More problems than I'd like with Backup & Sync

Joe, I wonder if this has something to do with my issues.

An escalation engineer Lucas was helping me, replyjng fast yesterday, then he stopped at around 3:30 PM Central. I have not heard back from support since.

 

HTH,

TH

 

Ah...I see.

Well I'm certain they also have MLK day off so I probably won't hear back until Tuesday. I suppose the trick is to tie yourself to the computer when you are being helped by an E.E. so you get it solved before an off day.

In the mean time, I cannot sit still. I'm going to try something else on my own.

I'm going to create a new user within my account, give the user full permissions, then try to log in to Backup & Sync from that user.

I'll report back with what happens.

Also, I'm finally going to consider joining the Webroot Community so poor TriplrHelix doesn't have to keep relaying my questions and their answers back and forth. I feel real bad about that. You are a generous man, Daniel.

 

It's a good idea and Thank You also as you can see some Webroot staff look in here.

TH

 

This new “2013” in-house version is the one I was referring to in my post. And yes I agree, the UI is indeed a great improvement on the admittedly “crappy” UI of the old SugarSync hosted version. However, at the time I was trying it, I found that the engine behind their new revamped UI had literally more bugs in it than an anthill!! This was the opposite to the old version which, behind a highly flakey and unstable UI, concealed an engine that really worked quite well!

My main problem is that Webroot Backup & Sync 2013 wasn’t syncing properly across my computers. As long as I placed the documents directly on my Desktop or in the Webroot Anywhere folder, well and good! But as soon as I tried syncing my Data folders, with their large number of child folders and documents, I had no end of troubles. Changes to documents, and new documents I was adding, just weren’t syncing across to my second computer. Plus problems with the My Documents folder being generated in triplicate in the Webroot cloud, enormous difficulties attempting to delete same duplicate and triplicate folders, clueless answers from Support … shall I go on?

What really worries me is that, despite my having been advised that most of the teething problems had been ironed out and that I should give it another try, barely a month ago I found MikeR still advising a poster to only attempt syncing from the WebrootAnywhere folder: see here. So apparently, they’re still having similar problems with their syncing feature.

Alas, because at the moment I’m only only using WSA to sync a couple of documents on my Desktop and in my Webroot Anywhere Folder, I’m unable to check this one out. However, the one (of the many) bugs that I am currently able to monitor is still there: that is, WSA is still displaying incorrectly the amount of space my documents in the cloud are taking up. It says they are taking up only 65MB while I know for a fact they are taking up around 685MB. (I should add, so as not to confuse people, that although I’m only syncing two or three documents across my computers, two or three months ago I uploaded much, much more to the cloud and it’s still there)

Out of despair, I decided to continue using my free version of Dropbox (I have 10.75GB available thanks to referrals I have made—people who have installed Dropbox because of my recommendation) and open a free SugarSync account giving me an extra 5 GB. 15.75GB sync space and all for free: not bad, eh?

Oh, and this invalid password login lark. I’m not convinced by Joe’s suggestion that it is probably just a transitioning issue from 2011/12 products (old SugarSync hosted Backup & Sync) to 2013 version (new in-house Backup & Sync). I have a friend who has just installed WSA 2013 version and he is having exactly the same problem of invalid password message when trying to activate the Password Management module. And I seem to remember that I had a similar sort of problem when I first tried using Backup & Sync. Support told me that I needed to create a new account with another email address: but there was no version transitioning problem there—it was the 2012 version pure and simple with the old SugarSync hosted Backup & Sync.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am the world’s biggest fan of Prevx/WSA AV having used it since 2006! I don’t buy the silly arguments of Claudiu/Topor et alia one little bit. As one who is only computer semi-literate, I found TechFox’s highly amusing post about his parents really rang a bell for me!! Frankly, his parents’ experience since 2011 has been identical to my experience since 2006!

But I do think that it is a crying shame that the frills (Backup/Sync, Password Management etc.) that go with WSA AV seem to be far from up to par with their parent programme, ie. the AV bit. And I think that it is a pity that Joe as VP of Development is obligated to continually come to their defence.

Having said all that, I grant that your point about WSA being extremely lightweight compared with these other Sync programmes is a very good one (Btw I had assumed that Backup & Sync required another heavier exe file. Is it really true that Backup & Sync runs just from the featherweight 716KB wrsa.exe?? Incredible, if true!!). Nothing would please me better than to see these frills and extras raising their game and beginning to match the quality of the Prevx/WSA AV part. Would you mind if I consider you, if you will pardon me for this manner of thinking, as being our kind of surrogate Backup/Sync guinea pig? It would be a delight if you can report back to us that WSA have finally managed to get their programme to sync correctly. In such an event, I would certainly reconsider my choice of Sync provider.

