Unknown files

[msh]

Of course we all know WD was hacked and we lost access to our devices for a while. I got my access back sometime in the middle of April. Today I noticed a hundred files in the root of the drive’s directory, with seemingly random names. They are not mine and are mostly empty. They were created two days ago. And I am the only user of this NAS device. The rest of my data is correct as I compared them.

Does anyone else have this issue? Did the hackers get access to our passwords? Are they still in WD network?

[NoPlex]

@msh

Today I noticed a hundred files in the root of the drive’s directory, with seemingly random names. They are not mine and are mostly empty. They were created two days ago. And I am the only user of this NAS device.

Those files have nothing to do with what you are speculating as what they are. Those files are generally due to disruptions in the sync processes from desktop or mobile devices.

Random files on home directory

I am using a WD My Cloud Home 4TB. My home directory has hundreds of files in it which appear to be system generated. They have no file extension and the names of the files appear to be random such as “ZmHlqWc” or “YZSKJrM”. They also vary dramatically in size with some being as small as 1KB whilst the largest is 63 MB. In total, I have 344 of these files taking up 6 GB. I don’t mind that so much if they are important but I have over 300 files in my home directory cluttering it up. What are th…

Random files on home directory

MCH sync is based on the the opensource syncthing where similar problem occurred. Temporary files are removed after 24h. However leftover syncthing.*.tmp files are a sign of incomplete or aborted sync progress, so you should probably investigate that (possible question: are the non-temporary files really equivalent to the source and are the temp files also equivalent or different?). Most users don’t bother to check and just delete them after a while.

[msh]

Thanks for responding. I really appreciate it. There was an instant a few days earlier where I saw the drive mounted under two different letters. One was under Z and mounted by WD service and the other was based on instructions from WD for local access. I tried accessing both. Maybe that caused it . Is there a link to a reading or explanation please?

[NoPlex]

@msh

saw the drive mounted under two different letters. One was under Z and mounted by WD service and the other was based on instructions from WD for local access.

Z; is usually mounted by WD Discovery which will not longer do that after ~June 2023 because WDD is End of Life and being deprecated.

This whole desktop sync business with WDD is likely to go away (desktop, not the mobile apps) so there is little to be gain by trying to troubleshoot something that won’t be around for a few more weeks from now.

All the ‘Syncthing’ links can be found by searching the subforum, one such link:

~syncthing~

@kloughlin Files with ~syncthing~ prefix are temporary files. Desktop Sync never writes directly to a destination file, but instead, all changes are made to a temporary copy which is then moved in place over the old version. If an error occurs during the copying or syncing, such as a necessary block not being available, the temporary file is kept around for up to a day. This is to avoid needlessly requesting data over the network. Sync doesn’t process zero byte file and it’s fine to delete…

[msh]

Very informative, thanks. I have to read up on the deprecation because I use it not just as a NAS but as the hub for my disaster recovery across two sites.

I basically work out of two sites that are about 350km apart. So I have two desktops mount the Z drive, and update the data between Z and F drive locally. Update and replication happens every night using filesynch. This way I have at least two copies, just in case the NAS drive craps out or support is withdrawn without me knowing. ZFS was a ■■■■■ to restore.

I spent 100 bucks over 2 years for a personal cloud spanning across 2 sites. I was very happy with it.

Thanks again for the info.