Help! Easy/Elegant Solution Desired for 'MISSING FILE' post-oops(?)

[augmentus]

Greetings,

It seems I cannot yet login to bug submission DB although I'd be surprised if most developers are not aware of this restriction... (I will register and log if needed).
I imagine my recent frustration is 'by design', for some reason. I'm not a coder beyond LUA, Python hackery as well as Unreal, Unity, and such, for a bit of context.

That said, here is my issue:

I have a laptop running yosemite OS X
I use an external as my content library
My DEFAULT content library re: qbt is an external USB drive of: [Joe Blow-->Mediia-->Music] Yes, PLEX user...
I very often download and immediately open seeds to be stored at: [Joe Blow-->Media-->Television]

If I accidentally start qbt without my external drive plugged in, this is the result:

1) All of the content within the default location is fine
2) Most (possibly/probably all) content in any other re-direction shows up as MISSING FILE (including 'Television')

The nag is not the end of the world for me, but I have yet to find a solution(!)

I've tried:

1) Deleting then moving torrent/seed file (they are in my 'Downloads' folder, I'm lazy.. (and don't have that appended filename for incomplete files selected)) and then 'Importing' causes a new download to start
2) 'Re-Check' doesn't seem to trigger any action at all within various scenarios
3) Moving actual content to DEFAULT location and experimenting also causes a new download to start
4) In short, the app seem to 'half-see' the content in lower UI window (I can see the .rar files), but it ultimately does not realize the seed and content are connected..

Summary: On OSX Yosemite, V3.2.5, if a User accidentally starts qbt without his/her content library connected, all content which is NOT in 'Default' location (even if re-directed at the exact time of opening), will no longer be associated with the seed and thus must be re-downloaded no matter what the user tries..

Any advice is appreciated! I love this client but it's very frustrating when I accidentally start it without my external connected and see a huge chunk of RED.
Un-mount/re-mount, re-boot and all else as no effect as well.

As a FEATURE request, it would seem that allowing all manually re-directed folder location to have some level of superficial 'DEFAULT' definition might help(??)

Thanks for the help!! All I've read thus far within the forums and the google hasn't worked..

I'm SEMI-TECH SAVVY (ie- Terminal). If there is a file I need to modify, or terminal function, I'd deeply appreciate the insight!!!

THANKS!!!!!!

[ciaobaby]

https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorr ... er-restart

[augmentus]

Thanks, but I read that before I posted the question. Unmount/Re-Mount,  Pause/Restart, Exit/Start, Re-Check, Delete/Re-Add (Torrent), all either cause error to stay or the content to begin re-downloading ..

qbt works perfectly for me 100% of the time when I launch the program with my external connected (I switched to qbt from Transmission several months ago).

Of the 100+ times I've launched it, there have only been 2 instances when I did so accidentally without my external connected. At first, ALL content has the missing file error, obviously. When I quit and re-start, re-boot, re-mouht, etc, etc, the content in my default folder no longer has the error but all non-defaultt folder content retains the error.

For instance, right now, I have 296 total files/listings in my default MEDIA: MUSC wick are all been again, seeding, queued, etc.
I have 30 files/listings in MEDIA: TELEVISION which are all still red/falsely missing.
I have 2 files in MEDIA: MOVIES which are all still red/falsely missing.

I will keep playing. I wish there were a way to "forget" that specific launch, clear a cache file, or something.. . Clearly there is an update to a systems file that keeps track of the slate of then last launch/state/snapshot or something which is why this can't be undone. There is no corruption within any content on my external or MacBook Pro. I can watch the content  as expected, it's simply that qbt isn't recognizing it. The timestamps of all contact and seeds is unchanged as well.

I found a reddit post last night where a user was having the same issue and he eventually figured a few things out and said something to the effect of: "qbt goes haywire / gets confused when you are changing the content location from the default location listed in preferences.." For him, it was a similar issue where all of the content in default folder was fine, but errors with content re-directed to other locations.

Next I'm going to try to move the 30 TV content files into: MUSIC and see what happens upon re-start/re-check...
Perhaps that won't cause a new download to begin..

Thanks for any insight any of you can provide

Kind Regards

[ciaobaby]

The thing is that qbittorrent/libtorrent has no way of determining that the filing system is not mounted until it does start the tasks,  and then to all intents and purposes an unplugged/unmounted drive looks no different to the payload having been moved or deleted, all libtorrent 'knows' is that the payload is not where it is supposed to be, so "Files Missing" IS the most elegant solution available.

