Another Fix for OneDrive / SkyDrive When Resetting and File Permissions Fixes Fail

Posted: January 8, 2015 in fix, Microsoft, OneDrive, SkyDrive, tip, Windows 8
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I’ve discussed at length how to fix SkyDrive sync issues. Check out Another possible solution for OneDrive / SkyDrive sync issues and Possible OneDrive / SkyDrive sync fix for Windows 8. I have found that sometimes even resetting SkyDrive doesn’t fix the problem. Microsoft will charge you for a brute force approach, but I figured out one more option if nothing you’ve tried has started syncing back up again. Before you follow these steps, try the other two – this is a last ditch resort!

1. Make sure all other desktop and “modern” applications are NOT running. Only File Explorer should be running. Word, Chrome, whatever – they should all be closed.

2. Press Windows Key + X, select Command Prompt (Admin), and the Windows command prompt should appear.

3. Make sure the OneDrive app isn’t running – right-click it and select Close if you see it in the taskbar.

4. Type skydrive /shutdown

5. Wait a minute.

6. Right-click the task bar and select Task Manager.

7. Keep trying to end the OneDrive Sync Engine process until it disappears, as shown in the figure below. This may take a few tries.

image

8. Open the following folder:
C:\Users\your user account name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\SkyDrive\settings
and you’ll see something like the figure below:

image

9. Delete all the files except for ClientPolicy.ini and global.ini.

10. Once they have been deleted, type the following: shutdown -r -t 0

11. Your computer should restart.

12. Log back in and your files should start resyncing. You’ll probably see results within a few hours. This will depend on the total number of files you have on OneDrive. You’ll also see downloads.txt and another funky-looking file start growing in size. If you see that, you know things are working, and OneDrive has started rebuilding everything.

Breaking down the SkyDrive process (Updated)

Posted: January 7, 2015 in hacking, Microsoft, SkyDrive, Windows, Windows 8
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I’ve been underwhelmed by Microsoft’s response for documentation regarding SkyDrive and its inner workings. So, I’m on a mission to break things down. I’ll update this blog post as I find more information. As always, any info provided here is used at your own risk. I take no responsibility if you hose a system.

In case you want to see all the SkyDrive process settings:

C:\Users\<your account name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\SkyDrive\settings

There are two files of interest:

global.ini and ClientPolicy.ini

There were some settings that surprised me in ClientPolicy.ini:

  • MaxFileSizeBytes = 2147483647 Is the 2 GB max file size mentioned on MSFT’s site? They should probably mention that, since all shipping systems are 64-bit and video files and ISOs can be pretty big.
    • Update 7-Jan-2015: It appears Microsoft has upped this to 10 terabytes.
  • Tier1MaxFileSizeBytes = 2147483647 These would be Microsoft’s Office file types
  • Tier1FileInclusionList = |doc|docm|docx|dot|dotm|dotx|odc|odp|ods|odt|pot|potm|potx|pps|ppsm|ppsx|ppt|pptm|pptx|rtf|vdw|vdx|vsd|vsdm|vsdx|vssm|vssx|vst|vstm|vstx|vsw|vsx|vtx|xla|xlam|xlm|xls|xlsb|xlsm|xlsx|xlt|xltm|xltx|xlw|
  • MaxItemsInOneFolder = 150000 I wonder if this caused my earlier sync problems, since I had more than 150K files in a folder, and then I deleted the folder. Maybe that messed up Microsoft’s storage system in the cloud? When I finally had a Microsoft technician look at my account, things magically started working a day later. I didn’t change anything, but what happened on their end?
  • MaxClientMBTransferredPerDay = 131072
    • Update 7-Jan-2015: It appears Microsoft has upped this to over 250000. Makes sense, given average home broadband speeds.
  • MaxClientRequestsPerDay = 500000 So what happens if you reach your limit?
  • NumberOfConcurrentUploads = 3 I’d rather have more, but it appears the next setting helps here, even though it’s not accessible via the SkyDrive app.
  • AllowUserOverrideOfConcurrentUploads = true
  • SyncTelemetryURL = http://wlepsi3.redmond.corp.microsoft.com/SyncDiag.ashx This one bothers me a bit. What is this URL tracking? And why isn’t it over SSL?
  • LowDiskSpaceLimitMB = 3072 If you want to override the low disk space limit… I’m going to try this on my Dell Venue Pro 8. Update: It worked! Yay!
    • Update 7-Jan-2015: It appears Microsoft has lowered this to 200MB. Much better for tablets! Of course, in the future, tablets will probably have 64GB, 128GB or more by default due to lowered storage costs.
  • AutomaticVerboseLoggingEnabled = true I wonder where the log file is. There’s one in this folder, but it’s used by the SkyDrive process. I’ll play with that in a VM so I don’t mess anything up Smile

