Possible issue with Wipe

[oblivion]

This might be hard to verify ...

I'm currently using XYPlorer's File Wipe to delete a lot (approx 80,000) files before a system goes away to be repaired.

I tried to do it all in one go: after a while, XY threw an error saying it couldn't do one of the files, then on skipping it and continuing, it threw the same error on each of the following files. So I exited XY and it crashed.

Tried again, but just doing a folder at a time -- one folder, many dependent subfolders, average contents a couple of thousand files.

After a folder or six, the same thing happened.

After restarting XY, wiping the folder that had had errors previously just worked.

Thing is, the computer I'm working on isn't connected to the 'net and can't be, and I'm running XY off a thumbdrive -- and I've just realised it's not the newest version, it's 19.10.0200. So you might have fixed this already...

[admin]

Could not reproduce it nor understand how that could happen (by looking at the code) (it would have helped to see the exact error message). Added some voodoo fix anyway that should prevent something like this from ever happening again (in case it finds a way to happen that I overlooked).

[oblivion]

Sorry for taking so long to get back onto this.

I'd kept the files that I'd previously wiped in an encrypted zipfile, I just discovered.

So I unzipped them and did the wipe again.

This time, 64-bit Windows 10, XYplorer 20.80.0300.

The produced error message:

Overwrite with zeroes failed on this file:

(\path\filename)

Error: Unknown error.

Click OK to continue with the remaining 51,401 files.


So I clicked OK and the filename and count changed to match -- by 1 -- but the error continued over and again.

I exited from XYplorer (no crash this time) and reloaded, tried to wipe the folder again.

After a while, same error, but it managed to wipe all the files it had previously failed on and quite a few more: stopped with 22,462 files to go.

I'm currently watching it wipe the remaining files and, given the pattern of failing at a bit under 30,000 files, I'd expect this one to complete.

(Which it now has.)

[admin]

Note that there has been a related fix:

Code: Select all

v20.60.0212 - 2019-12-27 17:27
    ! Wipe: Under mysterious circumstances a previous error message could be 
      inherited to innocent subsequent operations. Not anymore.

In case you still have a copy of any of the problem files, send it to me so I can look at it.

[oblivion]

Hi -- this error recurred using 20.80.0300, so the fix in v20.60.0212 didn't fix it. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

I can't send the problematic archive -- it's nearly 300Mb of data, and most of it is potentially sensitive, which is why I was wiping it rather than just deleting.

Sorry...

Given the experience, I don't think there's a problem with a specific file -- files that the wipe choked on were subsequently wiped successfully. It's a volume thing, by the feel of it -- somewhere shy of the 30,000th consecutive wipe, the process falls in a heap and can't be restarted without an XYplorer restart. Once it is, it'll do another nearly 30,000 files before collapsing again.

It might be an issue with the filenames -- there's a lot of dots in them -- and I can produce a list of those, if it's any help.

[admin]

Okay, thanks, I'll watch it.