Issues With OneDrive syncing between two PCs

I have a lot of files and I often shuffle them between PCs as a means of backing them up and keeping the syncronised.

I've tonight noticed that several files are showing up as default icons, no metadata, and unopenable. I've managed to find backed-up copies on my laptop, but when I copied it to OneDrive to put it back on my PC, it shows up on my PC's OneDrive as empty/corrupt/whatever you want to call it. On the laptop OneDrive, I can see the contents, the metadata and I can open the file.

I've got no idea what's causing this issue.

Soeroah said:

I have a lot of files and I often shuffle them between PCs as a means of backing them up and keeping the syncronised.

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I swore I could not get involved in another Onedrive thread, but since no one has responded to you I will try to help.

First of all, if you have both PCs set for automatically syncing to onedrive, there is no need to shuffle anything between computers. If syncing is set up correctly "they're just there" on both computers without you having to do anything.
When you sync folders, all the files are stored in the cloud, not on your computer UNLESS you have set Onedrive to also store your folders locally in the onedrive folder.

On all your computers What folders do you see set to sync? under settings>acccounts>windows backup>Onedrive folder syncing

glasskuter said:

I swore I could not get involved in another Onedrive thread, but since no one has responded to you I will try to help.

First of all, if you have both PCs set for automatically syncing to onedrive, there is no need to shuffle anything between computers. If syncing is set up correctly "they're just there" on both computers without you having to do anything.
When you sync folders, all the files are stored in the cloud, not on your computer UNLESS you have set Onedrive to also store your folders locally in the onedrive folder.

On all your computers What folders do you see set to sync? under settings>acccounts>windows backup>Onedrive folder syncing

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I've got file on demand turned off on both computers, and I'm only using folders within the OneDrive app - I haven't told it to sync any files outside the C:\Users\David\OneDrive folder. If I want something on the other device I copy it from my SSD to a folder within the OneDrive directory and then I grab if from there on the other computer manually

But for some reason, even within that OneDrive folder, which should be wholly in the cloud, on one PC some items are useable and on the other it's 'corrupted' or can't be access, no matter where I copy it or how. The only solution I wound up having was to upload the file to discord and re-download it on the other device, re-add all the metadata I wanted, and from that point the file behaves normally.

Oh, I should add, this behaviour was occurring whether the file was attempted to be copied through OneDrive or through a direct USB connection. I'm not certain if OneDrive specifically is the problem or if it's something about Windows itself.

Test validity of a file using one drive on the web
Go to Microsoft OneDrive
Copy a file from one machine and paste it into onedrive. Once it uploads, you will see it there

Then go to the other machine, login on the cloud, download that file and see if you can open it.

It would be very helpful if you could provide me a couple of screenshots.
One of the message you are getting when you attempt to open one of these files.
One of settings>accounts>windows backup

Soeroah said:

his behaviour was occurring whether the file was attempted to be copied through OneDrive or through a direct USB connection.

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I am assuming this means if you try to copy file to usb to take file to another computer.

Is this ALL files or one particular file. Is it all fie TYPES?

glasskuter said:

Test validity of a file using one drive on the web
Go to Microsoft OneDrive
Copy a file from one machine and paste it into onedrive. Once it uploads, you will see it there

Then go to the other machine, login on the cloud, download that file and see if you can open it.

It would be very helpful if you could provide me a couple of screenshots.
One of the message you are getting when you attempt to open one of these files.
One of settings>accounts>windows backup

I am assuming this means if you try to copy file to usb to take file to another computer.

Is this ALL files or one particular file. Is it all fie TYPES?

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It was only a few files out of thousands. I couldn't identify a common link between them all - they were all jpg files, but they were a fraction of the jpg files on each system, all the other jpg files were working fine.

They were files that were made/uploaded to OneDrive and then copied to my hard disks across various months, in different folder names. The same process was used for thousands of other files that turned out fine. I use a program called FreeFileSync to keep a backup folder on another drive on my main PC, and it caused the same issue to be replicated from my storage folder to the backup folder.

And yeah, I meant copying the files directly through USB - even when I tried to copy the files without using OneDrive at all the result was the same; the file was readable, editable and viewable on one system, but had no thumbnail, no metadata and that error message on the other. The only solution was reuploading and redownloading to and from Discord on the intended system manually

And for clarity, as I'm not sure I explained it properly, I don't use OneDrive to backup any user folders on my system, I only use it essentially as an online USB stick - copy from a folder in a storage drive on my PC to OneDrive, log onto the other system, copy it from OneDrive to that system's storage drive. I'm not sure my OneDrive backup settings will be of any use in that regard



I've also managed to fix the files that were affected since I posted with some jumping back and forth, but I was wondering if it was a known issue I could somehow avoid in the future. If it's something you don't know about and won't be able to help me with if I don't currently have any affected files I don't want to waste your time

Soeroah said:

I don't use OneDrive to backup any user folders on my system

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Going by the screenshot, I believe you are incorrect. By default, if one uses a MS account rather than a local account to sign in to windows, the default location of documents, desktop, pictures, and videos is Onedrive, NOT on your system drive in your user folder.

