I have a user who reports that a large number of folders and files have disappeared from a folder that was recently setup to sync with another machine.
The scenario is: On Computer #1, the user right clicked on the folder and added it to live mesh. During this process he set the folder to ONLY synchronize with the computer #1 and no other, including the live mesh desktop. The folder is approximately 25+ Gig in size.
On Computer #2, the entire folder structure had previously been copied from computer #1. This copy was performed some weeks ago so it was not as up-to-date as Computer #1. However, the differences did not include wholesale deletion of files, rather just the update and addition of a few files.
On Computer #2, from the live mesh control panel, manage folders was entered. In the explorer window, the user right clicked on the folder that was shared from Computer #1 and selected the properties.
In the new folder dialog, the user browsed to the location of the LOCAL copy of the folder, then set the properties so that it was synchronized with the mesh. The folder still was not sync'd with the live mesh desktop.
At this point, the folders should have merged with ONLY the changed files being moved between the two machines.
What actually happened is over the next day or so, the user determined that he was missing many older folders and files.
We believe that we found the files in the staging folder and have copied them off to an external hard drive to safety them. However, there are a large number of files that need to be recovered back to their original locations.
A backup of the folder does exist but it's several months old.
After reading the sticky posts and blogs in this forum, we turned off synchronization on the Computer #2. That machine was still actively trying to synchronize files when we disabled synchronization.
There are indeed a large number of conflicts, but the only resolution option presented seems to be to "Recover the selected folder from computer #2 and place it in the root of the synchronized folder." This option isn't very good for two reasons. A. It's going to destroy the folder structure for this user. B. The folders that we tested did appear in the root, but with no contents.
This user desperately needs help restoring all of the files in the staging folder to the correct locations.
Hello, Jason. Since you have already read through other forum posts on this issue, I'll note that I believe that the root cause of the issue is that Live Mesh is slow as molasses *and* that it was behaving as designed, albeit slowly. Since you found the files in Staging and also the deleted ones in the Recycle Bin, what I believe happened is that Live Mesh began the slow and tedious sync process and ran into many, many conflicts since the files were *not* exactly the same, although pretty close. Conflict resolution is painful in Live Mesh today, but that was the direction to take. Now that the user has restored files and made other changes, the Sync process is still way far from complete, so I suspect that the conflicts will simply reappear. Now for the bad news: Live Mesh is a beta. You should *never* entrust data to it that is not backed up externally from your Live Mesh folders. Second bad news: There is no automated way to resolve this unless you have an external backup that can be copied back to the PC to restore the structure. Files in the Holding area are there because a conflict needs to be resolved for each. Go to the news/notifier and resolve each conflict - one at a time, in the blocks as they appear. I don't knw that this is a solution available to you now that you have disabled sync on the machine. I think the only solution at this point is to bite the bullet, manually work to recover the files as has already begun, make sure both machines now have *identical* files and fodlers in the location you plan to sync, then add the machines back to Live Mesh and configure the sync. *after* making a complete backup of the folder structure. -steve~ Microsoft MVP Windows Live ~ Windows Live OneCare| Live Mesh|MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator ~
Additional information: On both computers, a large number of files were found in the recycle bins and have been restored.
On both computers, a large number of files are located in the holding folders and by sorting them by date modified, the user has been able to recover recent work and copy the items to a seperate area.
At this point, the user still needs to restore the remaining files to their original location and the shear number of files and folders makes the a daunting task without some automated help.
Hello, Jason. Since you have already read through other forum posts on this issue, I'll note that I believe that the root cause of the issue is that Live Mesh is slow as molasses *and* that it was behaving as designed, albeit slowly. Since you found the files in Staging and also the deleted ones in the Recycle Bin, what I believe happened is that Live Mesh began the slow and tedious sync process and ran into many, many conflicts since the files were *not* exactly the same, although pretty close. Conflict resolution is painful in Live Mesh today, but that was the direction to take. Now that the user has restored files and made other changes, the Sync process is still way far from complete, so I suspect that the conflicts will simply reappear. Now for the bad news: Live Mesh is a beta. You should *never* entrust data to it that is not backed up externally from your Live Mesh folders. Second bad news: There is no automated way to resolve this unless you have an external backup that can be copied back to the PC to restore the structure. Files in the Holding area are there because a conflict needs to be resolved for each. Go to the news/notifier and resolve each conflict - one at a time, in the blocks as they appear. I don't knw that this is a solution available to you now that you have disabled sync on the machine. I think the only solution at this point is to bite the bullet, manually work to recover the files as has already begun, make sure both machines now have *identical* files and fodlers in the location you plan to sync, then add the machines back to Live Mesh and configure the sync. *after* making a complete backup of the folder structure. -steve~ Microsoft MVP Windows Live ~ Windows Live OneCare| Live Mesh|MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator ~
