Windows unresponsiveness with rclone mount on failing to connect to remote. Expected behavior or fixable?

rabid · July 23, 2026, 5:59pm

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

I'm using rclone to mount a WebDAV share (to be precise, I'm using copyparty as the webdav share) on Windows through Windows Explorer via WinFSP. It works well overall and with (relatively) good speeds, and I've set it up to automount on demand.

The issue is with disconnection behavior: I connect to the WebDAV server through Tailscale, and when the laptop running the mount loses internet access or gets disconnected from Tailscale, Windows Explorer becomes very unresponsive. It seems to keep trying to reach the remote, and in doing so, the whole explorer, even browsing normal folders, becomes very sluggish.

What I've tried so far is to reduce the timeout and conttimeout so it fails faster and the Windows explorer is reponsive faster, but it's still a little bit slow and the most annoying thing is the thumbnails disappearing, like, I don't know how to explain it, but all files, regardless of the type, render as generic "file" icon, a white sheet. So it's very difficult to tell which files are which until the internet is restored.

I previously used a Samba share, and when that became unreachable it just showed a red "disconnected"-like cross and the rest of the system kept working normally.

Is there a way to get similar "graceful-failure" behavior with rclone mount + WinFSP
(some kind of "offline" detection?), or is this a fundamental limitation of how rclone/WinFSP handle a dead remote?

Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.

rclone v1.72.1
- os/version: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 23H2 23H2 (64 bit)
- os/kernel: 10.0.22631.6199 (x86_64)
- os/type: windows
- os/arch: amd64
- go/version: go1.25.5
- go/linking: static
- go/tags: cmount

Which cloud storage system are you using?

WebDAV (self-hosted server: copyparty), accessed over a Tailscale connection.

The command you were trying to run

I run this command with a script so that's why there are some variables. Some flags I have to admit that I'm not sure if they serve any purpose with my setup (--disable-http2 for example... I've read online that might improve performance but I'm unsure)

rclone mount 
  --links 
  --vfs-cache-mode full 
  --contimeout 3s 
  --timeout 5s 
  --low-level-retries 1 
  --retries 1 
  --disable-http2 
  --file-perms 0777 
  --dir-perms 0777 
  -o FileSecurity=`"$sddl`" 
  --network-mode 
  --volname `"$volName`" 
  --dir-cache-time 5s 
  --rc 
  --rc-addr=localhost:0 
  --log-file $LogPath 
  --log-file-max-age 7d 
  --log-file-max-backups 2 
  --log-file-max-size 10M 
  --log-file-compress 
  --config $FinalConfigPath $ConfigName`: $Letter`:

Please run 'rclone config redacted' and share the full output.

[myconfig]
type = webdav
url = https://my.copypartyserver.at.mydomain.com/myconfig
vendor = owncloud
pacer_min_sleep = 0.01ms
headers = Authorization,Basic basicheaderinbase64encodedstring

A log from the command that you were trying to run with the -vv flag

I assume what's interesting here is to see the logs when i disconnect from Tailscale so here they go. I have trimmed some parts because it was very very verbose

2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.72.1" starting with parameters ["rclone.exe" "mount" "--links" "--vfs-cache-mode" "full" "--contimeout" "3s" "--timeout" "5s" "--low-level-retries" "1" "--retries" "1" "--disable-http2" "--file-perms" "0777" "--dir-perms" "0777" "-o" "FileSecurity=D:P(A;;FA;;;WD)" "--network-mode" "--volname" "\\\\[REDACTED-HOST]\\myconfig" "--dir-cache-time" "5s" "--rc" "--rc-addr=localhost:0" "--log-file" "[REDACTED-PATH]\\myconfig.log" "--log-file-max-age" "7d" "--log-file-max-backups" "2" "--log-file-max-size" "10M" "--log-file-compress" "-vv" "--config" "[REDACTED-PATH]\\myconfig.conf" "myconfig:" "Z:"]
2026/07/23 19:45:52 NOTICE: Serving remote control on http://127.0.0.1:55727/
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "myconfig:"
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : Using config file from "[REDACTED-PATH]\\myconfig.conf"
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : found headers: Authorization,Basic [REDACTED],user-agent,[REDACTED]
2026/07/23 19:45:52 INFO  : webdav root '': poll-interval is not supported by this remote
2026/07/23 19:45:52 NOTICE: webdav root '': Symlinks support enabled
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : Network mode mounting is enabled
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : Mounting on "Z:" ("\\[REDACTED-HOST]\\myconfig")
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : webdav root '': Mounting with options: ["-o" "attr_timeout=1" "-o" "uid=-1" "-o" "gid=-1" "--FileSystemName=rclone" "--VolumePrefix=\\[REDACTED-HOST]\\myconfig" "-o" "FileSecurity=D:P(A;;FA;;;WD)"]
2026/07/23 19:45:52 INFO  : webdav root '': vfs cache: cleaned: objects 0 (was 0) in use 0, to upload 0, uploading 0, total size 0 (was 0)
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : webdav root '': Init: 
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : webdav root '': >Init: 
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : /: Statfs: 
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : /: >Statfs: stat={Bsize:4096 Frsize:4096 Blocks:52428800 Bfree:50631989 Bavail:50631989 Files:1000000000 Ffree:1000000000 Favail:0 Fsid:0 Flag:0 Namemax:255}, errc=0
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : /: Getattr: fh=0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : /: >Getattr: errc=0
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : /: Opendir: 
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : /: OpenFile: flags=O_RDONLY, perm=-rwxrwxrwx
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : /: >OpenFile: fd=/ (r), err=<nil>
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : /: >Opendir: errc=0, fh=0x0
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : /: Releasedir: fh=0x0
2026/07/23 19:45:52 DEBUG : /: >Releasedir: errc=0

[... mount works normally, browsing directories, ~1 minute elapsed ...]

