Windows 10: robocopy retry argument ignored

Hi!


I've just faced a strange behaviour of robocopy as it ignores the /R argument. I use Windows 10, version 20.04, build 19041.508.


I wanted to copy files from one folder to another using /R:10 retry 10 times and /W:3 wait 3 seconds between retries arguments but it simply skipped retrying and finished with exit code 11. That means some extra files were removed, some files were copied and some were failed to copy. The log showed no sign of retry it went straight to the end.

Retry is an important feature for me as some files can be locked at first try.


It has different behaviour in earlier versions of Windows. Does anyone have this issue on the 20.04 version of Windows 10?

:)

 

Is there a way for Robocopy to ignore file copy errors?

Hi RMDEQ

If you use the R and W switches with an argument of 0, then Robocopy should just skip errors and continue . . .

/R:0 /W:0

 

Robocopy Ignores /SL in Windows 10

Robocopy is ignoring the /SL feature. (/SL :: copy symbolic links versus the target.). This causes it to copy the videos Music and Pictures folders twice because there are system shortcuts to these folders in the Documents folder for compatibility.

Command is as follows (replace ***** with user name):

Code:

robocopy "C:\Users\*****\Documents" "E:\*****\Documents" /sl /mir

robocopy "C:\Users\*****\Videos" "E:\*****\Videos" /sl /mir

robocopy "C:\Users\*****\Music" "E:\*****\Music" /sl /mir

robocopy "C:\Users\*****\Pictures" "E:\*****\Pictures" /sl /mir

Please fix this Microsoft.

 

Anyone familair with robocopy?

I use RoboCopy in a batch file to backup my user folder. There's a couple of pitfalls to be aware of. You've already found the 'retries' one. The default is a million retries waiting 30 seconds between each (that's nearly a year!). NTUser.dat was the file that it caught me out on. There's some switches to deal with that...

...I skip locked files with /R:0 (which would probably have fixed your 'System Volume Information' problem too).

The other problem I had was an infinite recursion (well, until the maximum path length was exceeded) of particular folders on the destination drive. These were caused by what look like links to 'My Music', 'My Pictures', etc. in the Documents folder. They're not links, they are Junction Points, there's a switch to deal with that too.

Type RoboCopy /? for the full list.