DOT-files skipped when copying from and to USB

My Cloud Home My Cloud Home Duo
1

I recently bought a My Cloud Home Duo unit. To speed things up I decided to copy the full content of my WD external USB drive by connecting it to the USB port.

A quick check showed that, though the Android App showed no errors, not all files had been copied. After some checks I found out that DOT-files (filenames starting with a dot, for example .txt) seem to be fully ignored.

I opened a support ticket but WD support wants to replace the full unit in an RMA-procedure.

Is someone able to test if they can reproduce this issue?

  1. Take an empty formatted USB-drive.

  2. Create 2 files on it with the following names:
    textfile.txt
    .txt
    (the second filename starts with a dot.)

  3. Attach the drive to a My Home Cloud unit.

  4. Open the android App and copy the full content of the USB drive to the My Home Cloud.

  5. Wait for the copy action to finish successfully.

  6. Browse the network folder to check if all files were copied to the My Cloud Home unit.

My problem is that only one file (textfile.txt) is being copied. The file .txt is fully ignored. There are no error messages.

2

This is standard behavior on Linux based NAS, you can check Synology for example. All Linux distros will treat files or folders starting with a dot as hidden.

Some NAS will let you override this behavior but apparently MCH or MCHDuo are not those and MCH/MCHD being near their expected end of life (EOL) support which ends in 2027, this is unlikely to change.

My Cloud Home doesn't copy hidden files (that begin with a dot)

Let MyCloud show/list hidden folders (starting with dot ".") by default

1 Like
3

I just tried this with my EX4. Testfile.txt copied and was visible. .txt (nor .testfile.txt) was not visible but it did copy. In Windows, I went to File Explorer, options, view and selected to show hidden files, folders and drives, and there it was.

4

What is the purpose of dot files? It seems like a stupid idea.

5

I would say it’s an “unconventional” method for file names. Excluding “reserved characters”, you can influence sort orders by padding a character to the front of the name. Adding a “.” (period) to the beginning would cause a sort by Name to put all the “.” files either at the beginning or end of the list depending on the sort order. This occurs because the ascii number for the “.” is lower than those of the numbers and letters. Personally I would not use the “.” for the reasons listed above.

As for the OP, reasons, we’ll have to wait.

6

The OP is not saying, but it is a macOS thing. Apple loves to be special.

1 Like
7

IMO all these special characters are an annoyance. I especially dislike spaces in file names.