 

I will definitely be following up with our development team on what you've all raised here. Because of how our licensing transition occurred, we weren't able to go through any public beta of the Backup product, which has certainly caused some complexities throughout. That being said, we have a fantastic team of engineers working on it (who report to me) and they are all committed to producing the highest level of product quality here.

We have several console improvements coming over the course of the next couple weeks within the Backup & Sync product, as well as client-side updates which will make it even more stable.

Please let me know if you find anything else in the meantime. And yes, some of our engineers have the long weekend off, but they will be back to you ASAP

 

Thanks Joe! Once again, reassuring

And btw, is it true that Backup & Sync runs from wrsa.exe alone? Making it, it would seem, featherweight as compared with its rivals (Dropbox, SugarSync etc)?

 

Yes Our goal is to make the lightest backup product as well - it runs completely within WSA.

 

Great

 

*panick attack*

Yeah...

In that case, I'm thinking I'm going to have to pass on the guinea pig.

If you haven't figured it out already or didn't see me "reveal" it before, I have fairly severe OCD when it comes to my computers and settings/files. I'm also full time in junior year of college. High risk situation...

I'm afraid I can't risk trusting WSA's seemingly premature sync ruining/duplicating files which will cause me DAYS of checking and cleaning. That would risk my success in what's really important.

As much as I really want to have WSA do it all, my original philosophy holds true..."jack of all trade" security suites are generally not the way to go.

I'm thinking I am going to backtrack, and have customer service or whomever:

1. Merge my current license with a new one so I don't have to change keys on my devices (only 58 days left)

2. Downgrade all my licenses to...well let's see...I have Complete. I heard Security Plus (the new Essentials) doesn't have Backup & Sync anymore? If that's true, I'll look into that one. I also don't want password manager either. I only want firewall, identity shield, and the AV stuff. That's it.

3. Finally, remove the @Comcast user I created as a test from my console. Oh, and they can then deactivate the TEST license Joe gave me.

Instead, I shall bite the RAM bullet and use Microsoft's SkyDrive utility to sync my files. As much as I have come to sadly loathe MS since a great deal of what they've done post-Windows 7, they DO have more experience writing reliable code for syncing files across computers. I have used Live Mesh for years now...never had ONE problem of ANY sort. Just more RAM usage than I'd like.

 

Not ruining (never had that problem), just duplicating in the cloud and failing to sync.

 

CRAP!!

After reading about Microsoft SkyDrive and realizing they set it up to work in a very forceful, convention-changing way, I realize Webroot is my only hope for a sync client. DropBox is useless to me. I want my files actually sync'd.

GOSH can this weekend get any worse?!

Ugh. Now I have to cancel my support ticket telling Webroot to downgrade my licenses.

When you say duplicating in the cloud, do you mean you ended up with multiples on your computers or in your web console?

 

Dropbox DOES sync! Extremely well too!! Fast also! See video. The only drawback of Dropbox is that all your synced folders must be child folders of the Dropbox folder.

In my Web Console, ie. in the Webroot Cloud. Not on my computers. What was happening was that the folder My Documents, and ONLY this folder, triplicated in the Web Console. It was a pain in the neck deleting the duplicate and triplicate of this very large folder. It took several multiple goes in what proved to be incremental deletes as the deleting process kept aborting after several minutes.

Bear in mind that these experiences date back two months now, and some or many of these bugs may hopefully be now resolved.

So you've decided you're going to be our guinea pig after all??

 

Yeah, what the heck.

Btw DropBox sounds like SkyDrive's approach which I don't like, specifically the forced master folder.

I like Live Mesh approah (which is ending Feb 13th) and Webroot's because I like to be in control of what folders are synced and not forced to use their convention.

 

Good on you!

Btw with SugarSync, you can also choose any folder paths you wish.

 

Just keeping you folks updated...

I went thru some trouble to do as support suggsted. I ran WireShaek and so far it isn't telling the enigneer a bloomin' thing...

He asked for another log. I sent it.

I guarantee his next reply will be asking me to start poking holes in Windows extra security I enabled.

At that point, I say, what's this?! WSA who prides themselves in the least intrusive, most compatible suite, is not compatible with Windows SRP or Authenticode? If that's the case, y'all should be crapping your knickers as I guarantee you I'm not the only one expericing this. A lot of endpoints use SRP or SRP-like enforcements with Novelle (come on, you know this) as well as userrs here on Wilders.

Assumptions aside, let's see what he says this time. If he even gets back to me today. It seems I report details then get one inconclusive response a day, despite him working till 6 PM Mnt Time.

BTW, I'm already done with the WSA Community, because Mike R. already got pissy with me. I love you Mr. Joe Jaroch and everything you do from VP of Engineering to being understanding to a frustrated customer.

 

WSA should be compatible with SRP/other restrictions within the OS, but it's certainly possible to configure it to break any application. My guess is that isn't what you're running into here, but please let me know what you find. We have had some account issues in the past when first introducing the 2013 product but haven't had anything like this for several months, so I'm definitely interested in getting to the bottom of this to prevent it from happening elsewhere.

