OneDrive just deleted all of my files(twitter.com)
twitter.com
OneDrive just deleted all of my files
https://twitter.com/jasonkpargin/status/2007659047663874120
66 comments
Deleting his life’s work, his imagination, extension of his brain and all the rest.
He’s not wrong to say all of those.
He’s not wrong to say all of those.
>https://www.tiktok.com/@jasonkpargin/video/75915920529540252...
That video is really confusing. It makes a few claims:
1. turning off onedrive backup deletes local files from your computer
2. there's no way delete files on onedrive without jumping through a bunch of hoops or losing your local copy
3. onedrive sucks because the file is only temporarily kept locally, and if for whatever reason it gets corrupted on microsoft servers, you're out of luck.
Is there confirmation for #1? That's really the only point that seems relevant to the claim of "onedrive just deleted my files", but I'm skeptical that onedrive is that bad, and the fact that he brought up the other two points (#2 specifically) makes me think what might have happened was that he deleted files on onedrive to free up space on his microsoft account, not knowing that it would also delete the local copy. The latter is still bad, but is at least somewhat defensible because that's how services like dropbox work. Also, if it's really #2, shouldn't the files be recoverable because onedrive has a recycle bin?
That video is really confusing. It makes a few claims:
1. turning off onedrive backup deletes local files from your computer
2. there's no way delete files on onedrive without jumping through a bunch of hoops or losing your local copy
3. onedrive sucks because the file is only temporarily kept locally, and if for whatever reason it gets corrupted on microsoft servers, you're out of luck.
Is there confirmation for #1? That's really the only point that seems relevant to the claim of "onedrive just deleted my files", but I'm skeptical that onedrive is that bad, and the fact that he brought up the other two points (#2 specifically) makes me think what might have happened was that he deleted files on onedrive to free up space on his microsoft account, not knowing that it would also delete the local copy. The latter is still bad, but is at least somewhat defensible because that's how services like dropbox work. Also, if it's really #2, shouldn't the files be recoverable because onedrive has a recycle bin?
1 is a well known issue with onedrive.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3863319/...
> onedrive is that bad
guess what. Onedrive is that bad. this is far from the first situation i've seen with this pattern.
the microslop devs are doing great work pushing people off windows.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3863319/...
> onedrive is that bad
guess what. Onedrive is that bad. this is far from the first situation i've seen with this pattern.
the microslop devs are doing great work pushing people off windows.
So it seems the issue is "OnDemand" was turned on which is supposed to keep the files in the cloud only, but presumably some users didn't realise that?
I'm out of touch with this stuff - I dropped Windows after Windows 7.
I'm out of touch with this stuff - I dropped Windows after Windows 7.
> So it seems the issue is "OnDemand" was turned on which is supposed to keep the files in the cloud only, but presumably some users didn't realise that?
Have you seen the wonderful, extensive Microsoft help system ? Neither do I. /s
OneDrive gets installed with some default settings (which might change with every update) and starts syphoning user files to Microsoft servers.
Have you seen the wonderful, extensive Microsoft help system ? Neither do I. /s
OneDrive gets installed with some default settings (which might change with every update) and starts syphoning user files to Microsoft servers.
The level of entitlement and irresponsibility tech companies (especially the largest and most well-resourced ones) is just astounding. You'd think that proper engineering requires some degree of care and stewardship, but these aren't engineering organizations, they're toddlers.
OK, but this is possible only if you give in and create a Microsoft account, right? If you don't do it and only use a local account, they will be unable to do any of these shenanigans because they will have no account to upload the files to, right?
Windows 11 is forcing you to create and sign into a Microsoft Account, which will also pretty much auto enable all cloud based services connected to that account if you are not careful enough and/or do not really understand what you are doing (= someone without any IT experience).
For those who don't have a Twitter / X account and want to view the posts: https://xcancel.com/jasonkpargin/status/2007659047663874120
That xeet can be used as a rough draft for "Files in the Cloud", the sequel to "Snakes on a Plane".
I think I get why Microslop tried to do this - being opinionated about the 'true' source of the files allows them to dumb down problems like "which version is the real one" for users and drop conflict resolution UIs, which I think nontechnical people interpret as hostage situations as well. It's not uncommon to see sync disasters - two structures, one local, one remote, and the user has scattershot changes throughout both without consideration for which structure they were using.
Over in Mac land, iCloud still tries to handle conflict resolution sanely, but there's always going to be a sharp edge to cut yourself with anytime you sync files.
It may just be unsolvable for users who don't want to be opinionated and maintain a mental model of how syncing works. Is it sync? Is it a backup? It doesn't matter so long as you understand which one, but that's hard to square with computing being something for everyone, it's simply a bridge too far for many users who don't want to bother or cannot understand.
