Sync of WindowsImageBackup directory throws Failed Items error

On Windows 10, I’m using the Windows 7 ‘Create System Image’. That is saving the C: OS image to D:\WindowsImageBackup as owner SYSTEM. I’m then using Syncthing to copy this to my Unraid NAS Share. I create the Folder on my PC Syncthing UI, when it starts the read of the directory it immediately displays “Failed Items” (no share to Unraid NAS Syncthing yet). I’m sure it has to do with the SYSTEM permissions but not sure how to work around this. I’ve searched reddit and syncthing communities but haven’t quite found any answer.

Of note, I did right click on the folder->properties->advanced. I then changed Owner from SYSTEM to my windows user account and that worked. However, I don’t know if that is the correct procedure, especially if for whatever reason I have to restore my OS to a new nVME drive from the Unraid NAS.

I’m not trying to automate this as I will probably manually create a system image every 6-9 months and then manually execute syncthing job to my Unraid NAS.

Have you tested if creating new system backups still works after changing the folder owner?

I reran the windows 7 create system image again and it did successfully create. Ran a new PC Syncthing UI job and it is scanning the directory/file, so that may have fixed my issue by changing the permissions once.

@tomasz86 - strike that. The root folder is my laptop user but the directories beneath were changed to SYSTEM and Syncthing scan Failed.

Yeah, I think you should be able to access and sync the folder but only if you run Syncthing as administrator.

Or even better from a security perspective, run a scheduled task after your backup image creation that grants access to the user running Syncthing.

I have figured out my issue. I uninstalled Syncthing and then ran the installation .exe as Administrator and now it is working properly. I did this on two different laptops for confirmation.

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