Windows Cloud Drive Troubleshooting

Last update: Jan 23, 2024

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This page provides a deeper dive into how Cloud Drive works to enable tuning for specific workloads and workflows as well as troubleshooting problems. Please read the general overview on the Cloud Drive for Windows and the Cloud Drive for Windows FAQ / Restrictions.

To support rapid browsing, the drive downloads from the server a list of the folder contents. It does this when a user first navigates to a given folder. If the user changes directory, or follows a shortcut into a deep subfolder, Windows will request that each level of the folder is downloaded.

The folder listing is cached (stored locally) so that a second folder request within a few minutes won’t require downloading the folder contents from the server again. This can be changed with the setting “refresh folder contents cached for more than X minutes”.

To force the drive to refresh a folder click Refresh Now on the drive from Windows Task Bar menu. The refresh happens in the background, the File Explorer will refresh automatically when new results are available. Note that clicking the refresh button on File Explorer folder DOES NOT initiate a folder refresh.

The drive includes an option, enabled by default, to display status icons on the file icons to indicate whether they are in cache. If the cloud drive overlay icons are not enabled or are not working correctly you may instead see a grey X on the files that are not cached.

In many cases reinstalling the Cloud Drive will restore the behavior of the overlay icons.

• A recent Microsoft OneDrive update (January 2022) may cause issues with overlay icons. A workaround to restore the icons is to uninstall OneDrive manually, reboot, reinstall the Cloud Drive, reboot, and reinstall OneDrive from the Microsoft site.

The icons indicate if files have been downloaded into the cloud drive cache on the desktop:

• Blue Cloud - File is available in the cloud.
• Blue Replace - File is currently being uploaded to the cloud.
• Green Check - File is available in local cache.

You can also see the cache status through the DIR command. Files with parentheses are not currently in the local cache. (The drives uses the Windows OFFLINE attribute).

S:\Amazon S3 files\sme-oakland>dir
01/28/2020  10:20 PM          (70,356) Beth & Paul & Ringo.jpg
06/10/2020  11:30 AM             (224) 83.0.4103.97.manifest
01/22/2020  09:34 PM       (4,781,262) guide-to-data-protection-2-10.pdf
04/14/2018  09:48 AM           174,612 training-checklist.pdf
05/18/2020  09:15 PM       227,005,543 Family Comedy Zoom Show.mp4

Note: Your organization may have pre-configured several drive letters each with unique views into Access Anywhere. For more information see Windows Desktop Apps Packager. .

Access Anywhere folder and file paths are case sensitive and can be as long as that supported by the provider. Amazon S3 for example supports case insensitive paths, and path names up to 1024 characters.

Additionally, object storage providers allow folders to have the same name as a file. The folder in object storage is represented using a path with a trailing slash (“/”).

Windows is case insensitive, has a maximum path length of 260 characters, and doesn't support files and folders with the same name. Only one file is shown if multiple paths have the same character strings but different cases. Files and folders with pathnames longer than 260 will not be displayed.

For example, the drive would only show one file even though these three objects are in object storage:

Key
KEY
key/

When a file is first opened the drive downloads the entire file into a local cache folder. For larger files (100s MB) some older applications may appear to freeze while the file is being downloaded.

In addition to downloading the file, the Cloud Drive also asks Access Anywhere to lock it.

As the application reads data from the file the drive is providing this information from the local copy in the cache. When the application is finished it saves the file.

The Cloud Drive unlocks the file when it is saved.

The file stays in the local cache even when saved. If a file is opened a second time the drive checks to see if the cached version of the file is still the latest. It will only download a new copy if that version changed.

The cache folder location can be browsed and changed through settings. Do not open or change files in the cache.

When a file is saved by an application, changes are made to the cached file. Only when this is complete will the file be uploaded to Access Anywhere.

File uploading occurs through another process, the Drive Uploader. Upload status can be monitored through “Manage Uploads”. Historical upload activity can be seen through the drive logs.

