beyond compare and superflexible both say I have gigs to synch, when it's kb

[urlwolf]

I have settled to use an external HD to synch work/home computers.

I'm considering whether to use beyond compare or superflexible. BC is a lot faster to index and find the differences.

But! I must have some interesting problem with file dates!.
BC and superflexible both say I have gigs to synch, when I know it's kbs only (a day of work!). BC thinks it's 18 Gb, and SFFS says it's 2.4 GB.

Looking at the list (btw, BC is infinitely better in this aspect) they all find ridiculous matches. Files that I haven't touched in ages.

I have no idea what can go wrong. Do you have any suggestions where to start looking?

After months of continuous testing, I haven't found a program that does this right. This is ridiculous. It must be something deeply wrong with my filesystem, because I don't think two of the top players would go wrong (note they are not the same!).

It's getting to the point I want to throw my computer out of the window. Technology sucks, in an expectacular way.

[mouser]

BC normally has a two-stage comparison -- first it shows preliminary list of file mismatches -- then you do a real compare and it tells you which files are actually different.  did you try that?

[urlwolf]

Thanks mouser, in synch mode, I couldn't find the option you mention.
However, I think I found the problem.
All my folders in the source have a very recent date, which is wrong.
Some evil program may have changed the date in folders (not in files).
BC is fooled and thinks all contents must be different. (scratch that, not all folders).
But something really funny is going on with folder dates. they don't match.

On top of that, plety of files that have the exact same date are still detected as different (AND they are not of course) by BC.

If I find the culprit, I'll make sure everyone I know hears about this.

[f0dder]

Hmmm, it sounds pretty weird that file timestamps should change without reason. What's changing, "last modified" or "creation date"? Also, I've never experienced Beyond-Compare reporting wrong when doing a file content compare - you might want to check the md5sum of some of the files you feel are being erroneously flagged as modified?

[urlwolf]

Thanks F0dder.
Does BC offer an option for MD5sum?
I have no idea what's wrong. It's synch'ing 11000 files right now at work. No way I have modified that many files since the last sync.

[urlwolf]

ok, now I know for a fact that some file and folder dates are way off.
A file that I positively know I haven't looked at in years shows a date of 10/10/2008.
I'm really worried. What could have caused this?

Anyway, it looks like I cannot trust dates. What else can I do?
I can use SFFS with MD5sums; that could take ages, buy would keep the two HDs parallel.
But the interface that SFFS uses to show differences is so obscure (no two-pane; are we kidding?) that I don't trust what I'm doing anymore). No wonder the average user doesn't touch synch programs with a 5-meter stick

[f0dder]

I was thinking of manually doing the md5sum with another app, just on a few of the perhaps erroneously reported files, to avoid any (if however insanely small ) risk that the sync program has a bug.

I wouldn't know why your file dates are off - hasn't happened to me. What kind of files have their dates set wrongly? Why would they be "touched" at all? (buggy indexing software, buggy backup/restore, buggy antivirus...?)

[NigelH]

urlwolf, before you decide, give Synchronize It! 3 a whirl as well.
I use BC for file/folder related code changes, but I use Synchronize It for internal/external drive synchronization.

[urlwolf]

Thanks NigelH.
Have you used the 'packages' feature?
Why do you prefer it over SFFS?

[urlwolf]

@NigelH: good catch.
The interface is very intuitive, and it's fast as hell!
It doesn't have some niceties from BC, like mp3 synch'ing (it shows tags!), but really efficient.
The GUI is a masterpiece; it shows in real time what it has found (like BC actually, but without the messy coloring)


The 'packages' feature is something to investigate. It wraps the results of an update; if it's small, you can place it on a usb key instead of carrying an external HD with you. I haven't tried it yet.
I've not seen a 'mirror' mode. Maybe one doesn't need it?
I feel this tool gives you the maximum feeling of control.

And also, it's not obvious to me if one can schedule profiles.

One nice thing: Projects. You can add a bunch of profiles to be run together as a project. This you can sorta do with SFFS by taking advantage of the hierarchical naming schemes, but you cannot mix and match 'profiles' that act on different partitions etc and group them (not that I know of at least).

[NigelH]

urlwolf, you nailed some of the nice features 
It just feels slick to use and yes, it's "fast as hell".
Both sessions and Projects can be scheduled (via command line)

I've not had a reason yet to use the "package" feature of Compare It

I'd actual bought a SyncBack license, but ran into into install problems with it as XP Pro was already partially damaged. 

Edit:  The SyncBack folks did refund my money. 

[katykaty]

Daylight saving time?

If the timezone has changed the source and destination files may have different timestamps. Not at home so I cant check but I think Super-F has an opton to ignore one hour differences.

[NigelH]

It can handle that (never used it though)

[urlwolf]

@NigelH: maybe you could organize a discount? Just mail the company, and show them how DC discounts work. Tell them were are about 30000 users

[NigelH]

Grigsoft confirmed there is already a 50% coupon active for both products
I just verified the coupon.

Synchronize It! 
Volume Discounts Available   19.00 USD
DonationCoder.com:              -9.50 USD   
Total:     9.50 USD 

See DC Grigsoft Discounts

[urlwolf]

But how do we get the volume discount?

[NigelH]

Poor wording on their web page when you use the coupon for an order.
They're just saying that if you buy in bulk, you can get volume discounts over the regular price.
Click this  DC Grigsoft Discount to get the 50% off for Synchronize It! or Compare It or both.

[tomos]

did you figure out the problem with the file dates urlwolf ?

[f0dder]

Yeah, I'm interested in that as well - symptomatic treatments are no good, finding the cause and fixing that is a lot more interesting.

[urlwolf]

Nope, sorry, didn't find the problem.
Moreover, BC gives me red when file sizes and attributes are identical:
http://www.scooterso...howthread.php?t=4179

I have no idea why. I cannot afford to spend more time on this; I'll report here if I ever find the cause.

[urlwolf]

by the way, BC has a nice 'touch' feature that I used to override the date differences. It's all a big hack, but now at least one tool (synchronizeIt) seems to be doing allright.

[urlwolf]

correction: syncronizeIt is doing wacky stuff.
apparently random stuff (2.1 gb) is marked as different when I know it's not.

This sucks. I've never wasted this much time on an operation that should be trivial.

[urlwolf]

More bad news. I'm finding files with size zero. I wish I knew who did that. My guess is that SFFS server mode does all kind of bad things to files. At this point I'm really afraid of SFFS. It'll require detective work to figure out what is going on here, and I don't have the time.

[Darwin]

More bad news. I'm finding files with size zero. I wish I knew who did that. My guess is that SFFS server mode does all kind of bad things to files. At this point I'm really afraid of SFFS. It'll require detective work to figure out what is going on here, and I don't have the time.

-urlwolf (November 10, 2008, 10:09 AM)

You're scaring me...