BREAKING: Google has failed to completely fix Backup and Sync's file duplication issue [update: fixed]

Update (September 21) :

Google has silently pushed out a new update to Backup and Sync, bumping the application’s version from 3.36.6721.3394 to 3.36.6884.5911. We can confirm that this duplication issue has been fixed with the update.

Original Story here:

The arrival of Backup and Sync – the common client for Google Drive and Google Photos – was expected to be a game changer. It was being seen as a medicine to pacify users of the old Drive and Photos clients that bled with problems for years. To its credit, the new app did eradicate some of the earlier reported troubles. But sadly, it also brought along its own catalogue of glitches.

As covered in one of our earlier stories, one such problem reported right after the launch of Backup and Sync (v3.35) was it re-uploading already backed up stuff. Very soon the issue got officially acknowledged by Google, and the company promised to fix the same in the app’s next update.

The following screenshot clearly shows the promise the company made:

As promised, they lived up to their words and the updated version 3.36 brought along a fix for the duplication issue. But wait. Has the problem actually been fixed to its core?

We don’t think so. Looks like, the search giant’s technical team did not test the extent to which the updated version addresses the duplication error. Recently, one of the Backup and Sync users (Thomas Hernadi) brought into our notice that the duplication problem is still there. We tested the use-case he detailed, and can confirm that he’s correct – the duplication glitch hasn’t been completely taken care of.

Here’s how the client is still duplicating

The issue in question rears its ugly head when one switches from Backup and Sync’s version 3.35 to it’s latest version 3.36.

Use-Case: We created three folders on desktop with one text file and a sub folder (containing another text file) in each of them. Then we synced all three folders to cloud by using Backup and Sync version 3.35. After the successful sync process, we uninstalled the client version 3.35 and downloaded version 3.36, and synced the same folders again to cloud (by giving the path to these folders in application’s Preferences).

Observation: The client did display a prompt asking whether we want to merge stuff with the already backed-up folders, which clearly indicates it could see that these folders are already backed up to cloud. However, despite that, it synced the files again and ended up creating duplicates of all text files (those inside the master folders as well as sub folders). Interestingly, the duplicated files had exactly the same name – nothing to differentiate, not even an index surrounded by brackets – (1) – like we usually see on our systems.

This can be clearly seen in the following screen shots:

Conclusion: It amply clear the client is still duplicating text files inside folders and sub folders. And mind you, switching from v3.35 to v3.36 cannot be treated as a borderline use-case, as there are a large number of users using v3.35, and any and everyone switching to v3.36 will be affected.

We hope this story of ours will bring Google’s attention back on the duplication issue, and we’ll hopefully see the issue getting fixed in the near future.

Note: Thomas noted that he could also see duplicated sub-folders in his case. However, we could only see duplicated files. Either way, the duplication problem is there.

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