As files are actively uploaded the Drive Uploader window appears if it’s not already open. It will close when uploads are complete. This behaviour can be disabled by selecting “Hide uploads”.

The uploader can upload up to nine files at the same time. This can be changed under Settings.

If M-Stream is available large files are split into parts and uploaded in parallel as well.

If an upload fails, the drive will show a dialog at the bottom of the screen. The error can also be seen in the Drive Uploader window or the logs (if they are enabled). The Uploader will make several attempts to upload a file if the error is recoverable (e.g. network failure or server retry error). You can retry or remove uploads through the Drive Uploader window.

Files that start with ~ (tilde) and files that match the exclusion list are not uploaded unless those files already exist on the backend storage.

A file that is renamed from a temporary to non-temporary file name will be uploaded.

A file that is renamed from a non-temporary to temporary file will be renamed. It will not be deleted.

Folders can be dropped into the drive through the Windows File Explorer or copied into the drive from local or network storage. Note: The progress bar indicates the status of files being copied into the local drive cache. It does not indicate upload status.

The Cloud Drive shows a circular loading button for files that are not yet uploaded. The icon changes to a green checkmark when the file is uploaded.

If you are copying many large files, check you have enough space on your local machine to cache all these files. You can also tune the drive’s cache settings. For example, you could set the cached file to be removed after it has been uploaded.

Users can copy files and folders through the drive. As expected, if you copy files from a local drive or a network drive to the cloud drive, those files are uploaded to Access Anywhere.

However, if you copy a file or folder within the drive all he files are downloaded, copies, and then uploaded back through Access Anywhere. This is an expensive operation for larger files and folders.

Tip: To avoid using the desktop cache to transfer files use Access Anywhere Cloud Explorer app or the web-based Access Anywhere Cloud File Manager to copy files. These apps ask Access Anywhere to execute the copy, and it doesn’t need to use cache – it sends a “Copy Object” command directly to S3 storage.

Traditional file systems allow moving of files and folder hierarchies within the same drive. These are light operations where the file system is changing records in a directory catalog. File contents are not physically moved.

Object storage platforms, where the name of an object is hashed and determines where the object is physically stored, don't typically allow objects to ever be renamed. To support “rename” Access Anywhere can “move” objects instead by copying them to the new name, and then deleting the old name.

Moving very large files and large folder hierarchies on object storage can take some time. A rename or move of a large folder initiated through the Cloud Drive will also block applications from using the folder until the rename is complete (that folder may look like it’s frozen). For this reason the Cloud Drive will ask for confirmation before executing a folder rename or move.

If cache expiration is enabled an expiration purge task runs every 30 minutes. It will check modified and created time to determine if a file in cache should be deleted.

Files with the Online attribute (which have not been uploaded yet) will never be expired.

The Drive Uploader goes through a Recovery mode on startup. It scans the cache to identify files with an Offline attribute that signifies that they have not been uploaded.

As an extra precaution recovery mode is also run once a day.

There are a number of logs that can help troubleshoot issues relating to the operation of the drive. Enable logging through the menu from the taskbar icon.

Log files are created only when the first applicable log entry is written. Log files are rotated after a certain size.

Exit the drive to remove or archive (aka zip) the log files. This releases locks on the files.

The Drive and Uploader Logs are focused on the interaction with the external object storage (over the network) and provide a great way to see how the system is performing in general as well as a way to trouble-shoot specific issues. Requests from the FUSE layer, such as block I/O and metadata are not logged. Cache hits for files and metadata (directory information) are not logged.

To troubleshoot specific requests Fiddler can also be useful.

Logs when the Uploader starts (or is restarted by the Drive).

2019-01-31 16:36:51:408  [TID 9292] Started C:\Program Files (x86)\StorageMadeEasy.com\Enterprise Access Anywhere\Cloud.Drive.exe [v.12.7.27]

Logs start of download attempt, when an object is brought into cache. Shows thread identifier (TID).

