I’ve only ever casually browsed information about syncthing. Even I’ve stumbled across stories of people with a naive setup that, once fired up, started erasing all their files.
I understand that this is probably an oversimplification, but I’ve read at least two separate stories that are along those lines. The comments for both stories were basically “yeah that sounds right because of the way you set it up”. It’s not a bug so much as how synchthing works. My understanding is that there is a circumstance where you sync an empty folder with a folder with your documents, and it decides to synch the empty folder such that it erases the documents. Without any kind of warning. Wild.
maybe some people get confused thinking that unidirectional sync (send only) works like a backup?
it is possible to use syncthing for backups, but that is actually one of the pain points. there is an option to specify to ignore deletes, but that option is hidden in advanced settings, and there is no quick way to check if it is turned on. every time i delete something that i want to keep on the backup side. (like pictures from my phone, where i am running out of space) i first go to the destination/backup server and double check that this option is turned on to make sure that i won't accidentally have the backup deleted too.
it's also an issue that i can't see the remote settings from the client side. i have to connect to the remote server to check.
there is also a problem with the way it resolves conflicts. if you have "ignore delete" set up, and then you delete files, syncthing will tell you that the two locations are out of sync. it offers a button to force a sync, but there is no preview explaining what that button will do. there is also no choice in how the out-of-sync status should be resolved (in which direction the sync should happen to get the two locations in sync).
i have always been afraid to ever push that button, and there is no way to make it go away. i think this is an UX bug, because if i intentionally configure to ignore deletes, then deletes should not count as a difference. they should actually be ignored.
I understand that this is probably an oversimplification, but I’ve read at least two separate stories that are along those lines. The comments for both stories were basically “yeah that sounds right because of the way you set it up”. It’s not a bug so much as how synchthing works. My understanding is that there is a circumstance where you sync an empty folder with a folder with your documents, and it decides to synch the empty folder such that it erases the documents. Without any kind of warning. Wild.