Something went wrong with one of my Synology NAS boxes that was already running Syncthing v1.29.2 and now it thinks it’s running, but won’t respond to anything. I can’t access the web gui, the other NAS boxes say it’s not responding, I can’t get it to “stop”, “repair”, “uninstall” or anything. Is there a way to force any of those commands. I’m happy to start over, but I can’t get to a place to do so. Ideas? Thanks!
What led you to saying that Syncthing thinks it’s running?
Can you get to the Syncthing log (FAQ — Syncthing documentation)? If there’s anything in there that could shed some light on the problem, please post it.
Can you get to the Synology process list (not the installed packages)? Is Syncthing running? There are normally two processes.
Assuming that the Syncthing processes are running but aren’t communicating, my next troubleshooting step would be to make a backup of the log, followed by killing Syncthing’s processes and then restarting (Syncthing, not your NAS).
Thanks for responding!
I only think it’s running because it says it’s running. But it may be wrong (snapshot below)
As for Syncthing logs on the Synology, I don’t know where it is and I can’t find it
I can’t find a Synology process list, but I can find it on their “Info Center | Service” tab under the “Enabled Service” list. I don’t know where else to look
And I would love to be able to kill the process and then try to restart it, but I don’t know how. And I can restart the NAS easily as I am still experimenting
At the end of the day, I can kill the entire NAS and rebuild it without Syncthing and then reinstall it if that’s what it takes, but I’m trying to avoid that
Updated Post
Found the logs. The only thing I see about Syncthing is its initial successful installation last November and subsequent successful start. I restarted this NAS today and there is no mention of Syncthing successfully starting. So I believe the status message is wrong and it needs to be killed/removed before I can try again. But I only know how to do that from the GUI. How else can I do it?
I would respectfully submit that you should not trust the Synology GUI to tell you that Syncthing is running.
If you’re not familiar with using the CLI on your NAS, I’m not sure if I’m the right person to help you.
Using the CLI, please check to see if the process is running, and backup the log before you kill and restart Syncthing, if necessary.
I have resolved this with the following manual steps cobbling clues I found from a few resources. Attempting to manually stop or uninstall Syncthing didn’t work for me.
- Reset NAS to reinstall DSM
- Find your NAS again with the Synology app or www.find.synology.com
- Set up NAS with just the basics of device name, user name and password. You can do the rest after
- Make note of its IP address or go ahead and set your static
- Control Panel | Terminal & SNMP and enable SSH. You can turn it off later
- Launch Powershell on your PC and type “ssh admin@###.###.###.###” using the admin credentials you just created and your NAS current IP address. You may get a warning message that a man-in-the-middle attack is happening. Don’t panic, it’s not. Use the info in the message to edit your “known_hosts” file in c:\users\you.ssh folder. You only need the line starting with “nas name ssh-ed25529…”. Fix that line, delete the rest and save it. Then repeat the command at the beginning of step 6.
- Elevate your rights with the command “sudo -i” and press enter. You will be prompted for the root password; it’s the same as the password you just created and used. You will be warned and prompted to continue. Your command prompt will change to reflect you’re now working as root
- Since I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, I dug around each of the folders you’ll see when you type “cd /volume1” press enter and type “dir” and press enter. Be aware that folders are case-sensitive but commands are not.
- Feel free to look around, but the folders you need to visit are “@appconf”, “@appdata”, “@apphome”, “@appstore”, and “@apptemp”.
- Type “cd @appconf” (or whichever folder you’re working on) and press enter
- To remove the Syncthing data, type “rm -rf syncthing” and press enter to delete its entire folder. You can type “dir” and press enter to verify it’s gone. You will not be prompted if you’re sure you want to delete
- Navigate to each of the other folders and repeat the command in step 11
- When you’re all done, type “exit” and press enter to leave root, and then “exit” and enter again to leave ssh
Close the powershell window and continue setting up your NAS and reinstall Syncthing. Your data will still be there, but your Syncthing settings will not, but that’s not a hard chore to set up again.
I hope this works for anyone else in a similar situation trying to avoid a complete rebuild. Good luck
Oh man. So glad I went the docker route for syncthing on my synology.