I’m also curious as to why SkyDrive.exe can’t be opened in a decompiler. If I request it, the file system says the file doesn’t exist. Is c:\windows\system32\SkyDrive.exe simply a shim? Very interesting.

Breaking down the SkyDrive process, I found what appears to be additional command line parameters. I have not tested these as of yet.

/shutdown
/register
/unregister
/installperfcounters
/uninstallperfcounters
/background
/watson

Until next time… enjoy!

Best,

-Auri

One Day With Moto 360: Some Bugs for Motorola and Google to Fix

Posted: September 15, 2014 in Android, Consumer Electronics, Google, Mobile, Motorola, Watch
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Alright, I found a Moto 360 and I’m enjoying it. The following is not my review. It is a list of bugs Motorola and Google need to fix on this device and across Android Wear. Note this is only what I’ve noticed after one day. I’ll post more as I explore.

  • When you take the phone out of the box, it doesn’t turn on or has a low battery. That’s understandable. What’s not alright is no prompt about the battery level or what to do. It’s simply “Connect your device to Android Wear,” or something to that effect. That’s very un-user-friendly. Where were the UX guys with the setup process?
  • Only one watch face shows the date. $250 and no date? Seriously?
    • Update, thanks to Rich DeMuro: Drag down slightly to see the date.
  • When asking the watch to make a call to a contact with more than one number, it asks "Which One?" However, it doesn’t give you a list. Saying "the first one" works, but I don’t know what I selected until it dials.
  • There’s no confirmation request when sending a text… it just sends it.
  • It sometimes stops listening or lists your options when listening.
  • It sometimes starts listening when it shouldn’t.
  • Carrier messaging apps break the ability to reply to texts. I had to disable Verizon Messaging entirely.
  • Facebook support for displaying the new comments would be nice, like the email display feature.
  • There’s no battery level meter anywhere on the device, or at least that’s obvious.
    • Update, thanks to Rich DeMuro: Drag down slightly from the top to see battery level.
  • The Android Wear app doesn’t show battery level, but Moto Connect does. Weird?
  • Sometimes Google search results take precedence over actions. For example, saying "play ebay by weird al" brings up YouTube results. However, "play technologic by daft punk" plays the song. It’s hit or miss.
  • So far, adding a calendar entry hasn’t worked.
  • There needs to be a notification center to control which notifications are sent to the phone. Yes, you can do it via the App Manager, but it’s horrible.
  • The accelerometer doesn’t always sense the wrist has been moved to a viewing angle.
  • When driving, the accelerometer appears to trigger the display to turn on *a lot*. It’s not good when driving kills your battery.
  • A speaker would be helpful for prompts.

Added 9/15 afternoon:

  • The Motorola Feedback website doesn’t list the Moto360 as a product. So, how do I register it or get support?
  • The device occasionally says its Offline when the phone is only three feet away. I’m thinking this is a bug in the Google Now integration and not an actual communications issue.
  • Asking the device "What is the battery level" always causes the phone to report it’s offline

Added 9/17:

  • Saying “Call <insert name here> on cell” doesn’t work most of the time, but saying the same “on mobile” is generally reliable.
  • Calling “Send text to <insert name here>” sometimes asks “Which one?” but only shows the phone numbers. I wasn’t sure if I was sending to the right person because the name wasn’t listed.
  • Most of the time, when the screen turns on when moving even the slightest, the watch starts listening, even if I don’t say “Ok, Google”. It’s very annoying.
  • It would be nice if “Ok, Google” could be changed to something else. I feel like I’m advertising Google every time I use my watch.
  • The pedometer seems inaccurate, rendering phantom steps as far as I can tell. The inaccuracy extends to the heart rate monitor. After a long workout, the monitor said I was at 74 bpm, then 90. I took my own pulse, and it was quite off the mark.

