Copy dialog lacks 'Apply to all' when skipping many read errors

[AntonyD]

https://i.ibb.co/tpVRdXdX/IMG-20260519-150537.jpg
I found this one. Dialog which definitely does not look like as another regular ones.
And which is MORE important - This was an action to transfer data from the OneDrive folder from a broken hard drive. So, of course, besides the fact that a significant number of folders/files in the OneDrive folder are generally not objects of the file system at all, but only reparse points, there were also some actually accessible files on the disk that could not be copied due to read errors. So, when such a dialog appeared, I physically had no way to check a box like "repeat this answer for all such errors" and press the Skip button ONCE. NO - I had to click it with the mouse over 200 times! Because pressing the Enter key also didn't work! More precisely, it worked exactly once - to confirm exactly one file. And then you have to press it again. Just pressing and holding the button – this usual trick – did not work.

Will we still encounter some special dialogs more ?
Or maybe we still NEED to standardize all types of dialogs for working with files/folders into one style of available options?

[white]

Moderator message from: white » 2026-05-19, 17:53 UTC

Split from:
» [TC 11.57a pre2] cm_Edit template with conditional counter resulting in empty string

[AntonyD]

Thank you, of course, for giving me an entire topic for this question - but I'm not sure that just leaving this matter in the general product discussion section is the right thing to do.
I have ALREADY shown that the actions allowed in this type of dialog are very dangerous and inconvenient for stable use of the product.
And there is no other way to call such behavior but a deep mistake, so it is more reasonable and quite realistic to move the topic to the bug section.

In the general discussion section, one could perhaps try to find out - how many more such previously unnoticed dialogs exist in the code?
It is quite strange that for the same action (copying/moving) dialogs change like gloves - here one format, there another.

[ghisler(Author)]

Read errors are treated as fatal errors which cannot be skipped automatically. The user has to be informed that these files are bad.

There is a very old 32-bit only plugin which is specialized on copying damaged files:
https://totalcmd.net/plugring/badcopy_1_0_0_4.html

[AntonyD]

I don't understand your logic. Nor do I understand the suggestion to use a plugin.
Of course, there can be errors during the work process of copying/moving! And any user must understand that they might encounter such a situation.
BUT their reaction is ALWAYS a CHOICE from the offered OPTIONS TO THE MAXIMUM! Which means the behavior of such dialogs must be standardized!
It cannot be that your logic for generating them would prevail over HOW users are supposed to handle these dialogs!

In this case, I had ABSOLUTELY all the prerequisites and reasons just to read this error and agree with the AUTO continuation of copying!
And I don't need anything specialized here! Just make dialogs similar to each other in similar situations!

[ghisler(Author)]

In normal day to day work, there should be NO read errors at all, except when the media is badly damaged. Modern hard disks and SSDs use error correction and try to read a block of data multiple times in case of unrecoverable errors. Therefore the user absolutely must be informed, it can't be ignored.

[AntonyD]

This is all understandable - but why do you stop in the logical chain of reasoning? Let me continue?

You have done your duty and warned the user, and now he MUST be provided with a convenient way to perform the operation in which he encountered the specified problem. And he must be allowed to continue the operation NOW and THERE, not through third party utilities and loss of time searching for, installing, setting up these utilities.

A file manager is a manager - to PROVIDE opportunities to operate files and folders. BUT, if you "read" the picture and the text explanations, this is NOT a severe case - it is a common case when you suddenly need to download files from a perfectly healthy hard drive that are located in the OneDrive folder - BUT in fact they are not located there - they are just very-special-links. So, when you try to download even in a healthy state of all the components of the computer - we get this above dialog box, with the help of which it is impossible to adequately perform the copy operation!

And in this case you continue to insist on the cut-off logic of interaction with the program????
Just forget that I used words describing a bad disk condition.
Just do a test on your version of a folder from OneDrive with the OFFLINE flag set for all contents - that is, there should be no files on your disk physically - only links to them (preferably about a thousand Files). And make a copy of this folder. At what hundred confirmations in this dialog will you break?

[ghisler(Author)]

What would be the use case here? If I allowed the user to skip these errors, they would get a bunch of broken files and no know which of them are incomplete.

[AntonyD]

Once again - you are creating a tool that is supposed to help solve task X. There are ways to solve it - 1/2/3/4/......
The user EITHER accepts some default behavior of the tool - for example, path 3.
BUT if suddenly they THEMSELVES decide that path 6 is the most convenient for them - then this is THEIR decision, which
they made and carried out. The paths do not apply by THEMSELVES, no one will tell you that the tool is doing
something wrong.