Over in Mac land, iCloud still tries to handle conflict resolution sanely, but there's always going to be a sharp edge to cut yourself with anytime you sync files.
It may just be unsolvable for users who don't want to be opinionated and maintain a mental model of how syncing works. Is it sync? Is it a backup? It doesn't matter so long as you understand which one, but that's hard to square with computing being something for everyone, it's simply a bridge too far for many users who don't want to bother or cannot understand.
We’ve had a solution for decades, for conflict resolution to ensure data is never lost to a misconfigured merge - it’s called a filesystem! Put a copy of anything pre-deletion into an archive that’s relatively hidden from view, but have a line of documentation saying: if something appears deleted, fear not, see this dot-prefixed backup.
The fact that Microsoft has stepped backwards from this is an intentional choice and should be criticized as such.
The fact that Microsoft has stepped backwards from this is an intentional choice and should be criticized as such.
I see it as a natural progression of something that's been going on for a decade -
1. They sell Office w/ OneDrive plans, and push online-first work through corp and home plans alike.
2. They have become progressively more opinionated over the Windows ux in the last decade. Updates mandated, security agent coming installed, Secure Boot by default, drive encryption by default, etc just like corp fleets do as a standard.
Files are the logical progression, if you squint here - MS is the user's administrator, since Windows arguably needs a sysadmin to make it usable. This is.. not new in the corp model: messing with the filesystem or linking to remote file systems has happened since the bad old days:
-remote shares
-roaming profiles
-folder redirection
-OneDrive known folder move
I think this is the click of the ratchet, as Windows continues to take ownership of its OS back from its users, bit by bit.
One problem with just relying on the native filesystem is that while SSDs are tremendously reliable these days such that they make mechanicals look laughably flaky, any FS can get corrupted, and with encryption by default, you're usually leaving users up a creek.
Anyway, the Microsoft view, best I can tell, is that a PC should be more like a phone - an appliance, managed by the vendor. They know the filesystem is a great solution - their filesystem, not yours. If you use their PC with an online account, it sort of works like that. If you try to hold on to ownership, non-tech users usually end up mishandling the sharp edges at some point.
1. They sell Office w/ OneDrive plans, and push online-first work through corp and home plans alike.
2. They have become progressively more opinionated over the Windows ux in the last decade. Updates mandated, security agent coming installed, Secure Boot by default, drive encryption by default, etc just like corp fleets do as a standard.
Files are the logical progression, if you squint here - MS is the user's administrator, since Windows arguably needs a sysadmin to make it usable. This is.. not new in the corp model: messing with the filesystem or linking to remote file systems has happened since the bad old days:
-remote shares
-roaming profiles
-folder redirection
-OneDrive known folder move
I think this is the click of the ratchet, as Windows continues to take ownership of its OS back from its users, bit by bit.
One problem with just relying on the native filesystem is that while SSDs are tremendously reliable these days such that they make mechanicals look laughably flaky, any FS can get corrupted, and with encryption by default, you're usually leaving users up a creek.
Anyway, the Microsoft view, best I can tell, is that a PC should be more like a phone - an appliance, managed by the vendor. They know the filesystem is a great solution - their filesystem, not yours. If you use their PC with an online account, it sort of works like that. If you try to hold on to ownership, non-tech users usually end up mishandling the sharp edges at some point.
If you don't know how to safely provide a feature, you shouldn't be making it easy to turn on the feature, if you provide it at all. There's no law of the universe that required them to solve this.
> If you don't know how to safely provide a feature, you shouldn't be making it easy to turn on the feature,
I guess the name "Microsoft" doesn't says anything to you. /s
I guess the name "Microsoft" doesn't says anything to you. /s
I'm not sure users actually want sync? All I've ever wanted from cloud stores is a backup of my machine, plus to be able to deliberately store things there. I've never wanted changing a file in the cloud to automatically change the version on the local machine.
One drive royally screwed me over years ago and I lost many files. Watching this video completely triggered me. It's one of many reasons why I switched to Mac. Too bad I cannot get away from OneDrive because workplace uses them a lot.
Also their servers are so slow that it can take hours to download couple thousands of files.
And there are many other nice bugs - like sync issues where your work goes randomly poof and nobody believes you because you got onedrive'd ... the fact that there is no messge from onedrive it did that is just messed up on its own
Windows keeps on nudging me to use Onedrive at work and I've always refused to do so. But it's become such a pain that I stopped using most office products unless really needed. When saving a file from excel you have to go through all these hoops to save it locally, it's really annoying. Unfortunately the majority of the cattle do use Onedrive and see no issue.
