BT Cloud Windows Client version 21.8.9

[RTL]

@henryfm  @PaddyB  Just saw your message but am having to go out so pressed for time. To reiterate:-  When I was doing the TEST_SYNC exercise I was using Save  not Save As.  There are no previous versions---the only one there is with the new time stamp. I don't force the syncing---I let it do it by itself.  I check using the System Tray icon to ensure it has gone up. 

[RTL]

@henryfm  @PaddyB    Well I have been nosing around looking for the "old files"  and have a query about BT Cloud.  The highlighted part is what interests me.

It says Previous Versions.  Could that be files or does it mean previous versions of BT Cloud? I did do an in-place update from 21.4.10 to 21.8.9. If it is Files, then I don't know where it's keeping them. Nothing in the Dustbin or anywhere else that I can see. If nobody knows then what I'll do is delete  it.  Then repeat the exercise again to see if it builds up when I save files. Could be the "old one" goes there--don't know.

Next thing I've been doing is comparing the BT Cloud Folder on my DT A, DT B, DT C and Laptop. I copied the Folder from each one to an external Disk to do the comparison. It only throws up one error. A .png file is missing on DT A and DT B from folder Peter. It is on the Laptop and DT C and in the Cloud. Only thing I can think of there is that DT's A and B are on Windows 11 but don't know how that would affect it.  The time stamps for some folders are different but the PC's are not all on at the same time so that could account for that. It does say though that the folders are identical!!  

Compare DT A to B and C.

Compare DT A to B and C

Compare DT A to Laptop.

Compare DT A to Laptop

You can ignore the Desktop.ini  error at the bottom. It's because on the Laptop my User Name  is rtl43  whereas on the Desktops it is RTL.   

I tried downloading the BT Cloud Folder in the Cloud using DT A to my external so I could do a local comparison with a Desktop. It sent down a zip file which I then extracted on my external disk. It's not in the same format so fails miserably. 

[henryfm]

@RTL 

It says Previous Versions.  Could that be files or does it mean previous versions of BT Cloud? I did do an in-place update from 21.4.10 to 21.8.9. If it is Files, then I don't know where it's keeping them. Nothing in the Dustbin or anywhere else that I can see. If nobody knows then what I'll do is delete  it.  Then repeat the exercise again to see if it builds up when I save files. Could be the "old one" goes there--don't know.

In the BT Cloud web repository, find your Test_Sync file. Hover the mouse pointer over the file name. Three purple dots appear to the right - click on them and you get a menu. Click on Versions - you should see the versions sequentially uploaded during your tests. I think the time shown corresponds to the time at which they were uploaded to BT Cloud, not the creation time. (This is what I alluded to in a previous posting). This is where you can find older versions of files if you use Save rather than Save As, enabling you to go back to an earlier version if clumsy fingers mess up a file. Probably not worth deleting these previous versions as you have plenty of headroom.

A .png file is missing on DT A and DT B from folder Peter. It is on the Laptop and DT C and in the Cloud.

Maybe it's not yet synced down from the cloud to DTA and DTB.  After 24 hours my test files have been uploaded from PC and LT, but not yet downloaded to both.  BT Cloud ain't instantaneous, especially if you have a lot of files for syncing! Currently, BT Cloud has decided to go back and check ancient files for possible synchronisation rather than handling newly uploaded or created files.

[RTL]

@henryfm @PaddyB  Thanks for that.

Click on Versions - you should see the versions sequentially uploaded during your tests.

They are there in the Cloud.

Previous Versions

A .png file is missing on DT A and DT B from folder Peter. It is on the Laptop and DT C and in the Cloud.

Earlier I mounted a backup image of DT A from 26th. August as Drive W.  The file is present in it.  So somehow between then and now it has "disappeared" and not being download again. Can't check further backups at the moment as the backup disk gets locked @ 08:25 while my NAS powers up to do its backups.

In the meantime I'm going to uninstall BT Cloud from DT B and then reinstall it. See what happens.

File present 26th. August.