Once again - my example with the OneDrive folder - it is completely logical that some files at the moment of the computer losing power were not fully saved to the user's disk - and if we suddenly want to save everything that is there - we simply have to DUMBLY copy what the OS itself ALLOWS us to copy. And yes - many files may not have been saved. And yes - all this happens in a way that is understandable to the user. And yes - he is ready that the remaining files will have to be retrieved from the cloud by another method. And NO - he is not ready to wait for the full synchronization of 80+GB from the cloud to a new disk. WE NEED to copy what is there, and we will add the rest later. And YES - the OS officially does not allow you to just copy links to objects in such a cloud - and therefore you are completely legitimately GIVEN a carte blanche to ensure the possibility of automatically skipping such 'errors' (which are NOT errors in essence). All that remains is to implement the logic in the code.

P.S.
And now, if you suddenly are so afraid that the user might NOT FIND OUT that many of their files failed to copy...
You know, I have been waiting for a breakthrough in the process of copying/moving files for a very long time.
And it still hasn’t happened...
We are talking about keeping a FULL log of actions – REGARDLESS of whether the option is enabled in the settings.
And in cases when the process ends unsuccessfully for some reason, or when errors simply occurred during the process – so that
AFTER the operation is finished, Total would OFFER by itself to view and/or save a log of this operation for later review.
And then the user could ALWAYS be sure – that they WILL have solid evidence of HOW the operation concluded.
IF there is no such log – it means everything is fine (and it should be this way in 98.9% of disk operations). But if by chance Total says
that a work-log has been generated – please review it: that’s when panic and concern about the disk’s state and/or the process itself
should start to appear.

[beb]

I sincerely apologise for posting in a thread that is marked with the Nazie insignia that is so conveniently tolerated here, regardless of whether they have been waging another genocidal war in Europe for years, but still.

...If I allowed the user to skip these errors, they would get a bunch of broken files and no know which of them are incomplete.

2ghisler(Author)
In some scenarios, they wouldn't.

Please take into consideration the original screenshot.
It includes an explicit reference to the OneDrive cloud.

In that case, if files are in the cloud with the 'always in cloud' attribute, a user has no chance to copy (or otherwise read/access) such files if:

• They have no active (or effective) internet connection
• They experience lags with the cloud synchronization
• They maintain a [failing] drive plugged in on the other machine

In this case, the actual files/data itself is/are not broken at all; they are just temporarily inaccessible locally at the time.
In this case, after getting informed that such files exist, a user is entirely no longer interested in knowing anything else related to these files/data, nor does a user need to copy them - the files/data are perfectly fine in the cloud and will be accessible locally as soon as the normal cloud access is restored from the user account in question (on this or another physical drive, on this or another machine).

What IS useful in such a scenario:
A [mandatory] notification, something like:
'If the current copy operation is skipped, the basic information on the files in question (fullnames, size, LastWriteTime) will be saved in a "%COMMANDER_INI_PATH%\bla-bla-bla-path-name-text-date-time.log" [OK if agreed] or [GFY]'

[ghisler(Author)]

2beb
This isn't the same scenario: I have just tested this by right clicking on a group of files in my OneDrive directory, and choosing to free up their storage space. This makes them appear with a cloud overlay symbol. Then I disconnected my PC from the internet and tried to copy the files. It gives me the option to skip them all. Why? Because the error occurred at the start of the operation. However, you will still get per file errors when overwriting existing files.

[AntonyD]

2ghisler(Author)
You have completed your testing and received your results. Thank you for contributing to the common cause. We appreciate it.
And now please pay attention to the fact that OTHER results — which you could not obtain on your own equipment — have OTHER reasons to be encoded in the Total code. And therefore — it is precisely user feedback that makes the product even better, even more versatile.
And we have described to you how WE encountered the problem — and HOW Total COULD HAVE helped us, but did not do so due to
the absence of the necessary code. It's simple. Now it is worth improving that code.

[AntonyD]

if you still didn't understand - the difference between your pseudo-test and our reality is that these exported files we copy data from the disk ON ANOTHER computer, not on the same one where the internet was simply turned off. AND THERE is no and cannot be any SINGLE warning that you can skip all files. Because we have completely different OS here - there are NO any OneDrive preinstalled programs/components, drivers here...
Thus there will be exactly that annoying dialog that I showed above. Where you have to click with the mouse on each of hundreds of such pop-up dialogs...

[AntonyD]

The same problem turned out to exist for the folder synchronization dialog as well. When I selected the synchronization direction and started the process, it turned out that one of the files marked for overwriting with its new version was still open and therefore could not be overwritten. BUT what did Total propose to me? Skip or Cancel! That's all! That is, according to the program, I either have to stop the synchronization or start it over again later – just to overwrite a single file! Very user-friendly

[ghisler(Author)]

That's odd, I have just tried this with a file open in Word. I get the following options:
Skip | Retry | Abort
Skip all | Rename
As Administrator | All as Administrator

So in what program was your file opened?