> keeps on nudging me to use Onedrive
At least on Windows 10, you only have to decline once, here’s how. Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch task manager, “Startup” tab, right click on “Microsoft OneDrive”, select “Disable” from the context menu, then either reboot, or log out and log in.
At least on Windows 10, you only have to decline once, here’s how. Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch task manager, “Startup” tab, right click on “Microsoft OneDrive”, select “Disable” from the context menu, then either reboot, or log out and log in.
Over half of my coworkers (and myself) have suffered data loss due to OneDrive, and so most people I work with go out of their way to avoid it. Management pushes people to use it anyway.
The year of the linux desktop is coming. Not because it is good, but because windows is hell bent on turning into complete garbage.
Well... little of A, a lot of B...
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Which is why you need twodrive and threedrive
People should have their own (offline) backups.
OneDrive is not backup.
RAID is not backup.
OneDrive is not backup.
RAID is not backup.
any offline backup solution that would have prevented this ? I.e. that normal people could realistically use?
It wouldn't completely prevent data-loss, but most "normal" people would be a lot better off if they simply copied their important files to an external HDD or flash drive on a regular basis
Flash drives are less than ideal for backups. I think when they are stored cold i.e. unpowered, flash memory only retains data for a couple of years. Spinning hard drives are way more reliable for the use case.
That's true. But if they are stored unpowered for a couple of years, then you clearly aren't doing regular backups. OTOH, it's doesn't seem unlikely that the average person would leave a disk gathering dust, so advising people to use a regular HDD is probably the best approach
> if they are stored unpowered for a couple of years, then you clearly aren't doing regular backups
I am doing regular backups yet I have a few backup disks unpowered for years. They are older, progressively smaller backup HDDs I keep for extra redundancy.
Every 2-4 years I am getting a larger backup drive, and clone my previous backup drive to the new one. This way when the backup drive fails (happened around 2013 because I was unfortunate to get notoriously unreliable 3TB Seagate), I don’t lose much data if at all because most of the new stuff is still on the computers, and the old stuff is left on these older backup drives.
I am doing regular backups yet I have a few backup disks unpowered for years. They are older, progressively smaller backup HDDs I keep for extra redundancy.
Every 2-4 years I am getting a larger backup drive, and clone my previous backup drive to the new one. This way when the backup drive fails (happened around 2013 because I was unfortunate to get notoriously unreliable 3TB Seagate), I don’t lose much data if at all because most of the new stuff is still on the computers, and the old stuff is left on these older backup drives.
I do basically the same, but instead of keeping everything around I just keep the last two drives in rotation at the same time: One kept at home and one kept at work. One of them failed recently, while I was performing a backup, so I just got a new (and larger) drive, and synced it with the other backup drive before continuing as usual
This is it, the odds of both main drive and external failing at the same time are low enough for most people. As long as youre regularly backing up and therefore catching if the external has failed.
As long as it is not automatic, this probably is the only working solution. Pair of USB disks that are rotated and manually copied into. Note to self: mark in my callendar backup days.
That's horrible! I've heard similar horror stories about other cloud synchronization software. Lesson learned. I don't trust the cloud, and to rent someone else's server. I create my own local backups and don't rely on anyone else. I've been doing the same thing for over 26 years and have never lost anything.
Using cloud services, in addition to local backups, is an easy way to guard against events that could damage both your PC and your local backups. Such as fire, flooding, electrical failures, or theft
> Using cloud services, in addition to local backups
That's exactly what he had - it didn't safeguard against file loss, but caused it.
That's exactly what he had - it didn't safeguard against file loss, but caused it.
But local solutions can also cause file loss, if you don’t know how to use them correctly.
For example, rsync and rclone will happily overwrite/delete your files if you mess up the argument order.
The problem with OneDrive is not that it is cloud-based, but rather that its design is somewhere between baffling and intentionally user-hostile
For example, rsync and rclone will happily overwrite/delete your files if you mess up the argument order.
The problem with OneDrive is not that it is cloud-based, but rather that its design is somewhere between baffling and intentionally user-hostile
Yeah, exactly. The vast majority of the time having a backup saves you. Microsoft just managed to make a product so bad it harms users. It's like if you installed a smoke alarm, only for it to short circuit and start a fire. In these cases, the "protection" is the cause of the harm. Bafflingly bad.
Only because he didn’t understand how “syncing” works, and deleted the files in the cloud which deleted them off his computer. The “file loss” was pure user error.
If a feature requires training in order to use it without risk of serious data loss, perhaps that feature should not be enabled by default.
