Deleted Folder Keeps Reappearing

[DigitalDivide]

I created a folder on one of my disks called TV Shows which also exists on multiple disks.  I manually created these via my Windows 10 desktop.  I then copied tv shows to this folder.  Today, I deleted the folder and thought it was a done deal.  A little later went back to the disk and it's back.  I deleted it again, and yes it's back.

 

How do I delete this folder?  I do have a share called TV Shows as well as Movies, all created the same way.  I can delete the movie folders but not the tv show.  When I go to the Shares tab, it shows as Public, same as my Movies share.

 

What gives?

[Squid]

I created a folder on one of my disks called TV Shows which also exists on multiple disks.  I manually created these via my Windows 10 desktop.  I then copied tv shows to this folder.  Today, I deleted the folder and thought it was a done deal.  A little later went back to the disk and it's back.  I deleted it again, and yes it's back.

 

How do I delete this folder?  I do have a share called TV Shows as well as Movies, all created the same way.  I can delete the movie folders but not the tv show.  When I go to the Shares tab, it shows as Public, same as my Movies share.

 

What gives?

If windows says its deleted, it should be deleted.  (In a perfect world)

 

Couple of reasons for what you're seeing pops into my head

 

- One of the disks has corruption and has been mounted as read-only.  Windows wouldn't really know about it.  Diagnostics would tell the tale

- A docker container is referencing that folder in its template. Every time the docker is started / restarted, that folder is going to get recreated

- The TV Shows folder exists on the array with the same spelling but in a different case (ie: TV Shows vs tv shows) - This royally messes up Windows and it just plain has no clue about how to handle SMB shares that exist with the same spelling but in different cases.  Weird things happen.  Easiest test for this is to run the extended tests from within the Fix Common Problems plugin

 

[DigitalDivide]

I checked all the above.  No Docker installed, spelling is exactly the same across the disks.

Attached is the diagnostics.  The problem is happening on disk 6

tower-diagnostics-20170111-2159.zip

[DigitalDivide]

Hmm I think I may have solved the problem.  I had TV Shows\Farscape on another drive that had files below that and the TV Shows\Farscape folder on disk 6 that had no files in it.  I deleted the Farscape folder on my other drive, then deleted the TV Shows folder from Disk 6 and that seems to have done the trick.

[Squid]

Hmm I think I may have solved the problem.  I had TV Shows\Farscape on another drive that had files below that and the TV Shows\Farscape folder on disk 6 that had no files in it.  I deleted the Farscape folder on my other drive, then deleted the TV Shows folder from Disk 6 and that seems to have done the trick.

grr...  Right when I went to post my very eloquently worded 1000+ word essay you have to go and solve the problem on your own 

 

Glad you got it solved.    Looks like you've got both user shares and disk shares enabled which can get confusing if you start mixing them up.

[DigitalDivide]

Nope didn't solve it.  It's back lol.  I can't believe this.  Ok let's here your 1,00 word essay

[trurl]

You should be deleting user shares from the webUI. If you delete all the files in a user share then when you go to that share's page unRAID will let you delete the share. A user share is a top level folder, and a top level folder is a user share.

[trurl]

And if you go to a shares page, it should tell you whether or not it is empty. You won't be able to delete it if it isn't empty.

[Squid]

^^^^  This

 

I got messed up because you stated you were deleting the TV Shows folder via Windows.  (Which you actually can't do, and windows won't let you because you can't delete a Network Share - Only a folder contained within)

[DigitalDivide]

This isn't making sense to me sorry.  If I go to the Shares tab and click the yellow folder button to the right of the TV Shows share (which I created via my Windows PC) I see the following

Parent Directory

Band of Brothers Disk 3 2013-10-09 10:31

Battlestar Galactica Disk 5 2011-11-14 12:01

Farscape         Disk 6 2017-01-11 22:43 --> this is the problem folder

Game of Thrones Disk 3 2014-02-21 09:37

MASH         Disk 5 2010-10-29 15:10

Stargate         Disk 5 2010-10-30 05:39

The World at War Disk 4

 

If I click on Farscape I see

Parent Directory

Season 4                  Disk 6 ------>This folder is empty

 

 

I go to Disk 6 and try to delete Farscape and TV Shows and they both come back...So how do I get rid of this empty folder?

[DigitalDivide]

Wait, so maybe I got this.  If I delete only the Farscape folder, that should stay deleted.  But because TV Shows share has contents on under it, even though on a different disk I can't delete it?  Is that right?

[trurl]

..the TV Shows share (which I created via my Windows PC)...

Do you have disk shares enabled? I know you are rearranging things on your drives so maybe that is reasonable at least temporarily.

 

But you must not copy or move files from a disk share to a user share or from a user share to a disk share. If you do you can lose data, search for User Share Copy Bug if you want an explanation of why.

