back to article Users clutch refilled Box boxen after 'empty' folder panic

Business user file sync and sharer Box "sank" for some users late last week, who took to forums and social media complaining they could not see any of their files. One Reg reading Box user told us he'd "lost" four years' worth of files, saying: "They have no phone support... the long and short of it is that files that have …

  1. Tom 38

    Box user RS Zaharna...

    Why is he tweeting @DropboxSupport about Box issues? Aren't they completely different entities?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Box user RS Zaharna...

      That's what happens when you use twitter as a news source and forget to actually check the facts.

      Maybe this issue was a separate Dropbox problem, completely unrelated to this article.

      1. Alister

        Re: Box user RS Zaharna...

        That's what happens when you use twitter as a news source and forget to actually check the facts.

        Interesting that you immediately assume El Reg is at fault, and not RS Zaharna.

        His Tweet says "dropbox box" so my guess is he's tweeting the wrong company.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: Box user RS Zaharna...

          After hopping back in a time machine.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Box user RS Zaharna...

            "After hopping back in a time machine."

            Blimey I missed the bleedin obvious (as did el reg).

    2. Korev Silver badge

      Re: Box user RS Zaharna...

      Why is he tweeting @DropboxSupport about Box issues? Aren't they completely different entities?

      I was about to post the same....

  2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "My files are now back and safe and I have made a physical backup of them, and I am now moving to another storage location."

    A very good idea. Just as it always was.

    1. big_D Silver badge

      3-2-1

      No file exists, if there aren't at least 3 copies, on 2 different median and 1 is offsite...

      In this case, only the Offsite part of the equation was fulfilled. I would never use a cloud service as the only source of my files. At best, for backup or sharing.

      1. missingegg

        Re: 3-2-1

        I agree with you. But considering most users appear to do absolutely nothing to ensure they don't lose their data, moving it into a cloud storage service probably provides a significant increase in reliability for them.

        1. big_D Silver badge

          Re: 3-2-1 @missingegg

          @missingegg my stepdaughter went to Uni and I gave her 1TB of OneDrive storage, she had a Google account and a bunch of USB sticks... She stored all of her data on her MacBook Pro, didn't tell me the USB sticks didn't work (or rather the USB ports on the Mac didn't work properly).

          Then, on the way back from Uni, she threw her coffee flask in her backpack, along with her MacBook Pro... But forgot to close the flask first. By the time she got back home, there was a lovely crystal pattern across the inside of the screen and coffee was pouring out the ventilation slots. We tried drying out the hard drive, but it was encrusted with a sugary mess and despite all attempts, the data was lost, including her disertation.

          The first thing I did with her replacement was to put a Carbonite subscription on it. It came up for renewal last month and she paid for the renewal (she has now graduated).

          As you say, most people do nothing to protect their data, even if they are given multiple methods of protecting it.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: 3-2-1 @missingegg

            "As you say, most people do nothing to protect their data, even if they are given multiple methods of protecting it."

            They need to be reminded. There needs to be a schedule. a box needs to pop up saying "please insert usb stick labeled 'week1' for a backup"

            Thats how I do it , I have a script of my own labourious design that runs everytime my main computer starts. It checks if its more than 7 days since last backup , and if so copies my NAS to backup location - of which there are 2 that it alternates between.

    2. Gene Cash Silver badge

      > he'd "lost" four years' worth of files

      There are those that make backups, and those that have yet to lose irreplaceable data.

      1. VinceH
        Unhappy

        And those who have lost irretrievable data, but it was a long time ago and therefore couldn't possibly happen again.

        1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          And those who have lost irretrievable data, but it was a long time ago and therefore couldn't possibly happen again

          And those that still use tape as a backup medium despite the fact that restores from tape regularly fail..

          Not that I'm bitter or anything (one past workplace used to store tapes in a locked storeroom. Unfortunately, said storeroom was over the plant room and tapes would regularly get corrupted by the magnetic fields from the large pumps on the ceiling of the plant room..)

  3. Paul

    This is kind of a non-story.

    Anybody who relies on a single device or single service to store valuable data deserves to lose it. It doesn't matter if you use Google Drive, Amazon Glacier, Box, Dropbox, Spideroak (just off the too of my head) or any other of the many services, you should always have replicas of your data.

    1. 0laf
      Facepalm

      But it's in the Cloud so it must be safe. The salesdroid told the director who told the manager and he told me.

      Nothing ever goes wrong so why would I ever need a backup or worry about an SLA or a contract or any of that nonsense. Or data protection, or hacking or...

      It's not like clouds are gaseous ethereal structures is it?

      1. Cpt Blue Bear

        Oh no, its far worse than that

        I have been told by C-level executives at three different companies that backups no longer matter because its all "in the cloud" and if anything goes wrong we can take them court. Not with a straight face but that smug look of an idiot who thinks he's being really clever.

  4. anothercynic Silver badge

    Dropbox != Box

    Get it right, El Reg. Come on now. What kind of reporting is this?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A Fool and their Data

    are easily separated on the Cloud.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Call Neesom

    Smells a little like ransomware getting quarantined. Would explain the whole "won't sync the original, but renames work", assuming we're talking about a client local version (with the server version quarantined).

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Progress....

    "My files are now back and safe and I have made a physical backup of them, and I am now moving to another storage location."

    LOL! Isn't this one of the many panaceas promised by cloud computing: safe remote backup. So, here we are backing up the backup. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

  8. Alistair
    Windows

    chown -R root:admin *.*

    *cough* "Damn, that command should have been done before I got back from lunch with the boys......"

  9. dnicholas

    The cloud: it's just someone else's shitty computer

  10. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    The cloud xkcd. Yes of course there is a cloud xkcd.

    https://xkcd.com/908/

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I guess I'm lucky/paranoid because I have 10 years with of photos backed on to separate HDD / tape and online photo sharing site. Time to test those tape back ups.

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