That's a whole lot of people being jerks and victim-blaming. He was deceived by a supposedly reputable company into trusting and using a product that in reality offers nothing more than amateurish levels of reliability.
I learned my lesson when Microsoft OneNote, upon having my notebooks full and my storage cap hit, did not even allow me to delete anything, because I could not save due to "storage full". However, it was also impossible to export OneNote locally because the newer apps only work with the cloud. I had to download an older version to download my files, delete some notebooks, and go back under the storage cap.
Or I could have paid Microsoft. But I did not feel like it.
Or I could have paid Microsoft. But I did not feel like it.
On a related note getting my share of data back from OneDrive was a painful exercise - tons of spurious write errors I spent best part of my evening getting everything back to my filesystem. Yes remote by default was enabled without my consent.
Well onedrive is nothing more than sharepoint disguised as a cloud drive. So they adapted a legacy pre-cloud era code to create a competitor to dropbox and google drive. Imagibe how well that code works…
Lawsuit is the only way forward. Then switch to linux or mac.
I put all my cloud file sharing into the same local folder and let them fight it out, but also have a bitorrent sync of my monthly disk image as the backup.
Microsoft developers are secretly the people doing the most work to develop alternatives to Windows, by making it hell on earth to use it
I use O&O ShutUp10++ to completely get rid of OneDrive and other annoying Microsoft tools from the recent version of Windows.
What happened here? Does OneDrive work differently from Google Drive, iCloud Drive, Box, or Dropbox? Is this just a misunderstanding?
He did not want nor opt-in to OneDrive. One day, 20 years of his files appeared on OneDrive. He was annoyed that Microsoft had uploaded his files into the cloud without his permission. He did not want his files in OneDrive so he went into OneDrive and deleted them. Doing so removed his files from OneDrive, but, to his despair, also deleted the files from his computer (he lost 20 years of work, files, personal records etc).
He writes for a living so presumably his files are of considerable importance to him. His rage is quite palpable (from the second tweet in the thread):
> Whoever designed and pushed this literally deserves pain in their life. I cannot imagine how much fucking misery and distress they brought into the world. If you are out there, fuck you. Personally, one human to another, fuck you. If I could physically hurt you, I would.
Keep in mind this is coming from an extremely measured, empathetic and thoughtful individual; not someone quick to anger or likely to rant on social media.
He writes for a living so presumably his files are of considerable importance to him. His rage is quite palpable (from the second tweet in the thread):
> Whoever designed and pushed this literally deserves pain in their life. I cannot imagine how much fucking misery and distress they brought into the world. If you are out there, fuck you. Personally, one human to another, fuck you. If I could physically hurt you, I would.
Keep in mind this is coming from an extremely measured, empathetic and thoughtful individual; not someone quick to anger or likely to rant on social media.
But if this is the case then it means he was a drive failure away from losing everything too. I expect the takeaway from this for many is going to be "fuck Microsoft, and fuck OneDrive". That is a valid sentiment backed up by what happened, but what people REALLY need to learn from this is that backups are extremely important!
I'm trying to understand if it's actually true that he did not "opt in" to OneDrive and that his files "one day appeared" there, which seems unlikely. I'm not here to say Microsoft is capable of designing or engineering anything properly, but I'm trying to understand if this is a bug, dark pattern, "user error", or what.
Backups of course would have helped.
Backups of course would have helped.
it's a dark pattern. Basically update after update has pushed "protect your computer back up now" and the default option turns on one drive with "on demand" mode for downloaded files.
basically one drive is the only place it's stored until you try to access it then turning off backup will then delete all the local files.
basically one drive is the only place it's stored until you try to access it then turning off backup will then delete all the local files.
Install Windows 11 and accept the default options. Congrats, your Documents, Desktop, Pictures are now synced to OneDrive. Unless you've read everything during the install, you might not even be aware of it. From now on, deleting files in the web interface will delete them from your computer.
The standard configuration of OneDrive also loves to "steal" files from your local machine. It will upload to the cloud, and then delete the local copy. Which is a great surprise the first time you are offline to discover that the files that were there are now inaccessible.
Thankfully it's trivially easy to disable OneDrive via the task manager startup tab. Never had any issues with MSFT sneakily turning it back on either.
This super aggressive OneDrive shit is also why I've stopped putting most things in the standard folders and now just have my own alternative hierarchy in %USERPROFILE% instead.
This super aggressive OneDrive shit is also why I've stopped putting most things in the standard folders and now just have my own alternative hierarchy in %USERPROFILE% instead.
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https://www.tiktok.com/@jasonkpargin/video/75915920529540252...
For context, Jason Pargin is an American novelist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Pargin