2026/07/23 19:46:02 DEBUG : forgetting directory cache
2026/07/23 19:46:02 DEBUG : myconfig-WD: forgetting directory cache
2026/07/23 19:46:02 DEBUG : myconfig-dir1: forgetting directory cache
2026/07/23 19:46:02 DEBUG : myconfig-dir2: forgetting directory cache
2026/07/23 19:46:02 DEBUG : data: forgetting directory cache
2026/07/23 19:46:02 DEBUG : moredata: forgetting directory cache

[... Tailscale connection dropped here; next Explorer-triggered access hangs on the timeout below ...]

2026/07/23 19:47:01 DEBUG : /: Getattr: fh=0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
2026/07/23 19:47:01 DEBUG : /: >Getattr: errc=0
2026/07/23 19:47:01 DEBUG : /: Opendir: 
2026/07/23 19:47:01 DEBUG : /: OpenFile: flags=O_RDONLY, perm=-rwxrwxrwx
2026/07/23 19:47:01 DEBUG : /: >OpenFile: fd=/ (r), err=<nil>
2026/07/23 19:47:01 DEBUG : /: >Opendir: errc=0, fh=0x0
2026/07/23 19:47:01 DEBUG : /: Statfs: 
2026/07/23 19:47:04 DEBUG : pacer: low level retry 1/1 (error Propfind "https://copyparty.[REDACTED-DOMAIN]/myconfig/": dial tcp: lookup copyparty.[REDACTED-DOMAIN]: i/o timeout)
2026/07/23 19:47:04 DEBUG : pacer: Rate limited, increasing sleep to 20µs
2026/07/23 19:47:04 ERROR : webdav root '': Statfs failed: Propfind "https://copyparty.[REDACTED-DOMAIN]/myconfig/": dial tcp: lookup copyparty.[REDACTED-DOMAIN]: i/o timeout
2026/07/23 19:47:04 DEBUG : /: >Statfs: stat={Bsize:4096 Frsize:4096 Blocks:8796093022207 Bfree:8796093022207 Bavail:8796093022207 Files:1000000000 Ffree:1000000000 Favail:0 Fsid:0 Flag:0 Namemax:255}, errc=0
2026/07/23 19:47:04 DEBUG : /: Releasedir: fh=0x0
2026/07/23 19:47:04 DEBUG : /: >Releasedir: errc=0

[... rc: core/stats and vfs/stats polling continues every ~2-3s in the background, no further
     filesystem calls from Explorer visible until mount is stopped ...]

2026/07/23 19:47:52 INFO  : webdav root '': vfs cache: cleaned: objects 0 (was 0) in use 0, to upload 0, uploading 0, total size 0 (was 0)

Thanks in advance

asdffdsa · July 23, 2026, 6:49pm

hi, first thing is to rclone selfupdate and test again.
i am sure it will not make a difference, but let's get that done first, ok?

then as a test,
--vfs-refresh --dir-cache-time=9999h

rabid · July 23, 2026, 7:20pm

Thanks for the quick response, I updated it and now it's version 1.74.4.

With the options described --vfs-refresh --dir-cache-time=9999h the slugginesh seems to mostly go away (there is still some lag when opening This PC, it takes like around 10 seconds to load the C, D drives etc, but browsing desktop, my user folder and so on is working normally), and the thumbnail issue is also gone.

However, and this is one of the reasons I didn't change --dir-cache-time is because I'm using this with a friend, and if I put this cache time so high the folder doesn't refresh when he drops a file and I want to grab it, my explorer shows the folder empty. I have to manually unmount and remount to see the file (or wait 9999h which I haven't had time to do so unfortunately xd)

That's why i set 5 seconds. I have also tried with --vfs-refresh but my original 5s dir-cache-time, and also I have tried with the same command i posted above (just the upgrade to 1.74.4) and i got the same result

EDIT: This is what i mean by whitepaper thumbnails btw. This shows up on every file that is not a folder. After around 30 seconds or so, they load, but after navigating through 2 or 3 folders, it happens again (also navigation is slow)

asdffdsa · July 23, 2026, 7:25pm

as a test,

for your mount command, use --vfs-refresh --dir-cache-time=9999h --rc-no-auth
after your friend drops a file, open a new command prompt and run
rclone rc vfs/refresh recursive=true -vv
wait for that to complete and you should see your friend's file.

Animosity022 · July 23, 2026, 7:26pm

You aren't using a polling remote so things will be slow with a low dir cache time as you have to decide what you want and choose the right backend to meet those needs.

A non polling remote with a low cache time means you have to go out to the remote every 5 seconds and is going to be an awful UI experience in Windows.

rabid · July 25, 2026, 8:58am

Aaaah i see, that makes total sense. I'll have to think about maybe changing to another remote then. Thanks for the insight and the help to both of you