What is the problem you are having with rclone?
I'm having a weird situation where bisync will create conflicts with only remote changes.
Something like this:
- File is changed on remote
- Rclone bisync is executed
- File is changed on remote again (no local changes)
- Rclone bisync is executed
- File now has a conflict, even though there were no local changes
I can't reproduce this 100% reliably, but it happens regularly several times per month.
Check the logs below for the two syncs (steps 2 and 4). What's weird to me is that Notes.md file is copied from remote (Path1) to local (Path2) at 10:00, but then at 11:00, a conflict is detected, with Path2 file having 2 months old modification time, even though it was just copied an hour ago.
Is it possible that rclone did not properly set the modtime when copying the file?
Thanks.
Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.
rclone v1.74.3-termux
- os/version: unknown
- os/kernel: 6.1.145-android14-11-gfa1d6308d1fe-ab14691759 (aarch64)
- os/type: android
- os/arch: arm64 (ARMv8 compatible)
- go/version: go1.26.3
- go/linking: dynamic
- go/tags: noselfupdate
Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)
sftp
The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)
rclone -v bisync --conflict-resolve newer --exclude ".obsidian/**" remote:/Notes ~/Notes
Please run 'rclone config redacted' and share the full output. If you get command not found, please make sure to update rclone.
[remote]
type = sftp
host = XXX
user = XXX
port = 8080
key_file = ~/path/to/ssh_key
key_file_pass = XXX
shell_type = unix
md5sum_command = md5sum
sha1sum_command = sha1sum
A log from the command that you were trying to run with the -vv flag
2026/07/06 10:00:01 INFO : Synching Path1 "remote:/Notes/" with Path2 "/data/data/com.termux/files/Notes"
2026/07/06 10:00:01 INFO : Building Path1 and Path2 listings
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : Path1 checking for diffs
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : - Path1 File changed: size (larger), time (newer) - FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : Path1: 1 changes: 0 new, 1 modified, 0 deleted
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : (Modified: 1 newer, 0 older, 1 larger, 0 smaller)
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : Path2 checking for diffs
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : - Path2 File changed: time (older) - FolderC/OtherNotes.md
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : Path2: 1 changes: 0 new, 1 modified, 0 deleted
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : (Modified: 0 newer, 1 older)
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : Applying changes
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : - Path1 Queue copy to Path2 - /data/data/com.termux/files/Notes/FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : - Path2 Queue copy to Path1 - remote:/Notes/FolderC/OtherNotes.md
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : - Path2 Do queued copies to - Path1
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : FolderC/OtherNotes.md: Updated modification time in destination
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : There was nothing to transfer
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : - Path1 Do queued copies to - Path2
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB: Set directory modification time (using SetModTime)
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md: Copied (replaced existing)
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB: Set directory modification time (using SetModTime)
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : FolderB: Set directory modification time (using SetModTime)
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : Updating listings
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : Validating listings for Path1 "remote:/Notes/" vs Path2 "/data/data/com.termux/files/Notes"
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO : Bisync successful
2026/07/06 10:00:02 INFO :
Transferred: 7.655 KiB / 7.655 KiB, 100%, 0 B/s, ETA -
Checks: 818 / 818, 100%, Listed 1070
Transferred: 1 / 1, 100%
Elapsed time: 1.2s
2026/07/06 11:00:01 NOTICE: remote: No host key validation is being performed. Set known_hosts_file to enable it. See: https://rclone.org/sftp/#host-key-validation
2026/07/06 11:00:01 INFO : Setting --ignore-listing-checksum as neither --checksum nor --compare checksum are set.
2026/07/06 11:00:01 INFO : Bisyncing with Comparison Settings:
{
"Modtime": true,
"Size": true,
"Checksum": false,
"HashType1": 0,
"HashType2": 0,
"NoSlowHash": false,
"SlowHashSyncOnly": false,
"SlowHashDetected": true,
"DownloadHash": false
}
2026/07/06 11:00:01 INFO : Synching Path1 "remote:/Notes/" with Path2 "/data/data/com.termux/files/Notes/"
2026/07/06 11:00:01 INFO : Building Path1 and Path2 listings
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : Path1 checking for diffs
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : - Path1 File changed: size (larger), time (newer) - FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : Path1: 1 changes: 0 new, 1 modified, 0 deleted
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : (Modified: 1 newer, 0 older, 1 larger, 0 smaller)
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : Path2 checking for diffs
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : - Path2 File changed: time (older) - FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : Path2: 1 changes: 0 new, 1 modified, 0 deleted
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : (Modified: 0 newer, 1 older)
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : Applying changes
2026/07/06 11:00:02 NOTICE: - WARNING New or changed in both paths - FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md: Path1 is newer. Path1: 2026-07-06 10:31:31 +0000 UTC, Path2: 2026-05-25 07:26:41 +0000 UTC, Difference: 1011h4m50s
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md: The winner is: Path1
2026/07/06 11:00:02 NOTICE: - Path1 Not renaming Path1 copy, as it was determined the winner - remote:/Notes/FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md
2026/07/06 11:00:02 NOTICE: - Path1 Queue copy to Path2 - /data/data/com.termux/files/Notes/FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md
2026/07/06 11:00:02 NOTICE: - Path2 Renaming Path2 copy - /data/data/com.termux/files/Notes/FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md.conflict1
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md: Moved (server-side) to: FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md.conflict1
2026/07/06 11:00:02 NOTICE: - Path2 Queue copy to Path1 - remote:/Notes/FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md.conflict1
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : - Path2 Do queued copies to - Path1
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB: Set directory modification time (using DirSetModTime)
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md.conflict1: Copied (new)
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB: Set directory modification time (using DirSetModTime)
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : FolderB: Set directory modification time (using DirSetModTime)
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : - Path1 Do queued copies to - Path2
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB/Notes.md: Copied (new)
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : FolderA/FolderB: Set directory modification time (using SetModTime)
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : FolderB: Set directory modification time (using SetModTime)
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : Updating listings
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : Validating listings for Path1 "remote:/Notes/" vs Path2 "/data/data/com.termux/files/Notes/"
2026/07/06 11:00:02 INFO : Bisync successful
Local time is CEST (EDIT: It might be UTC).
(I only used logs with a single -v, -vv would be really verbose as it prints debug logs for hundreds of files. But I can try it and filter out the other files, if necessary)