 

Only copy or move files from a user share to a user share or from a disk share to a disk share.

 

And after you are finished rearranging things it is best to disable disk shares and only work with user shares over the network.

[DigitalDivide]

Ok, now I think you are purposely trying to get my head to explode!  I couldn't sleep all night because this sharing thing kept running through my head.

 

As far as I know I have user and disk shared.  It's not like I actually did anything.  Attached is what I see when I go to the Shares tab.

 

I'm assuming the disk shares are there by default. 

 

For ex, my new disk 7.  After adding it to the array, it just shows up under disk shares.  Which I assume is normal.  Then I created a folder on it via my Windows PC and called it Movies.  Then I started copying files from disk 6 that had a share/folder called Movies to disk 7 Movies folder/share. 

 

That's pretty much how I did all my folders. If I'm doing something wrong or have screwed something up, please let me know.

 

Now having said that, after having a sleepless night I may have finally understood something.  You are saying not to create a folder via my Windows desktop but use the Webgui.  So, if for ex on disk 6 and disk 7 I want a share called Movies and TV Shows, I should go the Webgui and click Add Share, put in a name...say Movies, then for Include disks I select Disk 6 and 7.  Is that correct?

 

If I do that, if I browse to disk 6 via my PC, would I then see a folder/share called disk 6?  I'm assuming I can then just copy files to that share/folder?  Now if I end up deleting all the files that reside on the disk 6 share Movies, then go to the Webgui and for the share remove disk 6 so it only includes disk 7, the Movie share will be gone from disk 6.  Is that correct?

[trurl]

Disks are not shared by default. In Global Share Settings, you can enable disk shares, but they are disabled by default to prevent users from accidentally encountering the User Share Copy Bug mentioned.

 

You should use the webUI to create and configure user shares, but if you create a folder at the top level of cache or any array disk, it is automatically considered a user share with default settings, and those default settings may not be what you want.

 

If you create a user share in the webUI, a top level folder will be created on cache or array disk as needed and in accordance with that user share's settings.

 

Any user shares that you have already "accidentally" created by creating a top level folder on cache or array disk do not need to be created again, but you may want to make settings for those shares if you don't want the default settings.

 

And any changes you make to a user share's settings only applies to future writes to that share. If you set it to not include disk6 for example, that just means it won't write files for that share to disk6 anymore. It will have no effect on folders or files that are already on disk6.

 

And you absolutely must avoid mixing user and disk shares when copying or moving files (unless you really understand what the user shares are doing that causes the "bug" and know exactly what to specifically to avoid).

 

After you are done rearranging things it would be best to go to Global Share Settings and disable disk shares. I never use disk shares and I completely understand the User Share Copy bug. If I want to move things from disk to disk I never do it over the network but instead go to the command line (actually Midnight Commander).

[DigitalDivide]

All the manual copying I am doing is via MC.  The only work I'm currently doing is using BatchMKV to grab all my blu-ray movies and tv show folders on one disk and converting to MKV which is saved on another disk.  Then deleting the said movies or tv shows.

 

So, once I finish with this conversion/move and it's time to get at the data on my unassigned disks, I guess it would be better at that point to remove my disk shares, set the Allocation Method and Free Space for my shares, then copy the data from the unassigned disks to those shares.  Is that what you would recommend?

[trurl]

All the manual copying I am doing is via MC.  The only work I'm currently doing is using BatchMKV to grab all my blu-ray movies and tv show folders on one disk and converting to MKV which is saved on another disk.  Then deleting the said movies or tv shows.

 

So, once I finish with this conversion/move and it's time to get at the data on my unassigned disks, I guess it would be better at that point to remove my disk shares, set the Allocation Method and Free Space for my shares, then copy the data from the unassigned disks to those shares.  Is that what you would recommend?

Conversely, I seldom work with user shares at the command line or from mc. I am not entirely sure the user share settings are enforced except when working over the network. I think there have been reports of people trying to move files from one user share to another with mc only to find that the files got moved within the same disk even if the destination user share didn't include the disk. In fact, I recently encountered this myself when trying to use mc to copy from one of my user shares which is cache-no to my appdata share which is cache-only. The result was moving within the disk the file was already on, with the result that appdata now had a folder on that disk.

 

On the other hand, unassigned disks aren't involved at all with user shares, so it is OK to move/copy from unassigned disks to user shares. I am still not sure whether all user shares settings would be enforced if doing it that way though.

[Squid]

I am not entirely sure the user share settings are enforced except when working over the network. I think there have been reports of people trying to move files from one user share to another with mc only to find that the files got moved within the same disk even if the destination user share didn't include the disk. In fact, I recently encountered this myself when trying to use mc to copy from one of my user shares which is cache-no to my appdata share which is cache-only. The result was moving within the disk the file was already on, with the result that appdata now had a folder on that disk.

