Cloud Drive for Windows Troubleshooting

Last update: July 2, 2020 (version 12.5.30)

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This page provides a deeper drive into how the Cloud Drive works to enable tuning for specific 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.

TIP: Enable drive logging to track when and what folders the drive is refreshing.

The icons indicate if files have been downloaded into cache:

• 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 only available in the cloud. (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 the File Fabric. For more information see Cloud Drive Packaging.

File Fabric 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 allows 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 case. Files and folders with path names 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 the File Fabric 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 the File Fabric.

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.