author:  [@cecoates](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/cecoates)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2018, 5:51pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/readdirent-error-for-a-folder-on-an-external-ssd/12563/5 "2018-12-15T17:51:52Z")
So far all the tests have come back as OK/no errors detected. A bit befuddled.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2019, 6:35pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/readdirent-error-for-a-folder-on-an-external-ssd/12563/7 "2019-01-14T18:35:44Z")
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