 

After reviewing the 2nd PCAP log I sent, Mr. Moore stil cannot figure it out. Apparently no traffic is even leaving from Webroot

Now he wants to do a remote session...you know how I feel about remote sessions.

If I agree to do a remote session, based on his words, it doesn't sound like there is any strong set of confidence that he will be able to figure this out. So I may blow open my computer's door for nothing and leave with an escalation engineer scratching his head.

What happens if EEs cannot figure an issue out? Then who does it go to? To Joe? Lol...I think not. Joe is just overly generous with his time and that's an understatement.

My thinking is it will be a "sorry but we don't have a solution, all the other functions remain operational so we will not issue a refund. We are hopeful in the future that we will, with continued improvements, be able to better address your problem. Thank you for choosing SecureAnywhere.,"

 

Joe, you mentioned in a previous post that you thought this might be a transitioning issue.

I mentioned I had a somewhat similar issue when trying to set up Backup & Sync back in January 2012. I also mentioned I had a friend who was having a similar problem with invalid password login popup messages when trying to set up Password Management.

There is I think a common factor with all three of us. We have all been transitioned from Prevx to WSA. If I recall correctly, back in December 2011 you kindly gave STV the same thing as me: a temporary one-year free WSA Essentials licence in the hope of tiding us both over until all Prevx licences had been migrated to WSA. My one-year free licence replaced a one-month free trial WSA licence I had already taken advantage of. This created a problem of old and new keycodes and associating both computers with the new keycode which was the source of my Backup/Sync setup problem. May there have been a similar situation regarding transition from one WSA licence to another in your case, STV? In this case creating an invalid password login problem. My friend is in a similar situation inasmuch as his Prevx licence has recently been manually manually migrated by Prevx Support over to WSA Internet Security Plus—a month ago to be precise. And as I said, he is also experiencing an invalid password login message, in his case when trying to set up Password Management.

Could all three of these problems, as you suggested right at the outset Joe, be directly related to the above-mentioned transitioning issues?? Just my two cents worth...

 

We aren't going to leave you with unusable features, and while we haven't had anyone else run into this before, I'm sure we'll be able to find what's causing it. A remote session by one of our engineers should certainly help narrow down what's happening - it could be any number of things at different layers in the stack and when it's a unique issue like this, it's very hard to diagnose from just back and forth logs.

 

Yes, I suspect they are related. In the case of your license, the WSA Essentials license I sent you would have not included Lastpass as that was only in the Complete product at that time, so he will receive account login issues as the user/password won't be provisioned on different license types.

 

I don't think mine is related to any backend issue anymore because it logs in fine on my netbook which has same configuration...so...it is something weird machine-specific.

 

Yes, but Prevx Support upgraded my friend's Prevx licence at his request just a month ago (this was separate from your very kind one-year free licence you gave me) to WSA Internet Security Plus which DOES include Lastpass. So I'm suggesting this is in his case a Prevx/WSA (manual) transitioning issue. Again, just my two cents worth and I may be completely up a gum tree...

 

This could be completely unrelated but I seem to recall I had a similar issue back in Jan 2012 of one computer able to install Backup/Sync but not the other. In my case, one had "keycode expired" (old keycode) while the other had successfully been associated with the new keycode. Not exactly the same thing, but it did lead to one computer accepting Backup/Sync but not the other! And it was due to a transitioning issue.

 

Hi, I grow increasingly frustrated. Minimal progress.

Mr. Moore was unable to gather anything from the WireShark logs. I sent him more logs using that software. He still couldn't tell anything from those.

I reluctantly agreed to do a remote session. After about an hour, he could not figure out the problem on my computer. He left with a SysInternals log which he is deciphering through and he said he would probably have to get back to me on Monday.

He also left me with a Beta .98 to fresh install with since he said it removes some legacy SugarSync code. Well I did, and it solved the problem...at least I thought. It worked momentarily. Then, long story short, when I changed my preferences again (for like the 3rd bloomin' time these past two weeks) to the way I like them to be, it stopped working again.

How can it be the way I configure Webroot that is causing this? I am just changing a few settings. Is your product incompatible with your own product? Again, my netbook, configured the same, works fine.

I can't wait until Monday. I am sick of this back and forth. I want to sync my files now. Mr. Moore essentially said he is the only person doing this in the U.S. That's insane...

Joe, I hate to ask this, but is there anything you can do to expedite this ridiculous two week ongoing issue? I'm losing license time. The people at the WSA Community don't seem to be too eager to do anything except say "don't update this thread again until the escalation engineer does the next step" aka "we don't want to hear your complaining because you have no right to be an upset customer."

Also, I forgot to mention that I hope he didn't close out my support ticket or mark it as resolved because I originally said it was finally working before I realized it was only to break again momentarily.