What happens with rclone move --delete-empty-src-dirs when after the last file is deleted from a directory a magical third party adds a new file to that directory?

[left1000]

Below is an example of -vv from an rclone move -vv --delete-empty-src-dirs command I did. It was using serverside move. I was moving undecrypted data between two crypted remotes. (on google drive).

2018/02/11 15:50:27 DEBUG : directory name: Rmdir: contains file: filename
2018/02/11 15:50:27 DEBUG : directory name: Failed to Rmdir: directory not empty
2018/02/11 15:50:27 DEBUG : other directory name: Removing directory
2018/02/11 15:50:32 DEBUG : other directory name: Removing directory
2018/02/11 15:50:32 DEBUG : other directory name: Rmdir: contains trashed file: other filename

For a full explanation of the lunacy that made this happen:

So I foolishly used two gsuites user accounts to upload 4TB of data to a team drive. Now I want to move it to the my drive of the main user. but

So I got an error, I googled it. It warned me that the error was caused because 20 nested subdirectories is the maximum a team drive allows. I’m also worried a team drive might not hold more than 250,000 files and I have 2,000,000 files. see: see: https://support.google.com/a/answer/7338880 Anyways, I was able to instantly use the gsuites google drive website to move one entire folder from the team drive to my drive. rclone lsd mydrive: shows the folder. However rclone cannot detect anythi…

This other thread is very boring and poorly written. I made this new thread to ask a much simpler and more specific question.

I’m worried that this scenario can make rclone move unreliable, but it almost seems from the feedback like rclone move is able to avoid rmdir on directories that have files magically added back into them at the last moment, hopefully. I am planning to dig through meatspace storage to find this drive. This is a backup of a drive I haven’t used since 2011 but last I checked still worked, so I may be able to repair any damage dealt to this backup, although, if by some miracle no damage has been done, great.

[ncw (Nick Craig-Wood)]

but it almost seems from the feedback like rclone move is able to avoid rmdir on directories that have files magically added back into them at the last moment

rmdir checks just before removing a directory to see if it is empty and if it isn’t then it won’t remove it.

[durval (Durval Menezes)]

Hello @ncw,

rmdir checks just before removing a directory to see if it is empty and if it isn’t then it won’t remove it.

I found this thread after googling for that “Rmdir: contains trashed file” message: it is showing on my logs when I rclone sync a rather large local file system to my main Encrypted Google Drive remote.

What exactly does that message mean? That rclone sync tried removing the remote directory as it was empty on the local file system, but could not because, albeit empty of ‘regular’ files, it contained a reference to a file in Google Drive’s trash?

If yes, I understand that the remote no longer matches the local file system, as the former will contain (empty) durectories which are not present on the latter. Is that correct? And, how can it be “fixed”? Just empty the Google Drive trash (via Google Drive’s Web interface?) and then sync again?

Thanks,
– Durval.

[ncw (Nick Craig-Wood)]

What exactly does that message mean? That rclone sync tried removing the remote directory as it was empty on the local file system, but could not because, albeit empty of ‘regular’ files, it contained a reference to a file in Google Drive’s trash?

That is exactly right.

rclone doesn’t want to delete your trashed file so it just gives up.

If yes, I understand that the remote no longer matches the local file system, as the former will contain (empty) durectories which are not present on the latter. Is that correct? And, how can it be “fixed”? Just empty the Google Drive trash (via Google Drive’s Web interface?) and then sync again?

Emptying the trash with the web interface or rclone cleanup drive: then rclone rmdirs drive:path to remove all the empty directories is probably the minimum thing.

rclone sync should fix it up too (hopefully the empty directory handling is working now in the latest beta!)