Reinstallation of syncthing node without database

Support
1

Hello,

I need to reinstall syncthing on my nas, but I am unsure how it will work when I do not have the database from the old install. So I would like to install syncthing and then add the shared folders as before. I am afraid when there is a file missing on my nas which is existent on a remote machine, that this file will get deleted. Or will syncthing just handle the current files as “starting point” and thus has not detected any deletion which will be propagated to the remote systems? How about the other way around, when there has been a file deleted on the remote machine in the meantime?

Is there any documentation about these cases somewhere? I hvae not found anything like this.

BR Oliver

2

A new installation of Syncthing on the NAS won’t push missing files as deletions to the remote devices. It will rather download those missing files to the NAS instead.

It will be re-added to the remote machine from the NAS. This can be prevented by initially setting the folders on the NAS to Receive Only (which I personally do on new installations with pre-existing files).

2 Likes
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Thanks Tomasz for the feedback! How about files which have been changed on the remote machine? I guess syncthing will detect the newer file by the modfied date/time?

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You will get conflicted copies of those files on the first sync, as at that point Syncthing doesn’t treat them as the same but updated yet.

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Sorry for asking, I just read the docs for “Receive only folders”. When I understood correctly the workflow will be like this:

  • install syncthing on nas
  • create folders to be synchronized as before, but as “Receive only”
  • let syncthing synchronize it from the remote machine
  • when there is a red “Revert Local Changes”, press it
  • set the folder on the nas to “Send + Receive” (if needed)
6

Looks right to me :+1:.

If there are many folders, you can also temporarily set your default folder type to Receive Only to make the whole process faster. Once everything synced and you’ve reverted the local additions, you can change the defaults to Send & Receive again.

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