Per the screenshot, you have some folders syncing. You can tell which ones by "clicking manage sync settings" . Below is what your screenshot says. You can also find the default location of your user folders by right clicking on each of those mentioned folders, select properties, and see the location of that folder. Please do not make any changes in this setting before you report back your findings.
There is a special procedure in dealing with Onedrive.

glasskuter said:

Going by the screenshot, I believe you are incorrect. By default, if one uses a MS account rather than a local account to sign in to windows, the default location of documents, desktop, pictures, and videos is Onedrive, NOT on your system drive in your user folder.

Per the screenshot, you have some folders syncing. You can tell which ones by "clicking manage sync settings" . Below is what your screenshot says. You can also find the default location of your user folders by right clicking on each of those mentioned folders, select properties, and see the location of that folder. Please do not make any changes in this setting before you report back your findings.
There is a special procedure in dealing with Onedrive.

View attachment 132140

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The backup drive does has some folders selected, but only as 'ready to back up' - I've only got 4 gigabytes of OneDrive storage space and far in excess of that in the folders that are toggled on. As far as I can tell, none of the data in my PC-level user folders is accessible through the OneDrive folders



From looking it up online, if my folders were backed up the screenshot would say so like this


Here are the two documents folders, one in OneDrive and one on my PC


As far as I can tell, the only folder being backed up to OneDrive is the OneDrive folder itself, within my C:\Users\David directory.




I do use a MS account to log into Windows, but I turned off backing up all my default folders automatically because I wanted more control over what was actually on the cloud, given how small the storage space is. All my backing up is done by mirror folders manually between drives and portable drives

Soeroah said:

but I turned off backing up all my default folders automatically because I wanted more control over what was actually on the cloud, given how small the storage space is.

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Screenshot #1 shows syncing is ON.

I've looked at this for an hour. BASED ON WHAT I SEE FOR THE DOCUMENTS FOLDER (this is the only folder screenshots you provided) here's the way I see it. Maybe others or @Brink can see if they see it differently. Be SURE to check all your other folders to see if the scenario is the same as documents.

Rather than first turning off onedrive backup folder syncing as you should have done, I surmise you used the "move folder" method for your folders to relocate your files to C:\users\David\foldername. Since you have so much data in your folders, your Onedrive space filled up quickly & could go no further.

I believe you should be able to use the SETTINGS (Option 1) method in this tutorial to turn off folder syncing. Then move the handful of files from the Onedrive folders into their perspective User folders. Turn On or Off OneDrive Folder Backup Syncing Across Windows 11 Devices

Things to note:
Once you do all this the files in your onedrive storage will remain there until you go to onedrive on the web and delete them. Since they are only a fraction of your total file count and since you want to use onedrive basically as a way to swap certain files between computers. I suggest you delete them from the Onedrive folder. If you want to allow a file to be accessed from another computer, drop it over into Onedrive on the web and access that file from onedrive on the web on the other computer.
In fact, if you share a lot of files, have you considered file sharing through windows?

This will need to be done on all computers where Onedrive folder backup syncing is turned on. I suggest you physically turn off every device that has onedrive backup folder syncing turned on, Then turn on and change the setting in one device at a time to make the change.

glasskuter said:

Screenshot #1 shows syncing is ON.

I've looked at this for an hour. BASED ON WHAT I SEE FOR THE DOCUMENTS FOLDER (this is the only folder screenshots you provided) here's the way I see it. Maybe others or @Brink can see if they see it differently. Be SURE to check all your other folders to see if the scenario is the same as documents.

Rather than first turning off onedrive backup folder syncing as you should have done, I surmise you used the "move folder" method for your folders to relocate your files to C:\users\David\foldername. Since you have so much data in your folders, your Onedrive space filled up quickly & could go no further.

I believe you should be able to use the SETTINGS (Option 1) method in this tutorial to turn off folder syncing. Then move the handful of files from the Onedrive folders into their perspective User folders. Turn On or Off OneDrive Folder Backup Syncing Across Windows 11 Devices

Things to note:
Once you do all this the files in your onedrive storage will remain there until you go to onedrive on the web and delete them. Since they are only a fraction of your total file count and since you want to use onedrive basically as a way to swap certain files between computers. I suggest you delete them from the Onedrive folder. If you want to allow a file to be accessed from another computer, drop it over into Onedrive on the web and access that file from onedrive on the web on the other computer.
In fact, if you share a lot of files, have you considered file sharing through windows?

