When Windows users suddenly discover that their files have vanished from their desktops after interacting with OneDrive, the issue often stems from how Microsoft’s cloud service integrates with the operating system. The automatic, near-invisible shift to cloud-based storage has triggered strong reactions from users who find the feature unintuitive and, in some cases, destructive to their local files.
At this point I’m surprised there’s still files, and not an AI trained on the files that you have to describe the contents to so it can maybe give you something resembling your file.
Switching to Mint turns out to be quite a decision. Missing none of the fun.
Just wait until you actually need to restore using timeshift.
I’ve done that a few times now without issue. What’s wrong with it?
Having had to fix a friend’s installation because timeshift filled up the system drive, I would say one of the biggest problems of mint is that it comes with timeshift enabled by default (and with shitty settings). I recommend keeping manual backups, and not trying to restore a system, as opposed to setting it up from scratch.
I use [not arch, but] debian, btw - haven’t had the system break on me in > 10 years. At worst, some driver gets messed up temporarily, but nothing that ever rendered my system unusable.
After using TimeShift, I find Deja Dup better than TimeShift.
Have seen similar comments on that specifically on mint before, does mint have a particular problem with it? I used timeshift to restore manjaro a couple of times and it was very confusing but I assumed it was just me.
I thought TimeShift was a bit of a pain to restore from. So I switched to Deja Dup and haven’t had any issues with it.
i don’t know how to use such black magic.
dropbox and google drive have both erased data from me without copying it properly. these are not “backup” services they destroy your data
Cool
Dropbox has a policy about two years ago that all of your data will be shared with AI, no opt-outs.
I immediately cancelled my plan and dropped to the free service, which I use to backup photos of my poop.
Honestly never use any cloud services without encrypting your files, I personally use cryptomator for example. They will all scrape the fuck out of everything, since why wouldn’t they? It’s not like they’ll be caught doing it
Ugh. Well they got all my shit already so no point changing now. I use my friends dropbox and hes a photographer and videographer for a living. Ironic that the very service hes paying for is going to scrape his data and replace him.
Most people ive ran into have no idea how to even access a file if its not in a Google drive or dropbox so good luck getting them to understand anything else. My friends complain non stop that I dont use corporate services for every single thing like they do 🙄
Been using both for decades never had one file go missing that I have ever not deleted myself, or set to remove after backup.
I haven’t died yet, if we are sharing random arbitrary personal experiences. I expect to in the future.
Well considering that I’ve been in the IT industry for over 20 years at this point. And as long as you have things set up properly and you know how things work then this really isn’t an issue. It’s not just my personal experience is also the experience of any of my clients it’s experience of any of the places that I’ve ever worked at it’s the experience of any of the thousands of people that I’ve interacted with and probably tens of thousands of people have interacted with over the past 20 years.
I hold the middle ground. When set up properly, the services do tend to work just fine when left alone. Consumers often have automatic updates enabled, that is where shit hits the fan sometimes. I have had the issue of files disappearing. Fortunately, they reappeared some time after. Not sure what Microsoft was doing – we will never know.
Been doing IT for nearly 30 years here.
Computers shit their pants whenever they feel like it.
I have been doing IT since 1867 and I’ve never run into an issue.
Bullshit, all punch cards eventually tear
I was hoping you’d play along :’(
I’ve been in the IT business for 26 years and I’ve seen software screw up, even when configured correct. OneDrive have lost many files for people to the point that Microsoft more or less apologised for it in 2015.
OneDrive is shit though.
Maybe, I just don’t like “And as long as you have things set up properly and you know how things work then this really isn’t an issue” - you can set things up correctly and then it still screws up. Everything works perfectly until it doesn’t.
Oh I fully agree out of all of these options one drive is definitely the worst of them. And I’ve seen many many files lost through one drive because it’s really difficult to configure it correctly and most the time it’s fucked up because Microsoft continually changes what you can and can’t do with it and how it updates and how it doesn’t update and now with the latest change and the forcing of users to utilize it it’s becoming even worse.
You don’t have backups for your files on Google drive?
Of course I do. But it’s also my backup for files. You always have at least 2 if not 3.
