Technology Some Google Drive users claim that they lost months worth of files

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Content source

https://www.ghacks.net/2023/11/27/some-google-drive-users-claim-that-they-lost-months-worth-of-files/

Over the past couple of days, users flocked to the Google Drive Help forum to report on a issue. According to their reports, they lost files that they hosted on Google Drive.

The thread starter, for instance, claims that Google Drive reset itself to a state in May 2023. Any file uploaded afterwards disappeared from the service.

Files were not deleted manually according to the poster, and the trash of Google Drive did not contain any files as a consequence.

Other users chimed in and claimed the same happened to them. One user lost about three months worth of files, another six months.

The issue is reported by regular users and by business users, according to the reports.

One user wrote: "We have had the exact same thing happen to user at our organisation. All files added to Google Drive for Desktop since around May 2023 have disappeared. It is like they were never synced to the cloud. No sign of them in Google Vault etc..."

Not all but several users mention May 2023 as the cutoff month. Support cases were opened according to reports, but nothing has come out of this at this point.

Some affected users mentioned that Google's support team ran recover software, but this did not restore the missing files.

Some Google Drive users claim that they lost months worth of files - gHacks Tech News

Over the past couple of days, users flocked to the Google Drive Help forum to report on a issue.

www.ghacks.net

 

[SumTingWong]

External offline backup is the king

 

[SeriousHoax]

Shocking! Thankfully my files are alright.

 

[simmerskool]

External offline backup is the king

yeah, I just bought a Buffalo 2 tb usb flash ssd to supplement my local backup...

 

[CyberTech]

Shocking! Thankfully my files are alright.

Is it backup? if so, backup files/folders recently as weekly/monthly?

 

[SeriousHoax]

Is it backup? if so, backup files/folders recently as weekly/monthly?

I manually upload some files & photos when required. In the last 6 months, almost every month I have saved a few files & photos like 30 in total, maybe. They are still present in my Google Drive and photos(.)google(.)com.

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Drive for desktop (v84.0.0.0 - 84.0.4.0) Sync Issue

We’re investigating reports of an issue impacting a limited subset of Drive for desktop users and will follow up with more updates. In the meantime:

• Do not click “Disconnect account” within Drive for desktop
• Do not delete or move the app data folder:
  • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\DriveFS
  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS
• Optional: If you have room on your hard drive, we recommend making a copy of the app data folder.

Drive for desktop (v84.0.0.0 - 84.0.4.0) Sync Issue - Google Drive Community

 

[comolokko]

several of my photo archives have been deleted.

 

[Ink]

External offline backup is the king

An offline backup isn't a practical solution for frequent, daily use.

"Due to a busy schedule and events you were unable to make regular monthly offline backups. Your last offline backup was in May and now you are affected by this bug?"

 

[cofer123]

I subscribe to the annual 2TB plan since 2018, on two different accounts for a total of 4TB. Last month, on October 16th, I renewed my subscriptions as usual. Credit card was charged and everything seemed alright, until a week after I receive an e-mail claiming my subscription was successfully canceled on one account, per my request (which I didn't). I instantly lost all my storage quota and Google One benefits for that account, despite already paying for a whole year.

Once that happens, you lose access to advanced support and any chance of contacting a human being to try and solve the situation. Luckily I found I could still chat with people on the Google One sales department, so I managed to explain the situation and they kept raising me until I reached someone on the technical team of Google. The whole process took around an hour between showing proof of payment, showing the issue I was facing, and waiting as the person I was talking to reached out to the higher ups on the tech area. To sum it up, somehow there was an error processing my renewal which ended up renewing it for a much shorter period of time instead of the entire year. Still, the only resolution was they canceling and refunding my purchase so that I could subscribe a second time. So far so good.

While I was trying to figure out what happened, I stumbled upon quite a few reports of users with the same situation on Google's reddit, and it seems to be still going on for other people to this day as well as this data loss fiasco. They've screwed something up big on their end recently and still haven't figured it out.

 

[TairikuOkami]

Google is supposed to start cleansing starting Dec. 1, they are most likely testing some algorithm using AI, which is failing miserably. Better to backup your files, accounts before Y2K.

I subscribe to the annual 2TB plan since 2018, on two different accounts for a total of 4TB. Last month, on October 16th, I renewed my subscriptions as usual. Credit card was charged and everything seemed alright, until a week after I receive an e-mail claiming my subscription was successfully canceled on one account, per my request (which I didn't). I instantly lost all my storage quota and Google One benefits for that account, despite already paying for a whole year.

Thanks for info, Google seems to be very strict and unforgiving, I would better not to consider it then. I am just testing MS 365 Basic and after canceling the subscription, the incoming emails were blocked, but my storage was still available for the next 4 months. That is very important in case of any problems, that can clearly happen without user's fault.

 

[ForgottenSeer 100397]

I can't recover lost data, but I can definitely recover your smile!

Some Google Drive users claim that they lost months worth of files... WOW! Google Drive pulled a Houdini!

 

[ForgottenSeer 103564]

An offline backup isn't a practical solution for frequent, daily use.

"Due to a busy schedule and events you were unable to make regular monthly offline backups. Your last offline backup was in May and now you are affected by this bug?"

I disagree. Offline backups are far more intelligent any day. This thread is an excellent example, hardware failure happens, server breaches happen, cloud is a large giant, juicy target. Practical has nothing to do with it, if your determined to keep your personal information safe and sound. Take it a step further by keeping the system clean, backing up regularly and you have just helped yourself avoid issues with ransomware, your system is lighter, faster and more stream lined. As for time, if one has the time to come in here and read and type comments, they certainly have the time to perform incremental backups offline. If they do it often the size will not be as large and take as long to do especially if they create organized folders on the external devices they are backing up too.

 

[vtqhtr413]

[Workaround] Google Drive Files Disappeared or Lost from Users Accounts

If you use Google Drive cloud storage to store or sync your data on your smartphone or PC and suddenly lots of recently saved files disappeared or lost from your Google Drive account, this article will help you in understanding the issue and restoring the missing or deleted files back to your Google account.

[Fix] Google Drive Files Disappeared or Lost from Users Accounts

If you use Google Drive cloud storage to store or sync your data on your smartphone or PC and suddenly lots of recently saved files disappeared or lost from you

www.askvg.com

 

[silversurfer]

Google shares details on how to restore Google Drive backups after a bug wiped off user data​

Google has finally provided the much needed update for those who lost their Google Drive files late last month due to a bug in the Drive desktop app.

The company has updated the support page confirming that it is rolling out fixes for users to address the issue. According to the company, a sync issue with version 84 of the desktop app caused some file changes to not sync on the Drive.

We have identified the issue impacting a small subset of Drive for desktop users on version 84, which only affected local file changes that had yet to be synced to Drive. This issue did not impact any file changes that had already synced and were visible on the Drive mobile app or within the Drive UI on the web.

Google notes that users need to download and install the latest version of Drive app for desktop (version 85.0.13.0 or higher). Once done, you need to click on the Drive app in the taskbar tray and open the app. From there you can press shift and click on settings, and then click on Recover from backups.

Google says that this will kick start a background process that will recover the lost files and Drive will notify once the recovery is completed. The recovery process will also create a "new folder on your desktop with the unsynced files named Google Drive Recovery." The company further notes that users facing issues with the recovery tool can submit feedback through the Drive desktop app using “#DFD84” hashtag.

Google shares details on how to restore Google Drive backups after a bug wiped off user data

Google has updated the support page with fixes for users who lost data or were unable to access Google Drive data. The issue was reported last week and Google had said it's working to resolve it.

www.neowin.net