Anyone else using OneDrive to store client projects?

[BrianMSmith]

We recently started using OneDrive to store and share client files. Since then, we have been experiencing Chief "locking up" with the spinning blue circle of death while working on these plans/layouts. We weren't having this issue prior. If we only work on local projects it does not happen. Working in the cloud it happens every hour or so, and if we are idle for too long (like going to lunch) we return to the program locked up. The only way we can close the program is to End Task. Not awesome.

Does anyone use OneDrive and have a solution or workaround to this? Chief tech support says that they do not support using files on a network or the cloud... there has to be a way.

All drivers up to date.

 

[MoeGia]

Make sure your OneDrive CA files are all set to 'Keep on this device' so you have a physical copy on your computer. 

 

That said, I found it frustrating to work on OneDrive and moved my client files back to my C drive.  I do keep my Chief Data folder on OneDrive with all files on my local computer.  I'm sure that not what you want to hear but I agree with your findings.  OneDrive is a slug.

 

[ericepv]

I'm not a fan of OneDrive. I keep project files on my D drive with backups on both an external drive and  IDrive .

[JiAngelo]

All my files are on onedrive and active projects are synced local.  No problems thus far.  Every new computer I connect onedrive, give it time for active folders to sync, and I'm up and running.

 

Only downside I've experienced is

1) explorer won't search folders not stored locally.  Using a browser I can search, find an old file location and then sync that folder. 

 

2) We hit the 2T limit and had to add dummy users to get their 25 Terabyte storage plan.

[Renerabbitt]

In case it isn't clear, you cannot work on the same project file at the same time.
Also, having your Chief architect data in onedrive will cause a redundancy over time as onedrive tries to cache files while you are working in chief which locks those files, causing onedrive to say create a duplicate of your user library with a suffix which will not be read by Chief.
Furthermore, as someone else said, you would need to set your onedrive to offline all files for Chief.
I would not use onedrive for projects, its terribly slow and has terrible caching and redundancy algo's when compared to dropbox.
I still use onedrive for backups as well as google drive for some email storage but dropbox is my main cloud backup service as well as a local NAS and secondary drives for redundant backups.
In terms of using chief within an office environment, chief looks for missing files in two locations, within its data files and within the folder that the plan and layout are stored in. If those files are not there, missing file errors will populate. So either export plan material libraries from one machine to import into another or backup your plan file to the cloud and then extract contents on the second machine. (if you want to get fancy, just drop the extracted image and pdf files from the backup to the second machines data directory
 

[BrianMSmith]

Thank you all! This is the info I need to research a solution away from OneDrive but still cloud-based.

[Renerabbitt]

26 minutes ago, BrianMSmith said:

Thank you all! This is the info I need to research a solution away from OneDrive but still cloud-based.

What is your end goal?

[BrianMSmith]

For multiple users to be able to work on files in the cloud (not at the same time) without significant delays or lock-up issues.

We have users in multiple locations.

It appears DropBox might be a better solution for us than OneDrive. I will have to investigate those.

Thanks again for all the help.

[Renerabbitt]

2 minutes ago, BrianMSmith said:

It appears DropBox

Use dropbox for plan and layout
Data files require manual work for multiple users. Advice you to store your chief data directory off of the cloud and when needed, export or transfer the data files to another machine.
If multiple users are adding symbols or textures, make sure they save them to their library then export them as a group, then take the export to your cloud server and have other users import.
In this way, chiefs core data remains off cloud and independent for each machine, causing no redundant issues, and you are simply transferring assets as needed.
For sharing files, make sure to create backups which will export materials and pdfs as a zip archive for another machine that does not have that asset
 

[Doug_N]

23 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

In case it isn't clear, you cannot work on the same project file at the same time.
Also, having your Chief architect data in onedrive will cause a redundancy over time as onedrive tries to cache files while you are working in chief which locks those files, causing onedrive to say create a duplicate of your user library with a suffix which will not be read by Chief.
Furthermore, as someone else said, you would need to set your onedrive to offline all files for Chief.
I would not use onedrive for projects, its terribly slow and has terrible caching and redundancy algo's when compared to dropbox.
I still use onedrive for backups as well as google drive for some email storage but dropbox is my main cloud backup service as well as a local NAS and secondary drives for redundant backups.
In terms of using chief within an office environment, chief looks for missing files in two locations, within its data files and within the folder that the plan and layout are stored in. If those files are not there, missing file errors will populate. So either export plan material libraries from one machine to import into another or backup your plan file to the cloud and then extract contents on the second machine. (if you want to get fancy, just drop the extracted image and pdf files from the backup to the second machines data directory
 

Hi Rene,

 

What if you only keep the plan and layout files on OneDrive?  That is my practice, and so far, I have had no problems.