WinSCP cache location, and synchronization feature request.

This is something that made me rip my hair out. Although part of it is my fault the fact that there is no "Are you sure you want to do this?" is why I am bringing it up.

Tried to set up synchronization in 5.5.0 and looked through all the configuration before doing so, seeing it all seeming ok i clicked start and it started the process. Within seconds I noticed rather then saying something like "download" it said "delete". It was deleting my server! Why? because the sync folder did not already have the files in it, it assumed that I wanted to sync an empty folder with my server, so good bye every single file. I caught it in time but would like to know the cache for WinSCP if possible, 2 files were not backed up and it will be a nightmare if I cannot get them.

This leads me to the feature request. When comparing if it sees and empty folder it should go into "idiot" mode and ask the user if they are sure they want to perform the action. Something like a dialog that tells the user "x files will be deleted, x files will be uploaded and x files will be modified". If I seen this the disaster would of been averted.

Well, how does another prompt help if you manage to overlook all the red crosses on Synchronization checklist?

To tell you the truth now that I look, I did not have delete files selected in those options. Yet it went to delete them all anyway. So in that case it could very well be a bug. I would try to test more but my experience of the synchronization is bad enough that I may not want to do anything with it for some time.

Most of this was an error I caused, just enough of a problem that I felt worth noting.

Sorry if this seemed harsh, you can imagine my mood when I wrote it.

Ok, let me know if you manage to reproduce this. I'm pretty sure the synchronization is quite reliable and it does not delete files unless you ask.

No doubt that it did for me, and unless I make a test server I can't reproduce it easily. The way to do it is just set up synchronization normally and point it to an empty folder. Use mostly just default settings (if it defaults to a bad setting as well, that you would normally change). Then run it, for me it just started deleting everything on the server without a second thought, even though "delete files" was not enabled.

REactionJordan wrote:

No doubt that it did for me, and unless I make a test server I can't reproduce it easily. The way to do it is just set up synchronization normally and point it to an empty folder. Use mostly just default settings (if it defaults to a bad setting as well, that you would normally change). Then run it, for me it just started deleting everything on the server without a second thought, even though "delete files" was not enabled.

If you start "remote" mode synchronization on empty local folder and non-empty remote folder, you get a synchronization checklist showing that all the remote files are obsolete (=delete action). But none of the delete actions are checked (when Delete files option is not selected), and the OK button is disabled as a consequence. I've just tried and it behaved as expected.