Empty Folders

Questions about Cobian Reflector
gvd
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Location: Belgium

Empty Folders

Post by gvd »

Hello Luis,

When making incremental backups, Reflector (on my computer anyway) leaves tons of empty folders. My last backup contained 10370 empty folders and 0 files.

In the log, I can see following :

2021-10-26 05:40:56 Checking if there are empty subdirectories...
2021-10-26 05:40:56 Checking of empty subdirectories done.

But this does not seem to delete much. It seems it only removes the lowest level of folders.
Example : let's say I have following folders in my source, all containing data that has not changed lately :

c:\alone
c:\top\next\one_more\least
c:\first\last

An incremental backups seems to leave following empty folders in the backup :

c:\top\next\one_more
c:\first

Is it possible ? Is it a feature :lol: ?

One more thing : I wrote "it only removes the lowest level of folders."

ERR 2021-10-26 05:45:05 An error occurred while checking for empty subdirectories in "\\home-server\gvd\C\Users\Gabriel\Documents 2021-10-26 05.40.56 (Incremental)\Fax": (6009) Le fichier spécifié est en lecture seulement: [\\?\UNC\home-server\gvd\C\Users\Gabriel\Documents 2021-10-26 05.40.56 (Incremental)\Fax\Drafts]

This is not always true. It seems it does not remove folders on the destination that have their read only attribute set (by Reflector :lol: ).

Have a nice day.

Gabriel
Gabriel
gvd
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Joined: 05 Oct 2021, 16:05
Location: Belgium

Re: Empty Folders

Post by gvd »

Luis,

What I wrote is not completely true ! I have some folders with over 600 empty (no files, no sub-sub-folders) subfolders each which are left untouched by Reflector when "Checking if there are empty subdirectories".

:cry:

Gabriel
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cobian
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Re: Empty Folders

Post by cobian »

Will check this out.
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Graham
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Re: Empty Folders

Post by Graham »

I am also seeing empty folders ...

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=506&p=1196#p1196

Thanks.
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cobian
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Re: Empty Folders

Post by cobian »

Fixed in the new version 0.9.36. Out now.
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Graham
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Re: Empty Folders

Post by Graham »

cobian wrote: 26 Oct 2021, 12:51 Fixed in the new version 0.9.36. Out now.
Thank you.

CR now does not create empty folders when "Ignore empty folders" is ticked. Should this be "Delete empty folders"?

CR deletes empty folders in "Full" backups ... Would it be better if CR only deleted empty folders in Differential and Incremental backups? Perhaps, there could be two tickboxes in Advanced options, one for "Full" and one for "Differential/Incremental"?

CR creates a top-level empty folder for a Differential backup that does not copy any files (because no files have changed) ... CB does not create this empty top-level folder ... My preference would be that I can select whether I get an empty top-level folder for each backup. I backup some folders that do not change often and I do not want lots of empty top-level folders for the Differential backups. I backup other folders that change almost every day and it would be good to have a consistent set of Differential backup folders.

Thank you for all of your good work on this software.
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cobian
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Re: Empty Folders

Post by cobian »

CR now does not create empty folders when "Ignore empty folders" is ticked. Should this be "Delete empty folders"?
That was the name in the old version. I changed it because many people seemed to think that empty directories would be deleted in the source. I though Ignore would give a better picture of what's going on.


CR deletes empty folders in "Full" backups ... Would it be better if CR only deleted empty folders in Differential and Incremental backups? Perhaps, there could be two tickboxes in Advanced options, one for "Full" and one for "Differential/Incremental"?

CR creates a top-level empty folder for a Differential backup that does not copy any files (because no files have changed) ... CB does not create this empty top-level folder ... My preference would be that I can select whether I get an empty top-level folder for each backup. I backup some folders that do not change often and I do not want lots of empty top-level folders for the Differential backups. I backup other folders that change almost every day and it would be good to have a consistent set of Differential backup folders.