Added 9/30:

  • The latest build, 4.4W.1 KGW42R, has greatly improved battery life. On an average day of use, unplugging the watch at around 7am, I was still at 20% at roughly 9:45pm. Great job, Motorola!
  • Even with Messaging as the default app, I have no option to Reply to texts when the notification appears. This may be due to HTC overriding some default app, but I’m unsure.

A few tips:

To launch apps, go to the Google screen, then go to Start… and you can select an app.

You can say the following things and it’s really cool:

  • Call <person’s name> on mobile
  • Play the song <song name>
  • Play the song <song name> by <artist name>
  • What is the current stock price of <company name>

Having trouble with Telerik Kendo Grid Datasource Read function?

Posted: September 3, 2014 in Development, Microsoft, MVC, Telerik, tip, Web
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I went back and forth between my code and various Telerik and Stack Overflow demos of how the Kendo grid is supposed to refresh its datasource without reloading the entire grid. Finally, Telerik sent me a code example that included a function that’s not in their API documentation, but darn well should be. So, if you’re having the same issue I did, where you want to call read() on your grid’s datasource, but it simply isn’t working, here’s an example from Telerik that may help you.

The function: getKendoGrid()

Now, I keep my createDataSource() function around so I can swap out the data I’m paging. Their example uses some sample data, but you could simply use their example of creating a datasource to call your back-end JsonResult action in MVC and things can still work magically.

I hope this helps others Smile

<body>
  <div id="grid" />
  <script>
    function createDataSource() {
      return new kendo.data.DataSource({
        transport: {
          read: {
            url: "/echo",
            dataType: "json",
            method: "POST",
           
            // Simulate response
            data: {
              "json": JSON.stringify([{
                firstName: "John",
                lastName: "Smith",
                age: 25
              }])
            }
          }
        },
        pageSize: 10
      });
    }
   
    var ds = createDataSource();
   
    $("#grid").kendoGrid({
      dataSource: ds,
      autobind: false,
      scrollable: false,
      columns: ["firstName", "lastName", "age"]
    });
   
    $("#grid").getKendoGrid().dataSource.read();
  </script>
</body>
</html>

And here’s a colorized version:

image

10 Secrets You Should Have Learned with Your Software Engineering Degree – But Probably Didn’t

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10 Secrets You Should Have Learned with Your Software Engineering Degree – But Probably Didn’t

Link  —  Posted: July 1, 2014 in Uncategorized
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Why isn’t OneDrive smart about tablets?

Posted: May 30, 2014 in Apps, Dell, Microsoft, OneDrive, SkyDrive, tablet, Venue Pro, Windows 8
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Quick thought for the day: Microsoft’s OneDrive doesn’t appear to act “smart” when it’s installed on a tablet, or what I prefer to call a Limited Storage Space Device. The premise of OneDrive is clear: store your stuff in the cloud and keep your device clean of clutter, holding local only what you need. Google made the same business case with their Chromebooks and Google Drive, but “cloud-first” is in its teenage years.

On a Limited Storage Device, such as a tablet or a phone, OneDrive should be smart enough to take offline, locally cached files, and make them “online only” again, freeing up the space. It doesn’t do this, and thus silently, and sometimes quickly, eats up storage on the device. Case in point: I recently drove Tail of the Dragon and took hundreds of photos. About one gigabyte of these I copied from my camera to OneDrive. One day later, my Dell Venue Pro 8 tablet started complaining of low drive space. OneDrive had copied the files from the cloud to the device, automatically, even though there was no reason to do so. The device wasn’t requesting those files. Yet, even if for whatever reason there was a valid request, shouldn’t OneDrive have “put them back” in the Cloud?