To be able to do more with the this error case in qbittorrent, requires libtorrent to provide a much 'finer-grained' error system, until that happens, not much will change.

[augmentus]

Thanks again. That sounds reasonable regarding the design.

I wish I could figure out a way to resolve though.

Currently, this 'file missing' content looks to remember the date downloaded, file location downloaded, but one the one the app is run a single time without the volume, it can never re-connect with the non-default data..

As illustrated here: http://i.imgur.com/3leQ4Fb.jpg (and attached)

This file is still in the folder listed, but when I pause/start, reboot, etc, it's never seeing it again.

Last night's experiment made me even MORE confused.. This is what I tried:

1) Moved both a seed file and content to a new location
2) 'Removes/Deleted' torrent from qbt, said YES to also remove content.
3) Copied that content to DEFAULT file location (/Music)
4) Manually tried to IMPORT EXISTING TORRENT

RESULT: It *STILL* did not see content and re-downloaded it all over-top of what was already there..
Huh?

This must be user error or something weird with my system, right? I don't know what else to try. Maybe the Plex scanning is altering..?
(again, never happens with DEFAULT directory files. Re-mounting and re-starting qbt turns  fixes/removes all red/errors)

[ciaobaby]

but when I pause/start, reboot, etc, it's never seeing it again.

That means it has been damaged or corrupted in some way with respect to the metadata checksum(s), and your only recourse is to download it again or replace it with a "known good" file.

[augmentus]

Thanks, but why would that NOT happened (the damaged part) to ALL of my torrents/data associated with my default file location and 100% of the torrents/data NOT associated with that default location? Could there be some checksum reason based on them no longer being in the default location that causes this?

FWIW, here is both my general workflow, and the confusing behavior:

NORMAL WORKFLOW:
1) Download and open torrent
2) qbit brings up file location dialogue window
3) default is 'music', a few non-defaults are 'tv shows', 'movies' (all on external drive)
4) I choose whatever I like, and all is well

PROBLEM/CONFUSION:
1) I accidentally start qbit without by external connected
2) Opps! EVERYTHING is red with missing content error
3) I quit qbit, re-mount, reboot first and then re-mount, etc
4) I open qbit again with my external properly connected
RESULT: ALL of my files linked to (inside) the default folder switch back to gray/blue/normal
*All Others* (non-default folder content) has an error.

I am not challenging you, and appreciate the help(!), just trying to understand. So somehow a checksum error has occurred for everything not associated to the default folder but everything in the default folder is OK?

If anyone has any workflow suggestions, I'm willing to try! Like for instance, perhaps I should just let everything download to default first and then right click 'change' after complete(?)

Thanks again for the help!! (I've been away from the forum for a bit)

[ciaobaby]

Thanks, but why would that NOT happened (the damaged part) to ALL of my torrents/data associated with my default file location and 100% of the torrents/data NOT associated with that default location?

It maybe because only one piece of only one payload was not written to disc at the last unclean close down.

also:

The 'default location' and 'other locations' are handled differently by libttorrent after what has been flagged as a 'dirty' shut down and the "missing files" error status is a 'catchall' error signal.
The default location is held in the configuration of qbittorrent so libttorrent 'knows' to check that folder as the client starts up, other locations for payloads are coded into the resume files so these need to be loaded before the payloads can be checked and/or verified. So if anything interrupts the normal startup process, "other locations" need user intervention to make them start.

My personal opinion, is that the code in both libttorrent and qbittorrent that handles these situations was not sufficiently tested before being included in production versions.

[9pigs]

[quote="augmentus"]
Greetings,

If I accidentally start qbt without my external drive plugged in

I'm SEMI-TECH SAVVY (ie- Terminal). If there is a file I need to modify, or terminal function, I'd deeply appreciate the insight!!!

THANKS!!!!!!
[/quote]

Anything that happens that causes an external drive to go away (turned off, unmounted for some maintenance, cord removed, switch bumped, etc)  when it is being called can result in the creation of what I call a ghost.

  Start your system *without* the external drive connected

  Look at your boot drive root for an invisible folder named Volumes.  I'd be willing to bet you have a phony duplication of your external drive created when something was expecting the external to be there -- and it wasn't.  It's contents will be incomplete -- depending on what you had cached and what you have had downloading since the operator error.

  If you are concerned about its contents, you can run a force recheck on your files to see if you have anything to save. Do whatever you need to do about the files.

Ultimately, you will want to delete that phony drive and get going again on the real drive.

  Watch your drive space -- mystery loss of free space is a pretty good indicator that you have one of those "oopsie" ghost drives present.