Okay, because you’re responding to a person saying they’ve lost files, on an article thread about people losing files. You seem to have all the tools to understand what’s being discussed and yet you’re still being obtuse about it.
No I’m calling their bullshit.
You’re the kind of person that says gems like “Computers don’t make mistakes, sir”, Arent you?
cool
Time to use TwoDrive
EDIT: Or “Time TwoDrive”, if you prefer
AIDRIVE, WILL be named changed from ONEDRIVE.
AIDRIVEWILLONEDRIVE?
TwoDrive or not TwoDrive that is the question
I prefer ThreeDrive or even FourDrive
Step into my office.
You’re fired.
8 minute abs! You can’t even get your heart pumping at the number 4!
Just don’t use TwoTimingDrive
Maybe the lost photos are in Zerodrive
Saving stuff yo dev null is handy. Always has space.
What about ThreeDrive?
I would guess it trys to “backup” them to onedrive and deletes the local copy but there is some problem that causes it not to actually add it to the onedrive, so result is no file anywhere. And it does this with its own permission of course, without informing user about anything.
No the issue is once enabled your home directory becomes onedrive. People feel they are saving files into their users/myuser/Documents but they’re actually saving it to users/myuser/Onedrive/Documents. These files are being synced off into the cloud and only pulled down when requested. Then the user decides they dont want onedrive and so they turn it off by unlinking their account. Now they feel they’ve lost their files but they havent the files are still in one drive and they need to go get them after that they have local files as normal.
Its purely user error encouraged by microsofts pushy implementation and bad design.
It is this, coupled with so many people not even knowing that they are using OneDrive (because it was automatically enabled if you have a Microsoft account linked to your Windows install, and Microsoft pushing to link your account).
It switches to storing files on Onedrive without warning.
Then if you disable Onedrive, you lose access to your files (on Onedrive) and their memory space is reused.
It doesn’t actually delete local storage, as the path is just switched.
Sounds like a reasonable idea for the issue presented. Mean the issue could be on one drive saying the file is there and complete, or many other issues since I don’t know the API in the least.
Yours would be my first guess for sure, it thinks it completed so delete local copy, which is what you’d prefer in that situation, well mostly, I sort of prefer a local working copy but need some other names and the program to recognize thm with then upload on actual save to the cloud storage…I say that and still curse at excel when it says it has a backup copy from a forced reboot, always keep one open heh.
Actually to be fair I hate those storages for that reason so much crap can go wrong without a knowledgeable user it makes things worse. You just hope the program can tell if it did it was done correctly heh and if not then end up clicking the wrong button and it’s all gone.
Local NAS for anything you think you’ll need, random ‘free’ cloud storage as a general backup. Mean I assume the NAS has raid so mostly good without more.
I know why. Because they were using OneDrive.
Shit like is literally why i have a saved winscript json that gets run on all work machines after “updates”
Interesting. Care to share?
After you’ve configured your parameters, you can save the file for future re-runs, or on other machines. I just made a master that rips out all the bullshit (boss won’t pay for anything over home edition for the rendering machines) and slap it about
So I had the weird issue that none of my shortcuts were showing the proper icon, instead showing the blank piece of paper placeholder(even in the taskbar). Was digging through some other settings for something and found a bunch of one drive settings left on. Turned them all off and suddenly my icons are back to normal. Not sure if it was trying to access the files in the cloud instead of locally and wasn’t loading them properly or what. Either way, One Drive absolutely fucks a lot of random things up
It was a PITA to get my files to save locally and to stop auto saving to OneDrive
This only happens if you use Windows with an online account. Poor souls were probably forced to do this.
What does that mean? If I have a 3+ year old Windows am I unlikely to be affected?
Yep! My windows 10 is not hooked up to a real Microsoft account. It tries to force me to create an account every few months, which I laugh at.
I made the mistake a few years ago on my win 10 gaming tower and creating an account to play Xbox live, and suddenly, I was getting that garbage one drive shit.
If you use Windows with a local account and unlinked to OneDrive, yes.
Poor design and shit software
We’ve tried nothing and we are all out of ideas dot gif
So let me get this straight. Microsoft is taking your local files, without their consent, onto their platform where they can delete them for “terms of use” violations, alongside tracking what you do on your own computer.
