syncthing suddenly using lots of cpu and refusing to sync directories

I’ve had syncthing running between 2 laptops both with Ubuntu 20.04 without any problems for months. I do most of my work on one laptop and use the other one for backup (it’s running crashplan). I have multiple directories sync’d between the two.

Suddenly today syncthing was using over 500% cpu on my work laptop and was stuck at 99% on one large directory (18 GB). I’m trying to sync to different directories on the backup laptop. The work laptop indicates it has finished syncing the 18 GB directory, but the backup laptop shows the new directory at only about 50%.

I’m tried syncing a smaller directory (< 1 GB), but the backup laptop gives this error:

2022-01-16 13:56:24: Error on folder “books” (xqfcg-pepay): folder marker missing (this indicates potential data loss, search docs/forum to get information about how to proceed)

2022-01-16 13:56:48: Error on folder “books” (xqfcg-pepay): folder marker missing (this indicates potential data loss, search docs/forum to get information about how to proceed)

I’ve tried this with syncing to a non-existent folder, an empty folder, and the original backup folder.

I’ve dropped and re-added my work laptop as a remote device on my backup laptop. I’ve dropped and re-added the directories on the backup laptop. Some directories add back with no problem and some refuse to add back, and some just crawl.

Where do I look for the source of my problem?

The message suggests the files we expect disappeared, you should understand why that is happening, and look at the most recent logs.

That answer doesn’t make any sense

If I’m sharing it with a new folder it won’t find anything in it. If I try to share with a folder that doesn’t exist I get this error:

folder path missing

That happens for some directories but not for others. Something is wrong.

What it’s saying is that the path where the folder should be, does not exist.

Same goes for the folder marker. It suggests that a file syncthing expects to find (for the purposes of detecting when storage is unmounted, i.e. to correctly detect “storage went missing” vs “everything was deleted”) is missing.

Suggest you post some logs.

Where do I find the logs? I’m syncing from Linux to Windows. It’s on Windows where I get the error.

I just tried again and this time saved them to the default location on Windows (C:\Users\Blah Blah) and it worked that time.

It won’t sync to a location that was previously used.

Please explain how you run Syncthing on Windows in the first place. Is it just the binary with default settings, or is it SyncTrayzor, or maybe another wrapper/installer?

What was the previous location specifically? Was it something special that your user account may not have access to (e.g. another user’s profile folder, etc.)?

I finally solved this latest problem by dropping and re-adding the device I was trying to sync to (a Win10 virtual machine). I’m running SyncTrazor on Win10.

My original problem where my work laptop has syncthing running with > 100% CPU while doing nothing and > 500% cpu while syncing one directory still exists. I’ve decided to switch laptops since my backup laptop is newer and better than my trusty work laptop. The Win10 VM runs slow on that machine and booting is also slow and shows a slew of pci bus errors. I’m wondering if the ssd is going out on that laptop.

I guess you can consider this issue solved by dropping and re-adding the device (Win10 VM).

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