581977 - Option to change sync direction at any time

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Sync, defect)

Description

[Paul [pwd]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0b3pre) Gecko/20100726 Minefield/4.0b3pre
Build Identifier: 

When setting up sync, you can choose between download only, merge or upload only. However once sync is set up, there's no way to choose what action sync should use.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

After the initial Sync, it should always merge.

There *is* a way to reset the client so that it can repeat that initial sync again (see "Reset Sync" in the Manage Account dropdown).

Comment 2

[Paul [pwd]]

Well then in that case there's a design flaw. If I have a secondary profile/computer which I only want to receive sync data and never amend, how do I set that? Also if the initial sync only pulls through some data and not all then what? I should be in full control of what my data is doing and should never be scared of my valid data being overwritten (as per the inspiration of filing this bug) when sync isn't performing properly.

I request this being reopened and full control given to the user regarding the way their data is handled.

Comment 3

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Well then in that case there's a design flaw. If I have a secondary
> profile/computer which I only want to receive sync data and never amend, how do
> I set that?

You don't. We are not aiming to support that use case.

> Also if the initial sync only pulls through some data and not all
> then what?

It will be synced on subsequent runs.

> I should be in full control of what my data is doing and should
> never be scared of my valid data being overwritten (as per the inspiration of
> filing this bug) when sync isn't performing properly.

I'm not sure how effective an a priori decision of "what your data is doing" would be in terms of protecting you against destructive Sync bugs.

Comment 4

[Paul [pwd]]

(In reply to comment #3)
> It will be synced on subsequent runs.

But given for example Bug 578646 where by subsequent runs aren't syncing properly,  what is the solution then? If the option is available on first run, it's not a huge nightmare to code in the option to do so again.

Also in regards to the earlier offered option of resetting sync. There is no explanation as to what that does. Clear all data off the server? reset the pass phrase and password? Does this risk tampering with other installations connected to the sync account?

Comment 5

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Also in regards to the earlier offered option of resetting sync. There is no
> explanation as to what that does. Clear all data off the server? reset the pass
> phrase and password? Does this risk tampering with other installations
> connected to the sync account?

I think it's pretty clear. The two options that actually end up deleting data, either on the local client or the server and all other clients, even come with red warning labels!

Comment 6

[Paul [pwd]]

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #4)
> > Also in regards to the earlier offered option of resetting sync. There is no
> > explanation as to what that does. Clear all data off the server? reset the pass
> > phrase and password? Does this risk tampering with other installations
> > connected to the sync account?
> 
> I think it's pretty clear. The two options that actually end up deleting data,
> either on the local client or the server and all other clients, even come with
> red warning labels!

In that case, I'm yet to find said options as I've found nothing marked with red warning labels in my sync options.

Comment 7

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> In that case, I'm yet to find said options as I've found nothing marked with
> red warning labels in my sync options.

Reset Sync -> Choose one of the "Replace" options -> Next screen has a red warning :)

Comment 8

[Paul [pwd]]

Thanks. Hopefully sync will be completely re-hauled in that regards, it's a horrible user experience as soon as you want to do anything other than leave it to work on it's own in the background.

I would never click "reset sync" unless I knew what it was doing and the fact that I'm not given the information on what it does until I click it is mystifying.

There should simply be two options on the sync panel of the options, one saying "delete data from server" another saying "overwrite all local data" and you should get a confirmation pop-up. It's current implementation is overtly complicated.

Comment 10

[heraldo]

"We are not aiming to support that use case." 

Why not? Is the Sync functionality solely aimed at "dumb users"? Thanks to this dumbed down Sync in Firefox 4 betas I am experiencing duplicated bookmarks, rearranged folders etc on my machines. It does not matter if there are issues that have to be ironed out. With a one way sync option this would never happen to the "master set" of sync data in the first place.

Comment 11

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> "We are not aiming to support that use case." 
> 
> Why not? Is the Sync functionality solely aimed at "dumb users"?

I don't see any association between this feature and the user's intelligence.

> Thanks to this
> dumbed down Sync in Firefox 4 betas I am experiencing duplicated bookmarks,
> rearranged folders etc on my machines.

I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm sure you'll agree that this is a separate issue than adding an entirely new feature such as one-directional sync.

Comment 12

[heraldo]

So despite the option to change which direction to sync first time and on reset, adding one-directional sync would involve much work? 

Having no options how to perform a sync is following the example of Opera and now Chrome instead of a proper sync tool like Xmarks.

Comment 13

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> So despite the option to change which direction to sync first time and on
> reset, adding one-directional sync would involve much work?

Yes. First Sync and Reset Sync are special cases in which we are ok with pulling all data from the server again or replacing all data on the server, depending on which direction we're talking about. Doing this on every single sync would be very inefficient, of course. So if we were to support one-directional sync, much more work were required.