Google Calls Drive Data Loss 'Fixed,' Locks Forum Threads Saying Otherwise (arstechnica.com) 22
Google Drive recently lost user files, with some reporting missing documents since May 2023. Google said this month that it has posted a fix, but its description of a "syncing issue" doesn't seem to capture the problem based on user reports of web files disappearing, ArsTechnica notes.
The company hasn't fully explained the cause or its recovery solution, which involves desktop app options and command line file recovery, the report asserts. This opaque handling, along with Google shutting down the Drive user forum that allowed people to share fixes, adds to perception that the company prioritizes PR over assisting users, the report adds.
The company hasn't fully explained the cause or its recovery solution, which involves desktop app options and command line file recovery, the report asserts. This opaque handling, along with Google shutting down the Drive user forum that allowed people to share fixes, adds to perception that the company prioritizes PR over assisting users, the report adds.
Be Evil (Score:4, Funny)
Because not being evil isn't fun.
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Remember the news about Google setting limits to Drive useage? A random source: https://www.news18.com/tech/go... [news18.com]
It was speculated at that time that Drive was hitting some architectural limits and they were putting up a policy fix instead of a technology fix, or at least buying time. My guess is this data loss is related to the same tech limit, it's just that their integers have now reached overflow - your call on whether this is more of an analogy or the real thing.
But knowing the way Google is set up for
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So boring having to lisen to Pat Boone all day, while all the cool kids are banging their heads with Metal!
The cloud... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember kids. The cloud is just someone else's computer.
This should be funny, not insightful!
Re:The cloud... (Score:4, Insightful)
And you should always make a backup. Funny how people seem to forget that until their O365 datastore (since it is just Exchange, this happens quite often) blows up.
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The Cloud, the ones I've bumped into (ow), seem much more oriented towards sharing data across "devices", rather than being a robust backup service. If you want to do backups, having an external encrypted hard drive is much faster and safer.
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Remember kids. The cloud is just someone else's computer.
Yep. The computer of someone who has teams of data recovery experts on hands. In the mean time most of the people complaining didn't even have basic functional backups. They are lucky they were using someone else's computer rather than their own or they would have been SOL when something goes wrong.
That someone else is better at running their computer than 99.9% of computer users out there.
Paid or free? (Score:5, Funny)
If you paid and lost data, it's lawsuit time. If you didn't, I'm sure you will receive a full refund.
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Of course it's PR over honesty. (Score:3, Insightful)
I recently got a call from an executive at Rogers in Ontario, Canada, because I kept leaving a full exploitation of a problem on their Facebook, and Twitter pages. Every time someone would ask about X, I would post Y, because their explanation was just some PR hilarity, while Y was a literal explanation of the problem, complete with details. They would remove my explanation every time, and politely ask me to stop posting it, when I didn't someone very high up in the company called me and for ~1 hour said (to paraphrase): "Either stop posting that answer, or, we terminate your account. Your answer is NOT correct, and that's the final word.". After that someone in customer service called me and gave me a very detailed explanation, that matched my answer, and said, again to paraphrase: "Shut it, and move on.".
Have you ever submitted a bug report to a company, complete with code, and their documentation? I won't name the company, but for years I've been trying to get them to solve a bug, and every single time I talk with their customer teams it's: "Nope, no, noway, nada, not a bug.". I used to post about the bug in the forums, and their devs would occasionally reply with very good explanations, and one day, those replies disappeared. They can't be searched or found, the company deleted them!
You want to PR hilarity, go the Microsoft Forms, enough said.
I can name a few companies who care about customers over PR, Goulet Pens is a good one, but the overall list that comes to mind is napkin with a shapie short.
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>I talk with their customer teams it's: "Nope, no, noway, nada, not a bug."
blame the lawyers for that one; admitting it's a bug probably opens them up to all kinds of liability, vs the blanket denial allowing them to just feign ignorance.
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If "this security vulnerability isn't a bug," then it's by intent.
Seems like that would open them up to a lot more liability.
PSA... (Score:3, Funny)
I lost most of my Drive (Score:5, Interesting)
I lost about 40GB of data from my Drive back in October, and Google has no idea where it went. At the same time, I lost all emails before Jan 1 2018 from my Gmail account, and similarly, Google can't tell me where they went. On Monday this week, they closed my ticket as "resolved" and now won't respond to my communications.
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So, just like open source bug reports.
Re:I lost most of my Drive (Score:5, Interesting)
I lost about 40GB of data from my Drive back in October, and Google has no idea where it went. At the same time, I lost all emails before Jan 1 2018 from my Gmail account, and similarly, Google can't tell me where they went. On Monday this week, they closed my ticket as "resolved" and now won't respond to my communications.
Since that's beyond the free threshold, I assume you've been paying for the data storage. If you want to make them hurt a little, offer to some lawyer to be lead claimant on a class action suit. It won't help any of their customers any (since once any payout is divided the only ones who get enough to matter are the lawyers), but at least it'll let some lawyers annoy someone who deserves it for a while.
Google is not a data retention company (Score:2)
Cloudtastrophie (Score:2)