Microsoft – if you ever listen about device categories you’ve had a tough time understanding – you can’t treat these limited storage devices like mainstream PCs. You have to, pardon the pun, “think differently” and make your software do the same. The above scenario, where your Cloud solution makes a non-mainstream device relatively unusable due to a mainstream PC approach, is very common amongst your current product offerings. My gosh, just look at Office on a tablet.

Thanks for listening Smile

-Auri

Tail of the Dragon–Days 1 and 2

Posted: May 26, 2014 in Automotive, Driving
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I drove Tail of the Dragon May 24 and 25. Uploading photos so everyone can enjoy. Took my MINI Cooper S, a friend, and a ukulele. By the way, Graham is a dry county, so if you’re going to stay in the Tail, or Robbinsville, or anywhere around there, and you want frothy beverages, bring your own.

The New HTC One (M8)–My Favorite Phone, Just Not My Favorite Camera

Posted: May 20, 2014 in Android, HTC, Mobile, Phones
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I’ve been putting off finishing my HTC One M8 review for a couple months. I’m hoping to finish it soon, but for now, here’s my draft…

A Dilemma

Before I start my review, I need to explain the technology dilemma of new phones, and new laptops and desktops, too, for that matter. Technology has come to a performance and feature point that it’s hard for manufacturers to prove any necessity their new products in these categories. Case in point – my previous phone, the Galaxy Nexus, was perfectly fast for everything I did with it. Sure, it wouldn’t launch apps or take photos as quickly as the newer devices, but it was acceptably fast, so much so that, as I shopped for a new product, the newer devices weren’t obviously beneficial.

I imagine my dilemma similarly affects the PC market. For the average consumer, is the laptop of today that much better than the laptop of two years ago? If you spend most of your time plugged in, as many users I’ve met do, will they notice the processor speed? The display? They’ll definitely recognize the SSD speed and touch. Yet their old systems are acceptably fast. Lucky for them, new laptops are affordable. Desktop PCs? That’s a different story – there’s nothing really new about them that you’d need to upgrade, and you don’t see many shipping with SSDs.

Phones, unlike laptops and desktops, are lucky in that they are a) popular to drive consumers to buy when upgrades are unnecessary, and b) have sex appeal. You rarely tell anyone these days about their chic new laptop. Well, you used to… That desire has shifted to the phone, now a mini laptop in itself. Yet, beyond the better battery life, what makes a phone better today, other than you can get a new model up front, and paid off [again] in two years?

Anyway, I ignored all that introspection and needs analysis. I bought HTC One M8.

The Phone

First, let’s talk about the One. It’s beautiful. It’s slick. A bit too slick, as the aluminum is so smooth I often was afraid it would fall out of my hands. Thankfully, HTC provides one free screen replacement in the first six months. I like little support touches like that. The HTC Dot View case solved my grippiness issue, which I’ll discuss below. Wow, though – it’s a beautiful phone. I had a number of people ask me “Hey, what phone is that?” and often times heard “I think I’ll be switching to an Android phone next. Wow, that screen is big.” Maybe Google should be courting HTC for the its next Galaxy phone?

The Camera

The HTC One takes great photos. So why isn’t it my favorite camera? First, we need to explain the difference between HTC’s approach to phone cameras compared to practically everybody else: bigger pixel sensor size versus more pixels. The One sports 2 micron sensors vs. the 1.3 micron sensors used by practically every other flagship phone from Samsung, Google, and even Nokia. However, it only has a 4 megapixel effective resolution, versus 13+ on the others. True, the larger sensors bring in more light, and make the HTC One an excellent low light level camera. But when it comes to image quality, that lack of additional resolution makes every shot a make-it-or-break-it affair. With a 16 megapixel imager, for example, you could get a large shot and crop to something perfect. But with 4 megapixels, you’ve got to get it right the first time, lest you risk cropping to Facebook resolution. Definitely nothing good to print, and sometimes so few pixels there’s nothing good to display, either.

