Summary: Archive cleanup does not compare your local files to the iDrive Archive as one would expect. Rather, it compares your local files to what's in a LOCAL DATABASE (cache of backed up files) that gets built during the backup operations. Unfortunately, several things can cause the local database to NOT be in sync with the contents of the actual iDrive Archive, and therefore Archive Cleanup does NOT result in a 1-1 correspondence between the local filesystem and the online archive.
Requested remedy: Archive Cleanup should compare the set of local files with what's actually in the online archive, not to the local cache. I realize there is a network efficiency to comparing everything locally (and this method might be 'good enough' 90% of the time), but there should be some way to force Archive Cleanup to do a REAL, FULL compare to ensure that the archive and my filesystem are truly in sync.
Discussion: I've been plagued for months by Archive Cleanup not 'finding' files in the archive to delete that had been locally deleted. The support folks told me this was because I had upgraded my hard drive (not a very compelling answer, but that's as far as we got). Then, last week, I was in a support session because Archive Cleanup was reporting some bogus filenames for deletion (files that didn't exist locally OR in the archive). The support person said we had to rebuild the database (WHAT database I thought!) by...
1. Recording my backup set details
2. Exiting iDrive
3. Going to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\IDrive\IBCOMMON
4. Renaming or deleting the folder with my iDrive username
5. Restarting iDrive
6. Setting up my backup set details again, and
7. Doing a manual backup
Running Archive Cleanup after this, it did indeed clear out the bogus filenames. But I noticed that while Archive Cleanup was running ('scanning' my thousands of files) that there was NO network traffic. Then the light bulb went on and I started experimenting. I discovered...
1. You can start iDrive, then disable all your network connections, and then run Archive Cleanup! Yes, it 'scans' my thousands of files and reports locally deleted items - all while disconnected from the internet. How? It's comparing my local files to the local database, not to the actual archive.
2. If I do the 7-step process above, but skip step 7 (which rebuilds the local database), and then run Archive Cleanup, it INSTANTLY completes telling me everything is in sync. This only makes sense if iDrive thinks the database represents what's actually in the archive (doesn't take long to compare an empty database of files!).
How can the database and the archive get forever out of sync (and Archive Cleanup therefore forever somewhat broken)? Well, anytime the local database gets rebuilt from scratch. Examples include...
- The iDrive support people tell you to remove it (not too common, but this was the case for me)
- You upgrade the hard drive in your computer (most people then reinstall apps and copy their data files, but do NOT copy the system appdata folders during upgrades - in fact, there are good reasons not to copy the appdata folders)
- You buy a new computer and just move your data files over to it (VERY common)
Bottom line here is that there are several common, credible ways that the local database can get out of sync with the real archive, and this will keep Archive Cleanup from properly doing what it is advertised to do. So, iDrive, PLEASE provide a method for doing a true Archive Cleanup based on the actual files in the archive, and not on a local approximation.
[Submitted to support and assigned ticket # ID00544040 ]