2020-08-28 18:02:38:055  [TID 6088] \Google Cloud\finance-oak\mytasks.xls
2020-09-30 21:21:58:071  [TID 2368] \Uber CIFS\testUpload\test-314MB-file.zip

Logs unsuccessful download attempts. Shows time in milliseconds [2567] and error message. Correlated with download.log.

2019-01-31 18:25:02:393  [TID 9596] [2567] \bucket1\folder1\filename.ext - The operation timed out [server.com:443]

Logs successful downloads. Shows time in milliseconds [245]. Correlated with download.log.

2019-01-31 18:25:05:393  [245] \bucket1\folder1\filename.ext

This log includes requests initiated to retrieve folder listings and the status of files. Windows resolves child subfolders by iterating through parent folders so you will see multiple entries even for one folder request on the drive. Directories listings are cached based on the Setting “Folder Refresh Timeout”.

 2020-06-10 11:28:06:979  [TID 3424] \Google Cloud
 2020-06-10 11:28:07:446  [TID 3856] \Google Cloud\bucketing101
 2020-06-10 11:28:07:861  [TID 3436] \Google Cloud\bucketing101\Radiology

This log lists directory requests that failed. Time [18972] is shown in milliseconds.

2021-01-31 16:39:32:419  [TID 8544] [18972] \Google Cloud\bucketing101 - The operation timed out [server.com:443]

This log lists directory requests that succeeded. Time [245] is shown in milliseconds.

 2020-06-10 11:28:07:443  [TID 3424] [464] \Google Cloud
 2020-06-10 11:28:07:854  [TID 3856] [408] \Google Cloud\bucketing101
 2020-06-10 11:28:08:204  [TID 3436] [343] \Google Cloud\bucketing101\Radiology

This log is the same as the prior listed.log but logs after the internal directory cache has been updated.

Logs when the Drive sends a message to the Uploader.

 2020-09-30 22:37:52:843  [TID 2352] \\?\C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp\2\CloudDrive.Cache\testing\ppts\SmallPres.pptx.zip
 2020-09-30 23:40:17:602  [TID 1020] \\?\C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp\2\CloudDrive.Cache\back-small1000\rclone.exe

Logs when the Uploader receives a message from the Drive and adds to it's in-memory upload queue.

 2020-10-23 18:44:09:253  [TID 6992] \\?\C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp\2\CloudDrive.Cache\testSteven\Media Ent. Company- NAA Case Study.pdf [593866 B]
 2020-10-23 19:03:26:497  [TID 6992] \\?\C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp\2\CloudDrive.Cache\testSteven\rclone.exe [38949888 B]
 2020-10-30 21:49:20:460  [TID 5520] C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp\2\balloon_2020-10-30_21-49-20.xlsx [9127 B]

Logs files the Uploader picks up during recovery to add to it's in-memory upload queue.

 2020-09-30 21:24:20:496  [TID 5312] \\?\C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp\2\CloudDrive.Cache\Uber CIFS\testSteven\drive-test\test-314MB-file.zip [314732877 B]

Logs start of upload. In the first iteration an upload will be attempted 5 times before being logged in failed.log.

2019-01-23 09:01:08:599  \\?\C:\Cache\bucket1\sunset1.jpg [12952 B] [attempt #1]
2019-01-23 09:01:46:777  \\?\C:\Cache\bucket1\sunset2.jpg [41735 B] [attempt #1]
2019-01-23 09:02:01:879  \\?\C:\Cache\bucket1\sunset1.jpg [38246 B] [attempt #2]

2019-01-11 14:58:54:804  \\?\C:\Cache\bucket1\sunset1.jpg - The operation timed out
2019-01-12 12:05:33:631  \\?\C:\Cache\bucket1\sunset2.jpg - The operation timed out
2019-01-15 09:20:27:761  \\?\C:\Cache\bucket1\sunset3.jpg - 
  The request has not succeeded.
  Response code: 408.
  Request Timeout
2019-01-15 10:13:42:515  \\?\C:\Cache\bucket1\sunset4.jpg - Uploaded, but cloud size is different than local size

Successful upload.

Successful upload after retrying.

Misc errors with Drive.

Misc errors with Uploader.