Office lock file problem

Help and Support
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

When opening Microsoft Office files on Gdrive, depending on the mount options used i see or i don't see the lock file ~$filename.xlsx and other users doesn't see it, so they can open the file without the popup alert saying that someone else already opened that file.

What is your rclone version (output from rclone version)

rclone-v1.53.1

Which OS you are using and how many bits (eg Windows 7, 64 bit)

Windows 10

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

Google Drive FREE (15Go)
2 users connected with the same google account.

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

i tested several commands :

rclone mount Gdrive: R: --vfs-cache-mode full --fast-list

With the command above i can see the lock file, but the other PC doesn't see it

rclone mount Gdrive: R: --vfs-cache-mode full --fast-list --allow-other --buffer-size=64M --vfs-read-chunk-size=128M --vfs-cache-max-age=5m --vfs-cache-mode=writes --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit=off --fuse-flag --VolumePrefix=\win10\gdrive --cache-dir F:\rclonecache  --vfs-cache-max-size 800M --transfers=8

With the command above i don't see the lock file when i open a file

The rclone config contents with secrets removed.

[Gdrive]
type = drive
scope = drive
token = {"access_token":"xxxxxxx","token_type":"Bearer","refresh_token":"xxxxxx","expiry":"2020-10-06T13:13:35.9944718+02:00"}

So my question is what are the necessary mount options to handle correctly that lock files in a multi user envirronnement ??

Thanks for helping

2

hello and welcome to the forum,

these flags do nothing on a mount, so you should remove them.
--fast-list
--allow-other
--transfers=8

as for multi-user file locking, rclone does not do that.
not sure any combination of flags will be 100% effective.

3

Rclone doesn't do locking you are right. However I thought those ~$ files were just files rather than special lock files?

With --vfs-cache-mode full you'll need to wait 5 seconds for the lock file to be uploaded. Though if Windows keeps it open, then it will never get uploaded as rclone won't upload an open file.

I don't really know how those lock files work - do you @asdffdsa ?

4

~$filename.xlsx would be a scratch file used by excel.

it is a mutex for excel but not for the operating system itself.

5

Thank you for your help @ncw and @asdffdsa
well so i have to take a Raidrive or Netdrive Licence then...

7

is it possible that Rclone can handle this in future release ?

8

i could be wrong but raidrive only supports file lock on webdav, correct?

image

9

it says Microsoft office :
image

10

and i could be wrong but raidrive only supports local nas, not cloud.
i guess you can access the bas over the internet

image
image775×209 13.9 KB

11

Well, do you think the File Lock addon will not work with office files on gdrive ??
if not then what alternatives do i have ?

12

based on the website and forum, it is only for webdav,
email them, ask them and let us know.

webdav itself have a file lock option, so it is easy for raidrive to support it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV
"LOCK
put a lock on a resource. WebDAV supports both shared and exclusive locks."

"UNLOCK
remove a lock from a resource"

13

i'm confused then... they say in the screenshot i posted above that:

Multi-user File Lock addon

others cannot overwrite when you open a file of

in any storages besides
in most applications on WebDAV

14

you are asking about a product that you and i have not used.

15

that is not a proper english sentence, no idea what that means.

16

i contacted them about this a few hours ago already, i'm waiting for an answer.
additionaly i found this in their forum :

so someone have it working with Word, and partialy with excel because on that one the username is missing but the file is locked.

17

i think they wanted to say :

in any storages (cloud services) and in most WebDAV applications

18

two different things.

  1. office lock feature

  2. on what backends does office lock feature work
    based on the evidence and that forum, only webdav.

19

Well, if i look in the netdrive side here :


you need to take a Team licence and not a personnal licence, and you have to lock the files manualy yourself ?? wtf...

is it that hard to handle that file lock system like it is handled in shared drives of a local network ?

20

yes ͏͏ ͏͏ ͏͏ ͏͏

21

i hope that Raidrive documentation is outdated...and the file lock feature is working on gdrive...