Leftover .rifec-receiving-xxx files safe to delete? Indication of problems?

[kbridger]

I am finding a lot of .rifec-receiving-xxx files in my root folder for image saving. The files seem to have randomly-generated names that also include filenames. Here's an example:

.rifec-receiving-534--DSC00491.JPG.tar--bhP5fu23

Are these artifacts left over that can be safely removed? Or are these indications that the transfer did not complete properly and I need to investigate?

I just confirmed that DSC00491.JPG exists in the proper date-based folder so it appears to have been transmitted successfully.

[kristofg]

Short answer: Unless you are debugging a specific transfer problem, these files can be safely removed.

Long answer: The program uses a couple of temporary files when a photo is received. After a successful transfer has completed, all these temporary files are removed. If an error of some kind occurs, all the temporary files generated so far during that photo transfer is left where they are.

So any kind of failed or aborted transfer will leave files like these lying around. However, these are not necessarily problems. For instance, the camera running out of battery during a transfer will make this happen, as will the camera being removed from wireless coverage while transferring. These things happen all the time, but since the Eye-Fi cards won't give up transferring each image until it is satisfied with the ACK from the server, the images will be uploaded eventually.

So while these files can be very useful when debugging problems, they are not very useful in normal operation. As long as photos arrive as expected, I can see no reason to keep them around. The program should probably be changed to removing those temporary files unconditionally. I'll keep this issue open to remind myself.

[kbridger]

Unconditionally seems harsh :)

Since I expect to have to do the following manually, it could be put into the software eventually (forgive my pseudocode, it has been many years since I touched code):

Foreach tempfile {
Get filename
If filename exists in destination folder and filesize is sane (i.e. successful upload completed)
Then Delete tempfile
Else
Send email alert with filename, date of upload
}

Just a thought - thanks for the reply.

[kbridger]

One other thought - is there a way to check the upload log to verify a successful upload occurred? Grepping the log for the filename and looking for keywords?

[kristofg]

If you want to verify uploads from the log, you probably want to look for this line, ie. "File '%s' saved".

There are several things I would like to do concerning the temp files: One of them is to use temp files left behind from earlier upload attempts to resume the next one, saving the card from uploading the same data multiple times in these situations. Another is, as you point out, to be smarter about the clean-up. But before I start working on that I think I need to implement some kind of test coverage. Verifying the operation of the script using only manual testing with a camera is getting a bit boring. :)