Syncthing nuked my directory

Support
1

This is critical, those were important documents and I didn’t have backups (syncthing was supposed to be the backup)

I just got Syncthing, and added a directory in my home directory to it. I set it to only Send, not Send/Receive. I also don’t have any other device added to my network just yet.

When I added the directory, I get this Notice on my screen:

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And here’s what the current status looks like:

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I immediately went and checked if my directory was still there and nope, it’s gone.

I’ve stopped interacting with my laptop for now, in case the only recovery is through bits left on my disk. Please help.

2

It’s difficult to say what actually happened, but at this point, if the data is critical, I would either hand the drive to a professional data recovery service or try to do it on your own (if you’ve got previous experience in data recovery). To reiterate, if the folder is gone physically from the disk, there is nothing more you can do within Syncthing to bring it back.

Also, just a general warning, real-time file sychronisation and backup are two very different things. Please do not treat Syncthing as a backup solution.

1 Like
3

Yeah, I didn’t want to use this as a backup solution either. One of my reasons was to have the documents on my phone, locally.

I can try to recover the data, but I want to be sure that it’s my last remaining option.

I don’t see the directory via ls anymore, but I want to understand what happened here. All I did was add the directory to folders to be synced.

Irrespective of whether I get my data back or not, this should be immediately fixed. What kind of code just nukes a user’s data when following the intended set of instructions to use the software.

4

I’m not sure how Syncthing was able to do that as all the errors in the UI indicate that it even lacks the ability to read from these locations.

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Wish I knew.

Here are the logs for syncthing.service, running as root

[SJS27] 2025/04/15 10:53:46 INFO: Adding folder "documents" (rvmwb-4ccex)
[SJS27] 2025/04/15 10:53:46 INFO: No stored folder metadata for "rvmwb-4ccex"; recalculating
[SJS27] 2025/04/15 10:53:46 WARNING: Loading ignores: lstat /home/getpsyched/documents/.stignore: permission denied
[SJS27] 2025/04/15 10:53:46 WARNING: Failed to create folder root directory: stat /home/getpsyched/documents: permission denied
[SJS27] 2025/04/15 10:53:46 INFO: Ready to synchronize "documents" (rvmwb-4ccex) (sendonly)
[SJS27] 2025/04/15 10:53:46 INFO: Failed initial scan of sendonly folder "documents" (rvmwb-4ccex)
[SJS27] 2025/04/15 10:53:46 WARNING: Error on folder "documents" (rvmwb-4ccex): stat /home/getpsyched/documents: permission denied
6

Failed to create folder root directory indicates to me that syncthing didn’t see the folder you tried to share (like it had already been deleted). Tried to create it, and couldn’t.

Are you sure this folder wasn’t gone before you started syncthing?

Is the documents folder still there but empty? Or is the documents folder itself gone?

2 Likes
7

Has the directory been accidentally dragged to another? I have clients that accidently drag and drop folders, so I look above and below the lost folder before reaching for their backups

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8

The folder itself was gone, BUT

THIS. The directory got moved a level deeper /home/getpsyched/src/ somehow.

Thanks everyone for helping debug this with prompt responses, and thanks a lot @terry for pointing out basically exactly what happened :sob:. This is embarrassing.

5 Likes
9

Don’t worry too much. It’s great to hear that the folder is there and that Syncthing isn’t at fault :slight_smile:.

3 Likes