I’ve managed a lot in the last few months- but I’m spending as much time on trying to get file and folder handlers fixed so I can actually do. And it looks like it’s down to what the back up/migration software did as much as the hard drive issues.

Issue 1- the O attribute. So that could be from a time when my download folder was being synced. It’s applied when a file isn’t available on a local machine but the information about the file is. So obviously the O stands for offline and not online. Okay. So then I ran a tiny script to remove that attribute. In explorer? I’ve chosen “Offline Status” for a column. And that shows nothing, but in Dopus the attribute remained on the folder itself and not the files. So weird. My work around has been to go up a few folders and create a new one with no attributes and copy the files and folders choosing to not preserve some attributes and lo. It worked. So the folders with the O attribute go back into my archived section.

Issue 2- file and folder permissions. Now this one is also weird. And these too seem to date to the same month that the O attribute was used on some folders. But I can use Dopus to delete some folders but not rename them. Because rename requires delete permissions… so far so what?? but it also affects the parent folder structure.

Apparently. Even though rename is less destructive than delete. But that’s how explorer is built. To chose/allow the most destructive option. It’s why I’m using Dopus in the first place- explorer will automatically highlight the “replace these files” option with file conflicts. This means that if you accidentally touch any key, have a little twitch on the mouse and they’d be gone. Not even diverted to the recycle bin, gone.

But apparently that’s what ever so many people want even now- when so much of the records of our life are digital. But at least Dopus let me change the actions dragging and dropping a file/folder does to keep all copies renaming the “new” one. Have I wound up with more than 20 copies of some files this way? Yes. But they’re now easy to compare.

Anyway. Yes I’ve done more stuff. It’s just so frustrating as a time waster and frankly stressful. Really stressful.

I need to post about some of the scope creep that has also drawn out and made everything complicated but for now- at least I know and have workarounds. For now.