Its not that the include / exclude rules aren't enforced via the command line (they are), but rather what happens during moves (not copies) due to how linux works with mount points.  It appears to be a bug, but if you sit down and think about the mount points you'll realize that its not a bug (and something similar would affect iOS / Windows), and is completely out of LT's control

[DigitalDivide]

Sorry but I'm back on this as it's driving me nuts.  I can't get rid of this folder.  It just keeps reappearing.  I delete it or rename it and it reappears.  I even did a New Config, and it still reappears. 

 

Just a reminder, I created a folder via Windows on Disk 4 called TV Shows\Farscape\Season 4 and had the files in there.  I think moved the files via MC to another drive but same folder structure.  I then tried to delete Season 4, tried to delete Farscape, which seemed to happen, but then a few minutes later it's back.  There are no files under TV SHows on disk 4. 

 

For Shared in the GUI I have TV Shows which includes all disks, fill up, manual copy no splitting. 

 

What's funny I had a TV Show folder on other drives and those all easily deleted properly.  Just not this one.  Any suggestions?

[trurl]

...  I even did a New Config, and it still reappears. 

New Config doesn't have any effects other than setting your disks assignments and possibly rebuilding parity.

Just a reminder, I created a folder via Windows on Disk 4 called TV Shows\Farscape\Season 4 and had the files in there.  I think moved the files via MC to another drive but same folder structure.

You think? Did you or didn't you?

  I then tried to delete Season 4, tried to delete Farscape, which seemed to happen, but then a few minutes later it's back.

Did you check immediately or did you check a few minutes later? If they weren't there when you checked immediately but were there when you checked a few minutes later then that would suggest something else like an app is recreating it.

[DigitalDivide]

The reason I say I think is because I don't recall 100%.  My typical process is via MC but there is the odd time I do it via Windows for whatever reason. 

 

When I delete the folder, it's always a few minutes later that I see it reappear.  Not sure what apps would be doing that.  I really don't have any installed that would impact that...as far as I know.

 

If I go to Plugins I have the following showing

CA Auto Update App

CA BAckup / Restore Appdata

CA Cleanup Appdata

Community Plugins

Dynamix webGui

Preclear Disks

Unassigned Devices

Unbalance

unRaid Server OS

 

Before upgrading to 6.2 I also had a docker, Deluge.  After upgrading to 6.2 I don't see it anywhere so assumed the 6.2 upgrade wiped it out.  I was using the cache drive with that but I'm not even using that anymore.

 

Is there anything else I can check?  I'll have to wait a few hours as I did a New Config and it's running parity.

[trurl]

Before upgrading to 6.2 I also had a docker, Deluge.  After upgrading to 6.2 I don't see it anywhere so assumed the 6.2 upgrade wiped it out.  I was using the cache drive with that but I'm not even using that anymore.

Shouldn't have "wiped it out", but then again, that is a very vague description. There were some instructions in the release thread that dealt with upgrading your dockers. I have been using some of my dockers since very early 6.0 betas when we didn't even have much of a user interface to create them.

[trurl]

The reason I say I think is because I don't recall 100%.  My typical process is via MC but there is the odd time I do it via Windows for whatever reason. 

You must pay very careful attention to exactly what you do, and very careful attention to exactly what the results are, or we can't really have any idea what to suggest.

[DigitalDivide]

The reason I say I think is because I don't recall 100%.  My typical process is via MC but there is the odd time I do it via Windows for whatever reason. 

You must pay very careful attention to exactly what you do, and very careful attention to exactly what the results are, or we can't really have any idea what to suggest.

 

I understand that now...but where do I go from here?

[trurl]

The reason I say I think is because I don't recall 100%.  My typical process is via MC but there is the odd time I do it via Windows for whatever reason. 

You must pay very careful attention to exactly what you do, and very careful attention to exactly what the results are, or we can't really have any idea what to suggest.

 

I understand that now...but where do I go from here?

Try to make it happen, paying careful attention.

[DigitalDivide]

So I made a change.  For the folder that keeps reappearing, I ended up moving the files from the drive they are currently on back to the reappearing folder.  So now I don't have to worry about it... ;-)

 

However, I have encountered a somewhat strange problem with my TV Shows share.  I'm using Kodi on my HTPC and have the movies and tv shows library pointed to the shares Movies and TV Shows on my server.  One feature it has is to backup your files for each of the movies and tv shows.  It creates a .nfo file in each folder for each movie or tv show.  When I ran this it did create the .nfo file in each folder for the Movies share however when it came to the TV Shows share, I got an error saying it could not create the file.  After it was done I went back and sure enough for each movie under the Movie share it created the nfo files.  For the TV Shows not one .nfo file was created.  Both shares span multiple disks. 

 

When I checked the Unraid Shares settings I don't see anything there that would prevent the writing of those nfo files.  I just thought I'd check with the experts and see if there's something I'm missing.