Rsync is hanging

[NewToLinux]

Rsync has been successfully run for quite a few years on a Debian system. The home directory has been
regularly transferred to a FAT32 USB drive.

Recently, rsync has been hanging.

Rsync just hangs at a particular small file that it gets to and doesn't move on - no
error message, so it doesn't crash, it just hangs.

The command is of the form :-

rsync -v -a --max-size=4GB --delete /home/users-name/.
/media/memstick/.

where users-name is the name of the user.

Can anyone help to solve this problem, please ?

[arzgi]

I would check the file system of the USB drive.

[sunrat]

It could be the file. What is it and what are its permissions? Has the same file copied successfully previously?

FAT32 has no way of saving permissions so the -a option is irrelevant as it implies -p. Use -rtv instead. You don't need those dots in the command either. Try

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rsync -rtv --max-size=4GB --delete /home/users-name/ /media/memstick/

Run it with --dry-run first to make sure it's going to do what you want.

To properly save a Debian $HOME I highly recommend a Linux file system like ext4 (or ext2). And USB sticks can break, do an fsck on it as arzgi suggests.

[NewToLinux]

Thanks very much for the replies.

I would use ext4 but the files may need to be read on a Windows system.

Would using NTFS instead of FAT32 help ?

The USB stick is quite new, but maybe I should check the stick for problems.

[sunrat]

You didn't answer the questions in my first line which were the salient bit of my reply. I'm thinking that file name may have a character which is allowed in Linux but not in Windows. These characters are not allowed in Windows (may be others?):

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< (less than)
> (greater than)
: (colon - sometimes works, but is actually NTFS Alternate Data Streams)
" (double quote)
/ (forward slash)
\ (backslash)
| (vertical bar or pipe)
? (question mark)
* (asterisk)

If you're just copying data files, permissions are unimportant and either NTFS or FAT32 would be acceptable. If you are backing up your config files from $HOME (mainly the hidden dot files) permissions may matter if you need to restore them.

[NewToLinux]

Rsync has been run okay on a new FAT32 stick, using the command i previously reported.


(a) I propose to put all the files on the current new stick
into a new directory (using mv *.* backup-dir) outside of my
home directory and then run rsync again on the stick.


Presumably the new run of rsync would delete backup-dir
(as this doesn't exist in my home directory) and then just
copy over all the home directory files again to the stick.


Would rsync run okay on the same stick using step (a) on a periodic basis ?