Eleven months ago we had a reasonably satisfactorily working version of BT Cloud with which we could synchronise files between multiple PCs, tablets and phones. Last December it stopped working, a partially working version being released in Spring. Various iterations were issued; one would not load on one of my PCs. Last week I was told that a new version, 21.8.9, had been created, and I was asked if I would assess it. I was sent a link in an email, but when I clicked the link the Firefox screen showed
Not very useful. I phoned the BT helpline, a message was meant to be escalated, to no avail. Today I got a call asking how I was getting on and was sent a new link that I had to copy-and-paste into Chrome to get a downloadable link. A glitch, but not promising.
Quite quickly, I got BT Cloud working on both PCs. Well,apparently working. Both were using a lot of CPU time, but no activity was reported on the Recently Updated page. I guess the PCs were working through ancient files and finding that the versions currently in the cloud were the same as the versions on the PCs. In V 21.4.10, I was able to activate log files, but that option doesn't seem to be available now - why not? At least, I could see why it was apparently doing nothing. Then I saw some action - a file had been downloaded from Cloud. Checking the folder with the downloaded file, I found incorrect Conflict Resolution.
In the good old days, if I was working on File X on PC1 and closed it, it would sync to PC2 where I could continue working on it. On closing it, it would sync to the cloud, the new version being the top version found on the web BT Cloud 'All Files'. On syncing to PC1 there is a perceived conflict - do I want the existing version overwritten? So BT Cloud downloaded the updated version but retained the old version with a 'Conflicted' epithet. The updated version would be the first to be opened, but if I realised there was a mistake, I could go back to the 'conflicted' version.
Since December, a programmer has mixed up their 'greater than' and 'less than' symbols. BT Cloud downloaded the updated version but marked that with the 'Conflicted' epithet. Re-opening an app using the file, the old version would appear, not the updated one. The work-round was to only set PC1 to sync and use (e.g.) One Drive to quickly transfer files PC2 when needed. Effectively, I was using BT Cloud as a backup for PC1.
With the release of 21.8.9, I was hopeful that this beginner's error had been resolved. However, checking the folder to which the file had been downloaded, I found that the latest version of the file that was marked as the Conflicted version, the newly downloaded old file that had uploaded 8 days ago that was effectively set as the current version. If I opened Excel, I would be presented with the old data, not the current version. I have had to stop PC1 syncing, as a backup (prior to being able to use BT Cloud to synchronise PC1 and PC2). See screenshot, showing the Canklow file uploaded and downloaded in the Recently Updated listing and the one that had since been updated on the PC being marked as Conflicted. Before I stopped syncing, a second file (different folder and app) suffered the same fate.
In summary, the latest version of BT Cloud has gone back a step - sync can't be used to backup a single computer (on the way to adding further PCs). BT broadband is not cheap, but need to be a premium product to justify it's price. One feature is that it includes BT Cloud, 1TB of inclusive storage, that helps mitigate the fees, rather than paying for premium versions of One Drive or Dropbox.
