Here is a weird issue that I have noticed:
- When uploading some files via the browser, sometimes they do not appear ‘immediately’ when viewing the folder — I have to click the refresh icon for that. It works well, but it’s a bit annoying; wouldn’t it make sense to run the internal sync scheduler ‘instantly’ after an upload? (Note: the same happens when moving/deleting files and/or folders)
- Even stranger: when mounting existing directories as a read-only Workspace, automatic synchronisation seems not to work at all! Clicking the refresh icon rarely has any effect, and the workaround is to enter the Cells console, select the Workspace, and click on the big ‘Re-Synchronise’ button there; when going back to the ‘user’ view, things seem to have been refreshed properly. But it’s very annoying!
- Also using existing directories mounted as Workspaces: if by any chance a file is overwritten (outside of Pydio Cells, that is), thus keeping the same name (but not the same date, as shown by the operating system), then Cells refuse to ‘sync’ it, no matter what! It will always display the date it has first seen that particular file, even if it was last changed weeks ago!
The last issue is particularly annoying in my specific scenario: I have a read-only directory where the server keeps its backups, and users require access to that directory to download those files and store them on their local computers. Instead of setting up a complex permissions issue at the OS level — requiring users to log in via SFTP, remembering Unix usernames/passwords and using specific tools for accessing those files with which they’re not familiar (not to mention knowing the commands to navigate inside a Unix filesystem using a CLI…) — it makes so much sense to use Pydio (Cells) to do all the work (in fact, I’ve done very similar things using Pydio 8, in slightly different scenarios — namely, having a ‘special’ Workspace which was linked to a WordPress upload directory, so that users could periodically upload huge audio and video files which would timeout when using WP’s own upload functions).
However, for some reason, what the user will see is the old file, and because the date change is not reflected under Cells, the user will think that the backup had failed for some reason, while in reality it’s just Cells that didn’t synchronise that particular directory correctly…
Note that in the cases I tested restarting Cells does not have any effect (i.e. the files are still viewed inside Cells as having the old dates).
As a workaround, I’m writing the backups with different names every day — and telling users to press ‘refresh’ if they don’t see last night’s backup. If the names change every day, then the refresh icon will work. It’s only when a file does not change its name that problems occur.
Again, I have not tested this exhaustively — I fear that this issue about the ‘same’ filename for a file that was uploaded might also appear on other, read-write Workspaces, even those created inside Cells itself (as opposed to having a pre-existing directory being configured as a Workspace).
Finally, also note that the logs show that the internal synchronisation process is running occasionally (and does not throw any errors, as far as I can see…)