Forum Discussion
Deleted files/folders reappear as they are synced back online from client OneDrive
We are heading towards the end of a big push to get all files in OneDrive or SharePoint. The Finance department (VIPs) are getting very frustrated with deleted files/folders reappearing as they are ...
Ahh, I might have found this specific problem. OneDrive is synchronised in a VM and on my main PC. I was deleting it from the main PC so I tried to delete from my PC and for some reason there is access denied on one of the folders deep inside "Monthly". So what's happening is that OneDrive on my PC probably tries to delete the folder but fails due to this access denied and therefore restores it back. Big question, why access denied??? I'll reboot and have a look.
Okay, yes that was the problem. On my main PC, something had gotten very confused in OneDrive with access denied: https://i.imgur.com/wVvwk9Y.png
After a reboot, the access denied had gone away and I was able to delete the old folders.
But the original flaw still stands whereby OneDrive restored those folders incorrectly because I happened to logon to an old computer and that version of OneDrive decided to assume it was the master version. That is just algorithmically broken :-(
After a reboot, the access denied had gone away and I was able to delete the old folders.
But the original flaw still stands whereby OneDrive restored those folders incorrectly because I happened to logon to an old computer and that version of OneDrive decided to assume it was the master version. That is just algorithmically broken :-(
- BTW - also note that I user Dropbox and Google Drive as well. This problem has NEVER occurred with those two cloud systems - I can only assume because their synchronisation algorithms are better. They must keep a much more robust history of deletions so that when you logon to an old computer, it knows that that "Monthly" folder was deleted afterwards and deletes (correctly) the copy on the old computer. It doesn't bring it back from the dead!
I assume that Dropbox and Google Drive maintain some separate tracking system of updates so there is a record that says:
1. 4th Jun 2018 10:20 "Monthly" folder created on computer 1
2. 1st Jul 2018 old computer 1 is logged off
3. 13th Sep 2018 "Monthly" folder deleted on computer 2
4. 12th Dec 2018 00:30, user logs back onto computer 1
5. Ahh ha, "Monthly" folder exists here with timestamp 4th Jun but was deleted 13th Sep, it needs deleting from old computer 1 - NOT RESTORING BACK TO ONEDRIVE