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rob_nicholson_helios's avatar
rob_nicholson_helios
Brass Contributor
Dec 13, 2021

I seem to spend my entire life looking at "Processing changes"

I'd like to open a discussion about this perennial issue in OneDrive. Whenever one seems to carry out a bulk operation such as adding a number of files to OneDrive, it switches to "Processing changes" and sits like that for a long time, sometimes an hour.

For example, I periodically run a PowerShell script that using Robocopy to copy a data folder from my C: drive into OneDrive for backup. This tends to copy in a few hundred files, mainly small. This nearly always sends OneDrive into "Processing changes".

What exactly is it doing when it says "Processing changes" and why does it stay like that for so long? I'm sat here right now looking at it stuck for an hour or so.

  • The way I'd look at the issue is that the status message is too vague. The user needs to get more information at least every minute, if not more often. If it's scanning through hundreds of thousands of folders and files, at least show some kind of count, even if you don't know how high it's going to count, at least that would be some kind of frame of reference. If it's a ODB bug and it's caught in some kind of loop, at least show me that it's giving some kind of insane output. The key is that the user needs a clue of whether to stop and start over, or to wait, or even maybe a clue to reset their onedrive configuration. They might even need to be told that it's never going to work well, if they have too many files.
    • rob_nicholson_helios's avatar
      rob_nicholson_helios
      Brass Contributor
      Very much agree - the status message needs improvement. In general, the user interface is a bit dire. For example, right-click, settings, account to unsync a folder? Plus if you happen to be logged into multiple OneDrive accounts, all you get are a line of identical blue icons.
  • Natalie_Brozil's avatar
    Natalie_Brozil
    Copper Contributor
    This was a common problem while sync to Onedrive ,maybe you would check tools that can transfer straightforward to OneDrive will copy easy and quick , check out GoodSync or Gs Richcopy360
    • rob_nicholson_helios's avatar
      rob_nicholson_helios
      Brass Contributor
      Thanks for the heads up. We did feel that it was something to do with bulk copies overloading OneDrive. We suspect some kind of throttling going on as on rare occasions, access to SharePoint/OneDrive on the web is blocked with a throttling message.

      They need to sort this out as I've never seen such persistent problems with alternative cloud systems.

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