How to Fix Sync Errors Reported with Generic Failure Codes or Generic Errors on a Server Agent or Windows Client

The two most common reasons why some sync tasks fail are:

1. The device (windows client or server agent) cannot access a file or folder, OR
2. The device cannot physically recreate the file/folder structure on the cloud or on the local drive.

In this article I will try to address these two specific problems. I assume that you have tried the solutions presented on the https://support.centrestack.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000425628-How-to-fix-sync-failure- article first, but to no avail.

(Server agent with failed System Sync Tasks with generic failure codes)

1-Device Access Problems

1-a-First Possible Problem: SYSTEM or the backend storage settings credentials do not have access

CentreStack devices use the local SYSTEM entity in order to physically access the files in the client operating system. For this reason, the first thing you should check is that the SYSTEM entity is granted recursive full-permissions on the attached, linked, or migrated folder.

To get a list of all items that do not meet this criteria, please run the following AccessChk command. You can download AccessChk freely from Microsoft SysInternals and unzip it to a folder on your computer. Open a command prompt window and run:

"[full_path_to_accesschk_folder_here]\accesschk64.exe" -v -s -q -n "SYSTEM" "[full_path_to_source_folder_here]\" >"C:\temp\accessreport.txt"

Replace [full_path_to_accesschk_folder_here] with the folder where you unzipped the AccessChk program.
Replace [full_path_to_source_folder_here] with the full path to the attached or linked folder.

This will create a file named "C:\temp\accessreport.txt" with a list of all items that do not grant permissions to the SYSTEM entity. Once the report is created, please review it and make sure to grant full permissions to SYSTEM on the identified paths (if there are any).

Repeat this process with the username of the credentials specified under the attached folder's storage settings. For example, if you used a domain administrator account during the folder attachment wizard, run the same command above, but replace "SYSTEM" with "[domain_here]\administrator"

1-b-Second Possible Problem: Encrypted files

If the files are marked with the encrypted attribute in windows, then sync tasks will also fail. Unfortunately, the only way to get around this problem is to decrypt the files.

First, identify all encrypted files in your attached folder with the windows built-in cipher command. From an administrative command prompt run:

CIPHER /S:"[full_path_to_source_folder_here]" >"C:\temp\encryptedreport.txt"

The command above outputs a list of all files (recursively) in the specified folder. Replace [full_path_to_source_folder_here] with the full path to the attached or linked folder.

Open the report with notepad++ freeware (because it allows you to search using regular expressions). In the report, encrypted files will be listed as:

E [filenamehere]

Unencrypted files will appear as:

U [filenamehere]

So you just have to run a regular expression search for "^E " (without quotes, caret followed by capital E followed by a space). This will identify all lines starting with E space.

You can fix these encrypted files manually by unchecking the encrypted attribute in windows file properties->advanced. However this will only work if the logged in user has permissions to the certificate that was used to encrypt. You can also try to run the following command to decrypt all files recursively using the same permissions:

CIPHER /D /S:"[full_path_to_source_folder_here]"

2-Devices Cannot Physically Recreate the File/Folder Structures

The most common cause for this problem are special characters that are invisible on the Windows Explorer GUI. For example, sometimes files that come from different operating systems and/or in different languages may embed "invisible" characters in file and folder names. When you end up with such items in your attached or linked folder, then the device will not be able to recreate the file/folder structure on the cloud because the invisible characters will most likely be reported by windows with replacement characters, such as �.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to determine beforehand which files and folders contain characters that are invisible to windows, so the quickest way to know is to look in the server agent or windows client native console's system tasks and go to the pending retry tab. This tab will show you items that have failed at least once. If you see that the error reported is a "generic error" or "Received generic failure code from cloud," then there is a good chance that the problem is due to an invisible character.

To be sure that this is indeed a problem with hidden characters, open a command prompt window and type:

CD \
CD "[full_path_to_the_problem_folder_here]"
DIR /p

Look at the names reported in the command prompt window and compare them to the names reported in Windows File Explorer. If you find files that differ, you will need to rename such items on the local folder (and remove the hidden characters) and then simply wait for the task errors to clear themselves.

If you can please send us a copy of the folder names including the offending characters, it would be extremely helpful to our development team. We believe the hidden characters are introduced due to some form of corruption during compression/decompression processes from Mac machines with files that are downloaded via the internet (not CentreStack). Please zip the empty folders and send them to ticket@gladinet.com