This will need to be done on all computers where Onedrive folder backup syncing is turned on. I suggest you physically turn off every device that has onedrive backup folder syncing turned on, Then turn on and change the setting in one device at a time to make the change.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry for being a hassle, I really appreciate the help, but I'm pretty sure what you've described here is what I did when I got this PC built

My OneDrive storage has never filled up because it tried to back up too many files from my Documents/Pictures/Desktop/Music folders, the only things that go onto my OneDrive account are files I intentionally copy-paste or move into the OneDrive folder directory. I exclusively use it as a way to move files between PCs or work on files on multiple devices before I'm ready to move them to a longer-term storage drive - my laptop's Documents folder has nothing that my PC's Documents folder has, but they both have the same OneDrive-Documents folder when they sync (which itself has different data from either Documents folder on either PC's actual drives)

The syncing indication in the first screenshot is just showing that my OneDrive folder in my C drive is syncing to the cloud, it's not actually backing anything up beyond what's in the OneDrive folder

I'm also not really sure OneDrive specifically is the issue, unless it can somehow alter a file fundamentally - whether I use OneDrive to copy the files that are affected by this issue or I use a direct USB connection to copy the files right from one drive to the other, the file is only visible/useable on the source PC and not on the destination PC. It seems to be something inherent to the file itself, not the method of storage or transfer, and since I use the same process for every file I manage I'm not sure why a dozen in thousands were affected and the rest weren't

Soeroah said:

I'm not sure why a dozen in thousands were affected and the rest weren't

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That I can not tell you.

Soeroah said:

The syncing indication in the first screenshot is just showing that my OneDrive folder in my C drive is syncing to the cloud,

Click to expand...

You are incorrect in that assumption, but think what you will.
Whether you believe me or not, Your first screenshot in post #8 shows that you DO have backup sync toggled ON for personal folders documents, pictures, desktop.
According to the screenshot of your documents folder properties, documents path is now located in C:\users\David\documents. It has 11.1 gb of data in it....exactly the amount shown as ready to backup in post 8. Numbers do not lie.

Soeroah said:

As far as I can tell, none of the data in my PC-level user folders is accessible through the OneDrive folders

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Yes, it does have access to user level folders.
And Yes, those folders show "ready to backup" . That message is there because Onedrive knows it does not have enough space to backup the approx. 218 gb of data in the folders. The fact the data not going to onedrive for these folders does not negate the fact that you do, in fact, have syncing turned on.

So, whether you choose to take my advice and toggle those 3 folders off on all your machines is up to you.

You say Onedrive is not full. It would behoove you to go to onedrive on the web and verify the total amount of space that is available in Onedrive. It will be at the bottom of the left hand column. Keep in mind that part of one drive space is used by your email. (assuming you use your MS email account for your email) If Onedrive is at 100% and stays that way very long, your email will stop working. They do give you a grace period before sending/receiving email stops working but I do not know how long it is for.

glasskuter said:

That I can not tell you.

You are incorrect in that assumption, but think what you will.
Whether you believe me or not, Your first screenshot in post #8 shows that you DO have backup sync toggled ON for personal folders documents, pictures, desktop.
According to the screenshot of your documents folder properties, documents path is now located in C:\users\David\documents. It has 11.1 gb of data in it....exactly the amount shown as ready to backup in post 8. Numbers do not lie.


Yes, it does have access to user level folders.
And Yes, those folders show "ready to backup" . That message is there because Onedrive knows it does not have enough space to backup the approx. 218 gb of data in the folders. The fact the data not going to onedrive for these folders does not negate the fact that you do, in fact, have syncing turned on.

So, whether you choose to take my advice and toggle those 3 folders off on all your machines is up to you.

You say Onedrive is not full. It would behoove you to go to onedrive on the web and verify the total amount of space that is available in Onedrive. It will be at the bottom of the left hand column. Keep in mind that part of one drive space is used by your email. (assuming you use your MS email account for your email) If Onedrive is at 100% and stays that way very long, your email will stop working. They do give you a grace period before sending/receiving email stops working but I do not know how long it is for.

Microsoft OneDrive

onedrive.live.com

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The OneDrive website shows the same storage usage as my app on Windows

I've tried to toggle the folders off but the save changes button is greyed out



It's confusing whether it's worked or not. I *think* it has. If I click the Manage Backup button in OneDrive's options it shows all the folders toggled off, but if I click the Manage Sync Settings button in Settings>Accounts>Windows Backup it shows those three folders toggled on. I think that means the Settings>Accounts>Windows one is trying to set up backing up, while the OneDrive one is just telling me what the current settings are and offering to change them.

Either way, when I click this I get this

I believe you are good. Keep an eye on that available storage. If it get too high delete or move some of the files off of onedrive..

Yeah, I usually move all the files off at the end of each month to long-term storage and then do a manual backup to other drives from there

Thanks for the help. I wish we could've figured out why some of the files were corrupt on one system and not another, I'm pretty sure I got the file permissions all working fine, but I suppose we won't really be able to diagnose anything until I notice it happen again

At least I know how to resolve them, if not prevent it happening