Thank you for all of your good work on this software.
I will perhaps (not sure) add some options but somewhere I feel I must draw a line for such cases. Toooo many options is not a good thing. :cry:
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gvd
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Joined: 05 Oct 2021, 16:05
Location: Belgium

Re: Empty Folders

Post by gvd »

Hello Luis,

1
gvd wrote: 26 Oct 2021, 06:47 When making incremental backups, Reflector (on my computer anyway) leaves tons of empty folders. My last backup contained 10370 empty folders and 0 files.
And you corrected this. Thanks.
gvd wrote: 26 Oct 2021, 06:47 It seems it does not remove folders on the destination that have their read only attribute set (by Reflector :lol: ).
ERR 2021-10-28 19:22:49 An error occurred while checking for empty subdirectories in "\\home-server\gvd\C\Users\Gabriel\Documents 2021-10-28 19.04.01 (Incremental)\Privé": (6009) Le fichier spécifié est en lecture seulement: [\\?\UNC\home-server\gvd\C\Users\Gabriel\Documents 2021-10-28 19.04.01 (Incremental)\Privé\3D]

As you can see, this still seems to be the case :cry: !
And in this case, the rest of the tree branch seems to be ignored and left untouched (on exception, exit :lol: ).

I had to remove all r/o attributes in the source in order to remove all errors in the destination.

2

2021-10-28 19:23:14 ** Backup for task "Backup (Tu/Fr-6w-3s)" ended. Number of backed up files: 161. Created folders: 10371. Backup size: 4.16 GB. **

Indeed, at some time in the past, Reflector created 10371 folders but it removed nearly all of them. (Wouldn't it be faster not to create them ?)

Can you give a more precise figure ?

3
Graham wrote: 26 Oct 2021, 14:43 CR creates a top-level empty folder for a Differential backup that does not copy any files (because no files have changed)
When "Save empty backups" is unchecked, Reflector removes the empty backup from the history but keeps the empty top folders in the destination drive :cry: .

3b :lol:
Graham wrote: 26 Oct 2021, 14:43 CR deletes empty folders in "Full" backups ... Would it be better if CR only deleted empty folders in Differential and Incremental backups? Perhaps, there could be two tickboxes in Advanced options, one for "Full" and one for "Differential/Incremental"?
Currently, there are two settings that should control the behaviour of Reflector concerning empty folders and backups : "Save empty backups" (in Settings, Engine) and "Ignore empty directories" (in the Task settings, Advanced).

Luis, what would you say of following proposal ?
  • Remove "Save empty backups" (in Settings, Engine). It should have been "Save empty backups in history". I think it's useful to know that the backup took place even if no files were saved. And it's easier to see in the history than in the backup drive.
  • In the Task settings, Advanced, replace "Ignore empty directories" with
    • Full : keep empty folders from source
    • Incremential/differential : remove empty folders from backup
Great job anyway !

Best regards,
Gabriel
Gabriel
Graham
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Re: Empty Folders

Post by Graham »

gvd wrote: 29 Oct 2021, 07:38
Luis, what would you say of following proposal ?
  • Remove "Save empty backups" (in Settings, Engine). It should have been "Save empty backups in history". I think it's useful to know that the backup took place even if no files were saved. And it's easier to see in the history than in the backup drive.
  • In the Task settings, Advanced, replace "Ignore empty directories" with
    • Full : keep empty folders from source
    • Incremential/differential : remove empty folders from backup
Great job anyway !

Best regards,
Gabriel
I agree ...

My preference ...

Full backup should always be a full backup of everything ... including empty folders ... There should not be an option to remove empty folders from full backups.

History should be a full history of all backups ... including backups of zero files ... There should not be an option to omit backups from history.

There should be an option to remove empty folders from Differential and Incremental backups ... The above suggestion works for me ... "Incremential/Differential : Remove empty folders from backup"

There should be an option to remove empty top level folders in task settings for differential and incremental backups ... "Incremental/Differential : Remove empty top level folder in backup"

I also agree with ... "Great job"

Thanks
Graham

Edit: I had forgotten that there is Task Settings -> Advanced -> Always create top parent folder ... This option is ticked on and cannot be changed ... Why is there an option that cannot be changed and is not really an option ? ... :)
Last edited by Graham on 29 Oct 2021, 14:51, edited 1 time in total.
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cobian
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Re: Empty Folders

Post by cobian »

Everything can be changed. That's why it's here. If it cannot be changed is because your task options don't use this anyway. For example if you create separated backups then this option is ignored (and thus disabled).
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