[RTL]

@PaddyB @henryfm   O.K. I haven't re-installed BT Cloud on DPB yet.  I went back through my backups and found that the file was present in DP A on the morning of the 15th. Nov and was present on DP B in a backup from 11th. Nov. ( I don't have regular backups scheduled on DP B--DP A is my main one.) I do have a backup for DP B on the 16th. and the file is missing as is the file on DP A.

In Post #3 I stated that I was going to install 21.8.9 to DP A but found it was already on---must have happened when I powered up on the Monday to do the Excel file. This is where the file has disappeared I reckon. It could be the fact that Malwarebytes was updating at the same time as I have the option to automatically install updates set--or me doing the Excel file unaware that BT Cloud was updating. I had no notification like I got for 21.4.10.

So when I then installed it to DP B later, it also got screwed up.  Why they haven't corrected themselves--I don't know. 

In Post #4 dated the 19th. when I brought my DP C  out of retirement, I installed 21.8.9 and it is correct.

Here are the comments I make in my backup program:-

Comments

[opalset11]

So why does it stop and say "an error occurred and BT Cloud will not stop and cannot be restarted"????

[David500]

@opalset11 are you getting the same as my #12 post?

[woolstons]

Folks, DO NOT INSTALL THIS UPDATE.

I have not had a successful backup since installing it.

What happens is the Windows client will detect *SOME* of the files that are new or changed, and you can see in the client that these files get backed up. Or at least the client *THINKS* it's backed them up, but then it will just get stuck on one file, with other new and changed files not picked up.

When I go to the Cloud on the web, the files the client *SAID* had been backed up AREN'T THERE!

If I reboot, sometimes BT Cloud will start again and try again to back up the SAME set of files it said HAD already been backed up in the previous session, but just stop again, with other new and changed files not detected.

Other times, BT Cloud will just not do anything, even though there are new and changed files to back up.

It's like there's a handshake problem between the client and the cloud, that the client 'sends' the file and thinks it's done, but the file isn't acknowledged by the cloud and never appears there.

Does anyone have any idea how to fix this problem.

The previous version actually worked for a while.

[str8chat]

I have BT Cloud running on two Windows 10 PCs (one running 21H1 and the other running 21H2). I have another PC running Windows 8.1 as I have some software on it that will not run on Windows 10. Although I don't use this PC frequently, today I decided to sync it with my data on the Cloud, and the BT Cloud client, which had been working a few months ago, just bombed out immediately it was started.

I uninstalled the client and tried doing a clean reinstall logging into btcloud.bt.com and downloading the desktop client from there. It claimed to install, but

Next, restored a C: drive image from about six months ago, in which the client had been working perfectly at that time. I started the client and it immediately came up with a message saying that an Edge update was needed and  when the update process started to click to allow it to be continue. It appeared to download something but never asked me to confirm the Edge update. Since this particular PC has never had Windows Edge, I have come to the conclusion that BT have changed the client so that it relies on components integrated into Edge making it incompatible with non-Edge versions of Windows 8.1. I downloaded and installed Edge for 8.1 and tried again. Exactly the same thing happened. The BT Cloud client simply doesn't work. There is a very brief appearance of the cloud icon in the notification area on the taskbar, and Task Manager briefly shows some BT Cloud processes; however, within two or three seconds these all disappear.

It seems that some person in the BT Cloud team thought it would be very clever to kill off a useful Cloud site to anyone who has computers that aren't tracking Microsoft's latest changes. Since Windows 8.1 is still supported for another year by Microsoft, it seems strange that BT should withdraw support for software that used to work on 8.1 in advance of Microsoft discontinuing support.

At the moment, I am using a small slow laptop that is running Windows 10 to download the Cloud data onto an external hard drive, after which I can copy the Cloud data onto my 8.1 PC where I can use some of that data with the tools that don't work in Windows 10.

This is making updates that involve this PC even slower than they were before.

Has anybody else managed to get the latest catastrophic client working on Windows 8.1? If so, how did they manage to get it to work?

[RTL]

@str8chat   According to the search I did, Windows 8.1 should still be supported for the BT Cloud app. Obviously you're having a problem with it. Probably best to escalate it to the Help Desk.

In the meantime you should, from your Windows 8.1 PC, be able to access your BT Cloud content from your browser.

Here's the link to that.      There's a section in here about using BT Cloud on the Web.

Hope that helps.