Displaying Errors with `rclone check`

[cat]

This is a follow-up post to the one here.

Using --download with rclone check is faster and uses less CPU.

But now rclone doesn't display the errors it found.

Example:

rclone check D:\ E:\ --exclude parent.lock --exclude '/$RECYCLE.BIN/**' --exclude '/System Volume Information/**' --download --checkers 1 --progress --verbose

I get the following output:

2025/10/30 16:19:12 NOTICE: Config file "C:\\Users\\Cat\\AppData\\Roaming\\rclone\\rclone.conf" not found - using defaults
2025/10/30 16:57:54 NOTICE: Local file system at //?/E:/: 1 differences found
2025/10/30 16:57:54 NOTICE: Local file system at //?/E:/: 1 errors while checking
2025/10/30 16:57:54 NOTICE: Local file system at //?/E:/: 74086 matching files
Transferred:        2.949 TiB / 2.949 TiB, 100%, 428.618 MiB/s, ETA 0s
Errors:                 1 (retrying may help)
Checks:             74087 / 74087, 100%, Listed 164587
Transferred:        74087 / 74087, 100%
Elapsed time:     38m42.3s
2025/10/30 16:57:54 INFO  :
Transferred:        2.949 TiB / 2.949 TiB, 100%, 428.618 MiB/s, ETA 0s
Errors:                 1 (retrying may help)
Checks:             74087 / 74087, 100%, Listed 164587
Transferred:        74087 / 74087, 100%
Elapsed time:     38m42.3s

So it does show that an error occurred, but rclone doesn't tell me which file it is.

When I don't use the --download flag:

rclone check D:\ E:\ --exclude parent.lock --exclude '/$RECYCLE.BIN/**' --exclude '/System Volume Information/**' --checkers 1 --progress --verbose

I get the following output:

2025/10/30 17:11:58 NOTICE: Config file "C:\\Users\\Cat\\AppData\\Roaming\\rclone\\rclone.conf" not found - using defaults
2025/10/30 17:11:58 INFO  : Using md5 for hash comparisons
2025/10/30 17:12:29 ERROR : Private.hc: md5 differ
2025/10/30 18:00:16 NOTICE: Local file system at //?/E:/: 1 differences found
2025/10/30 18:00:16 NOTICE: Local file system at //?/E:/: 1 errors while checking
2025/10/30 18:00:16 NOTICE: Local file system at //?/E:/: 74086 matching files
Transferred:              0 B / 0 B, -, 0 B/s, ETA -
Errors:                 1 (retrying may help)
Checks:             74087 / 74087, 100%, Listed 164614
Elapsed time:     48m18.2s
2025/10/30 18:00:16 INFO  :
Transferred:              0 B / 0 B, -, 0 B/s, ETA -
Errors:                 1 (retrying may help)
Checks:             74087 / 74087, 100%, Listed 164614
Elapsed time:     48m18.2s

Now rclone tells me that an error occurred AND shows me which file it is (Private.hc). But this command takes longer and uses more CPU.

I tried to add --error - to the first command (the one with --download), but it doesn't work because it's probably a Unix-specific thing and I'm using PowerShell.

I also try to avoid using --verbose --verbose because it then displays thousands of lines.

How can I use rclone check with --download and still get rclone to tell me (display it, don't write it to a file) which file had the error?

[albertony]

I think that output is missing. I agree it should have been printed, and be consistent with the regular check (without --download). I can take a look in the code, probably not too difficult to fix.

[cat]

That would be awesome if you could take a look at the code!

[roucc (dougal)]

I have merged @albertony’s changes and this should be now fixed!

[cat]

Thanks a lot! Turns out it was the right decision to switch from robocopy to rclone!