Sounds like they don’t want you to use your computer in a way they don’t want you to.
They’re scooping up all the data for AI. They rebranded Office to just being AI.
Whether or not they are “my” files would be the legal test in the given jurisdiction. It probably gets even blurrier if the file was created in ‘my’ licensed version of MS software application x. And blurrier still if created in the cloud version of said software and stored direct to their cloud storage platform . I’m assuming with most saas or cloud things that its never my file and im just renting access to something they own even if i created it. You distinguished “local” in your comment though, so this is where the win11 tactics have been a new level of scummy and scammy with the forced syncing etc . The whole OS is theirs. or is it mine ? Do i need a legal team everytime I install software? This whole idea of consent as well…. yikes . I’m glad we have options.
Who said it was your computer.
everybody, back when I bought it.
Their persistence in wanting to download my files is my number one problem with Windows, and it’s a huge one.
I run a recording studio and I use RME hardware
I have uninstalled One Drive and enabled a system policy that supposedly sets the default save location to c:\user\documents, and after every single fucking update it defaults back to one drive, hangs for 30 seconds until the stupid ass system realizes that there’s no such thing present, and then it opens a “save as” dialogue with some arbitrary path in %user_apps/appdata/onedrive.
GNARF.
A better fix would be uninstalling Windows
It’s a work computer, so the answer is no.
You know that’s a novel and insightful musing that no one’s ever thought to share before.
It’s brave of you to go on Lemmy and suggest the solution to a Windows problem is to uninstall it.
A lot of people on lemmy long ago realized that if you have enough problems with windows, the problem is windows.
That fix has a lot of side effects that might break something. Unless you’re intimately familiar with their setup and use case, destructive solutions aren’t a safe recommendation.
UBUNTU!!! I am a professional sound engineer forced to use W11 (or iOS if I had more money) but the SECOND my hardware has Linux support I’m gone. God I HATE MicroSCUM with their onedrive vomit account pukiness (sorry, I could not control myself just now)
Out of interest what type of engineering and what type of hardware? I’m a (lifelong) music Hobbyist with a passing interest who also works in tech stuff kind of. I’m presuming live sound is your world since you mentioned ios rather than mac os ? Linux seems the perfect candidate for that world though I guess the various companies also do their own proprietary systems in the digi mixer worlds and such ?
I run a recording studio and I use RME hardware
I heard its microslop now, their CEO loves it.
You realize anything iOS that Apple has been doing this for years with icloud.
Ubuntu has kind of fallen out of favor with a lot of people, myself included. It used to be my go to, then I went mint, now I run fedora Bluefin.
Ubuntu has kind of fallen out of favor with a lot of people, myself included.
The whole “We’re using snaps now. We like snaps so you like snaps” attitude rankled a lot of people.
Ubuntu has kind of fallen out of favor with a lot of people, myself included. It used to be my go to, then I went mint, now I run fedora Bluefin.
IMO, if they want to Ubuntu, let them. We all have our favorite flavors, but whatever they’re comfortable with is a fine point to start with.
This. It’s not my favorite, but another person coming to Linux is good. I’m not about to turn them away with an “achchktually…”. Plus it’s about personal choice anyway, so
If they want ubuntu, let them Linux Mint! :D
Why not straight up Debian?
Because the standard version of Mint uses the ubuntu repositories. You get to utilize most of what makes up ubuntu, but decoupled from the stuff Canonical wants to push. It has some added polish as well.
It was more of an ubuntu-specific reply rather than “what’s the best distro” thing.
But now that you mention it, there is also Linux Mint Debian Edition! :D
I might actually start using LMDE at work, since we have some stuff that’s more focused on debian than ubuntu.
Oh for sure, do what you want to do. I’m just saying, while everyone has their opinions, some people like to follow the crowd of popular opinion, and the crowd is moving away from Ubuntu. Maybe not everyone knows that 🤷♂️
Ubuntu is like the moon. It waxes and wanes with the spinning of the earth. Basically every few years it gets popular then every few years those people that made a popular move to something else and it drops in popularity and then suddenly it becomes popular again when a new group of people come out and try linux. It’s a very user friendly basic version of Linux that can be made very powerful.
