BT Cloud Won't Start

[AGWH-HW]

Well i did get a reply which may be a start ??

Good morning,

Thank you for your e-mail.  Philip is currently away from the office with limited access to his e-mail, so I am replying on his behalf to avoid further delay.  Philip has asked that we pick this up and pass to our senior service team for investigation and response directly to you.

Many apologies for the problems you are experiencing.

Kind regards,

PA Support to Chairman & Chief Executive Office

BT Group plc

[abramj]

It might be helpful if people would identify whether they have used the default BT Cloud configuration or if they had implemented any changes, for example I moved my Sync folder away from under my user account on the C drive to a new folder on my data disk, I also used some mods which had been discussed in a previous post about how to get the BT Cloud to appear on the File Explorer window at the same level as Quick Access, Dropbox and OneNote and also to appear as potential targets when doing Save As operations within other applications i.e. where you want to save the BT Cloud. Needless to say these changes have all been lost and there appears to be no way to reproduce them with this new implementation. This might help ensure that further changes to the product don't break configurations that you've spent a lot of time getting right for your operation.

You should also check that if you want to change the Sync folder location in the new implementation you appear to have to uninstall and delete some files then reinstall before the setup wizard will allow you to modify the Sync folder (for some bizarre reason someone thought you might only ever make the change once and never need to do it again 😞 )

To be honest, having worked in IT for over 30 years I have rarely seen such bad or naïve practices followed in building and releasing a product, not much better than beginner level mistakes. I have never seen a product simply start up, find an update and then simply commence the upgrade without any option for the user to see what changes were being forced on them and/or  to allow them to defer the upgrade to a point in time when it was more convenient.

The previous product was only just about acceptable, not much better than basic, but no-one thought to poll users gas to features they would want preserved or would want enhanced  they just blindly went ahead without any thought about how changes to what for some people is a critical component of either their information sharing or backup strategy  would seriously affect them.

I couldn't help but notice that this product based on synchronoss.com product and on their web site they make this statement:

The Need for Operator Branded Cloud Solutions

The Need for Operator Branded Cloud Solutions In Cloud, Operators Can Demonstrate Their Most Valuable Commodity: Trust.

Something BT have largely destroyed for those customers who  are using the BT Cloud product.

[NeilO]

Hi all,

We are sorry for some of the issues with the latest upgrade on Windows to v20.6.1.

This upgrade was needed to ensure BT Cloud kept working.

We understand it's frustrating but we are investigating the issues reported and thank you for your patience.

We will be releasing an updated version next week which should address the desktop shortcut not opening , anti-virus blocking installations and other performance fixes. We will do further releases for other fixes as we find them.

Some of the other errors like "We are experiencing technical difficulties" will appear less or not appear at all once the fix has been rolled out.

Our moderators will help collect your details for any other issues you are having.

BT Cloud is also still available to use via web at https://btcloud.bt.com or via mobile apps.

Top Issues

1.     Not sure if installation successful/Where is BT Cloud/BT Cloud not starting

BT Cloud now runs silently in the system tray which can be found in the bottom right corner.  You will need to click the arrow pointing up to view the BT Cloud dashboard.
 

The BT Cloud desktop shortcut doesn't open the dashboard anymore but just launches the service in the background so you'll need to use the icon in the system tray instead.  (We are looking into fixing this)
 

If you see the words syncing or initialising metadata this indicates everything is normal.

2.     Where is the Dashboard?

To access the dashboard, click on the BT Cloud icon in the system tray (not on your desktop).  Below is the new dashboard which should give you the information needed...

When files are being synced the icon will show blue (and hovering over will say syncing)

When syncing has finished the icon will show green

Where to choose folders that are to be synced?
Click on the settings cog on the dashboard

You will then see the folders currently getting backed up and have the option to add more.

3.     Some features are missing?

We are aware that some customers liked features like right click and save to cloud or showing the coloured ticks in the file explorer. We unfortunately couldn’t include them in this release but are aiming to bringing them back in the future release.

[alanbart]

Thank you Neil for providing an update.

The top issue for me is that BT Cloud has stopped syncing completely. After about 50Gbs had been uploaded, it hasn't moved for over 5 hours and there is still over 30GBs to go. I have logged a complaint so hopefully this is being logged into also. The Task Manager is showing high percentage usage which indicates to me that the software has 'hung'

[Elmstead]

"We are sorry for some of the issues with the latest upgrade on Windows to v20.6.1."

Which issues are you not sorry for?

[The_Old_Beard]

Thank you posting NeilO.

Pleased to hear you hear our concerns and are trying to address the issues. I do like the product and have been using it since it launched.

Been here long enough to know its not always rosy in the garden and these things don't go to plan. 

Look forward to the update next week.

[AJSH]

The biggest problem is under 2.
New files added to folders are uploaded
Updates to existing files are not so as changes made to a desktop file these are not being backed up, even though the green cloud (all files synced) is displayed

[abramj]

Please note that in the BT Cloud icon dashboard you can click on the three dots in the top right corner and then you can exit the BT Cloud  service at which point the icon disappears from the systray and you then have to click on that old desktop BT Cloud icon to get it restarted, only quite possibly the icon will have disappeared as the application it is no longer located under the Program files folder, if it has disappeared you can create a new desktop icon by navigating to

C:\users\'yourusername'\appdata\\Local\BTCloud

replace 'your username' with your real username, no quotes, then right click on the "BT Cloud.exe" and create shortcut then drag the created shortcut to your desktop or the taskbar. Hopefully this won't be necessary as the desktop icon will have survived but after about my 4th reinstall the icon disappeared and the icon in the start window menu also was broken 😞

[opalset11]

I wish it were that simply.

 I insalled the update and click on the desktop icon to open Bt cloud.  It opens in the task bar and then says "initialising metadata..." and then shuts itself off and closes.  I have uninstalled it, re-installed it and nothing.  It opens, sayis initialising and in less than 1 minute shuts down and closes the app.  the app just stops running.  I have files on the pc that I hae no idea which is the latest copy.  I try and download from the web and all it downloads in the folder - NONE OF THE CONTENTS

[SueW2]

Thank you so much Neil0. I've tried adding something to a folder which has automatic back-up and it's worked. Hurrah! 

For your list of issues:- I used to have 100GB of storage of which I've used 2GB. I now have 200GB of storage of which I've used 4GB. Looks to me like my files have been duplicated.