Proton Drive warning: don't reinstall
Proton Drive warning: don't reinstall
A few months ago I installed Proton Drive on my new PC. It started having issues so I sent it back in for repair. I uninstalled Proton Drive then deleted my files for privacy.
Last week I installed Proton Drive again. To my surprise, it scrambled all of my files locally and remote. All my root folders were deleted and my root is now filled with "Delete conflict" files and folders.
I reported this to Proton immediately. After giving them my logs and details support told me...
- This is expected: "Proton Drive is designed to synchronize ALL changes, even after long periods of not syncing"
- No rollback is possible: "Please note that we are unable to revert this behavior. You will have to restore the files manually"
- They plan to address this: "Regardless, we will absolutely be making improvements to avoid such problems in the future."
For me I have about 100 files to address, which is manageable, but for others I'm sure this would be a showstopper. The delete conflicts don't have version history either, so I have to figure out how to weave everything back together.
So to get this straight, you had proton drive, uninstalled it, deleted your files, and then reinstalled proton drive hoping it would bring them back ... only for it to delete the remote copies?
Yikes! Sorry to hear that happened ... and thanks for the heads up.
If that is what happened, that does not seem like what should happen
It is a sync, it's exactly what is supposed to happen. In cloud computing there is sync and remote back up. Each behaves differently, there's also sync directionality, archival metadata, snapshots, etc. Always make sure you understand how the storage solution works before committing your files to someone else's custody. And as the old adage says, at least two independent mediums, at least two distant locations, at least one restore rehearsal a year, or else you don't actually have a back up.
I can understand the confusion. But it kinda makes sense.... if my hypothesis is correct.
Proton Drive has the concepts of "My Files" and "Computers". Files stored under "Computer" (where you can have synced files for up to 10 computers, according to docs) tracks the files for each computer individually.
So when you uninstall Drive and delete the files, they are only stored in the cloud. But after reinstalling it again, it sees the files locally for that computer is gone ... so it gets removed in the cloud.
Had these files been moved to "My Files" in before the reinstall, this should not have happened.
At least, that's my theory.
Still, I would expect a sync program to ask "hey, do you want these files restored, to merge the local state, or replace the remote state?" before doing anything else.
Yes, that's correct
you might've been able to avoid this by choosing a different folder for it to sync to on your re-install
This is also the default behaviour of Syncthing. It must be more of a sync tool than a true backup. In that sense, it makes sense for your files to be deleted when the local copy is gone, but I also don't think that that's the expected behaviour for most users.
The way I understand it, I think the real issue here is that Proton Drive should clear the sync state or identity when uninstalled. The identification of the PC should be unique to each install, so that when you reinstall it later it understands that it is now a “new” system needing to be reworked from scratch, and that the empty folder is awaiting initial download, not mass cloud deletion. Would that lead to multiple copies in the “Computers” backup section? Sure, but that can be a good thing too, or at least better than wiping the drive, and more easily remedied.