{"id":12258,"date":"2024-01-15T03:25:31","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T11:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/?p=12258"},"modified":"2024-01-15T03:25:31","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T11:25:31","slug":"google-drive-disappearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/alwaysup\/google-drive-disappearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A: My Google Drive keeps Disappearing. Help!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n  Hi, Core Technologies support team.<\/p>\n

AlwaysUp<\/a> has been invaluable to our business, which is why I’ve bought several copies for different machines.<\/p>\n

Recently I started running into a problem on my production PC. I searched for a bit through your FAQs and blogs but didn’t see this particular problem. Maybe you have a quick workaround?<\/p>\n

I’ve set up Google Drive for desktop to run as a service<\/a>. An application on that production PC depends on the G: drive being present.<\/p>\n

But sometimes the G: drive disappears after a while, even though AlwaysUp shows Google Drive running.<\/p>\n

When that happens, my application goes haywire. Eventually, I’ll have to debug to keep the app from crashing when the G drive is not available, but in the meantime, do you have an answer for what’s happening?<\/p>\n

I will appreciate any help you can provide.<\/p>\n

— Randy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Hi Randy, thanks for reaching out to report the problem. No one on our team has seen Google Drive failing as you described so we can’t say precisely what going on, sorry.<\/p>\n

But we can offer a couple of solutions that should (1) lessen the occurrence of the problem and (2) quickly restore functionality when the problem arises.<\/p>\n

Solution #1: Have AlwaysUp restart Google Drive every night<\/h2>\n

If Drive breaks after it’s been running for some time, the program may have a resource leak<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Drive isn’t freeing all the RAM it’s requested. Or it may be holding on to a network port for too long. Or it could be something else. It’s difficult to pinpoint the issue because we don’t have access to the source code (or to decent log files, for that matter).<\/p>\n

For mysterious situations like this, we recommend introducing a nightly restart. That is, you should have AlwaysUp automatically restart Google Drive at a set time when no one is likely to be using it. <\/p>\n

The theory is that restarting Google Drive will clear out any resource leaks. Afterwards, the program will come up “fresh” and ready to do its work — at least for the next few hours.<\/p>\n

To restart Drive nightly:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Edit Google Drive in AlwaysUp (select Application > Edit\/View “Google Drive for desktop”<\/b> from the menu).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    In the Edit\/View Application<\/b> window that comes up, switch to the Monitor<\/b> tab.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Check the Every<\/b> box, select Day<\/b> from the drop-down and choose a convenient time to restart Google Drive. 2 AM works for us:<\/p>\n

  4. \n

    Save your changes.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    With that setting in place, AlwaysUp will restart Drive every night at 2 AM. And as a result, no instance of Drive will run for longer than a day<\/b>. If we’re lucky, no resource leak will grow fast enough to cripple Drive within those 24 hours.<\/p>\n

    But if we’re not dealing with a resource leak and Drive can stop working at any time, a nightly restart won’t help much. Fortunately, the next solution tackles the problem more directly.<\/p>\n

    Solution #2: Install a sanity check to detect the failure and automatically restart Google Drive<\/h2>\n

    We built AlwaysUp to handle a range of failures while running an application. For example, AlwaysUp can detect and automatically recycle programs that:<\/p>\n