Precautions

When SyncDiscs is doing a synchronisation, it is copying, moving, and perhaps deleting files. Therefore anything that may interfere with these actions is to be avoided. Although the operating system should not carry out contradictory actions on a file at the same time, it may generate errors or error boxes, which must be dismissed before actions continue, or may terminate processes prematurely. None of these events are welcome in a process that may be left to run unattended. If SyncDiscs is being used in the multitasking environment, then there is even more scope for unwanted interactions.

When doing a backup, try to ensure that the directory(ies) involved do not contain any open files, and especially that any files are not likely to be accessed by other applications while the backup is taking place. Applications that should be avoided in particular are mail/news fetchers configured to automatically fetch and debatch periodically, for example, which do a lot of disc accesses during the fetching and debatching process.

Note that a number of applications keep files open while they are running. Some, like Netsurf, for example, keep a log file open at all times, into which debug information is written. With some applications, the !Run file is open whenever the application is running. This is due to there being commands in the !Run file after the line that launches the application. These commands are not run until after the application is quit, and so the !Run obey file is still active. One thing to watch for is the presence of additional line feeds at the end of a !Run file. These will cause the !Run file to be kept open until the application is quit, even although that is not necessary for the operation of the application. One or other of the utilities that list open files (e.g. !CloseFiles) is a useful application to run occasionally, to see what files are actually open.