To be fair, the One takes excellent photos. Albeit quite a bit overexposed when there’s too much light… You can’t get balanced exposure between, say, the sky and the grass on a partly cloudy day. If you focus on the grass, the sky turns white. If you focus on the sky, the grass turns almost black. It sounds like something that can be solved with software… I’m hoping HTC has something in the works.

A few bugs I noticed, in case HTC is listening:

  • You can’t add stickers to a photo taken with a flash or low light. I have no idea why.
  • U Focus is not available for flash or low light photos, either.
  • Facebook uploads from the HTC One M8 appear to be very low resolution. I’ve seen this issue on many HTC Android phones. It looks like HTC has their own Facebook for HTC, but I can’t exactly confirm which uploader is being used when sharing.

The Dot View Case – The Sleeper Accessory Success story to what Austin Powers was to Sleeper Movie Successes

Long title, but true. The Dot View case may seem like a gimmick, but it does a great job at what it’s supposed to do. Lined with little holes that form letters and shapes when combined with the One’s screen gestures, you can check the time, make a phone call, answer and decline phone calls, and see if you have any messages all without ever looking at your screen. Samsung and other manufacturers have done similar things by putting cutouts in cases, too. Yet HTC’s approach is unique, and very, very cool. I think many folks who have seen my little demos of the Dot View case are thinking the One is their next phone. Maybe it’s just sheer luck for HTC, but I don’t think I’ve met anyone who’s contract isn’t about to expire this year. Good thing I’m not in charge of a survey! <grin>

HTC One M8 MicroSD Card Tray Warning!

Posted: March 28, 2014 in Android, HTC, Mobile, Phones
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Ok, learned this sort of the hard way today… I picked up the brand spanking new HTC One M8 yesterday. So far it’s a fantastic phone. I wanted to add a 32 GB MicroSD card, since it wonderfully supports such expansion. Beware! There’s a little tray that comes out when you use the paper clip in the little hole. Put the MicroSD card in that tray! I thought it was simply a placeholder at first, so I slyly proceeded to simply insert the card into the hole. Whoops!

imageIf you fall into the same trap, it’s easy to get the MicroSD card out. First, you might as well finish the formatting steps – it’s in there anyway. When that’s done, use the paperclip to release the MicroSD card from the tray. Yes, I know it won’t come out all the way. After releasing it via the eject hole, use the side of the paperclip to gently pull the card out from the right side a little bit. Once you can see the plastic of the card, pull it out the rest of the way with your fingers. Problem solved!

Good luck!

-Auri

Another possible solution for SkyDrive sync issues

Posted: January 29, 2014 in fix, SkyDrive, tip, Windows, Windows 8
Tags: ,
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In an earlier post, I pointed to permissions issues causing SkyDrive to stop syncing. I found another solution that also appears to have worked, causing SkyDrive to sync again. Try moving your SkyDrive folder to another location, such as another drive, an SD card you never remove, or other similar area. I suggest a permanent location, not one you unplug and might forget to re-attach Smile I don’t know how long my fix will last this time, but try it and let me know.

Here’s how you change locations:

1. In Windows Explorer, right-click SkyDrive and select Properties.

image

2. When SkyDrive Properties appears, select the Location tab and click Move.

image

Note: In my example, I’ve already moved the folder. In yours, you will probably see c:\Users\username\SkyDrive

3. Choose the folder to move your files to. I called mine Auri’s SkyDrive and put it on my M: drive. Make sure you have plenty of room for your files! This will not trigger a download of all your files. However, you want to have enough room that the copy of existing files doesn’t fail.

4. Click Apply and wait a while. The window may freeze while Windows does its work. On a side note, if any Microsoft engineers are listening, this would be a great place to enhance the user experience. For example, a please wait indicator.

5. Once Windows has copied all the files to the new location, wait a while for Windows to sync, maybe a day. By then, your files may be back in sync and all will be good in the world.

Good luck!

-Auri

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