ROBOCOPY summary says Dirs FAILED but shows no error messages

Question

I copied directories with ROBOCOPY, from C: to D: (so disks on the same VM, no network issues). I used options

*.* /V /X /TS /FP /S /E /COPYALL /PURGE /MIR /ZB /NP /R:3 /W:3

Shortly afterwards, I did a comparison with the same options plus /L:

/V /X /TS /FP /L /S /E /COPYALL /PURGE /MIR /ZB /NP /R:3 /W:3

The summary starts by saying that 12 directories FAILED:

            Total    Copied   Skipped  Mismatch    FAILED    Extras
 Dirs :    (many)        30         0         0        12         0
Files :    (more)       958   (more-958)      0         0         0

By Google(R)-brand Web searches, I see that "FAILED" should have lines above with the word "ERROR". But I can find no such lines. If I do a comparison without listing files or directories,

*.* /X /NDL /NFL /L /S /E /COPYALL /PURGE /MIR /ZB /NP /R:3 /W:3

there are no output rows at all other than the header and summary.

Am I missing some error messages in the megalines of verbose output? Does anyone have any idea how to find the problem, if any? I'm thinking of a recursive dir + a script to do my own diff, to at least check names and sizes.

Hi Tim - Did you ever work this out? I have the same situation. Thanks, Alan. — Alan, May 23 '20 at 05:34
After so long, I was compelled to reply by https://m.xkcd.com/979/ I don't remember about this, but I expect that I never did figure it out. I suspect I switched to xcopy. — Tim McDaniel, May 24 '20 at 05:26
I literally laughed out loud - I had forgotten about that XKCD :-) Thanks for replying! Alan. — Alan, May 24 '20 at 21:02
I'm having this same issue, but it's with Files instead of Dirs. — GoatRider, Dec 14 '20 at 21:38

user2107207 · Answer 1 · 2022-06-29T16:12:45.150

(updated a couple of hours later:) I've got this as well. Posting in case it helps anyone get closer to an answer.

126 failed Dirs but that doesn't match the number of "ERROR 3" messages about directories not found / not created (108, which after a lot of effort I cranked out of importing the log file into Excel).

So what happened to the other 18 failed dirs? Turns out there are 18 error messages about retries exceeded for the directories mentioned in the ERROR 3 messages. I therefore conclude that the "Failed" count in the RC summary includes each ERROR 3 "directory not found" log item - even if it is multiply reporting the same directory on multiple failures - PLUS the error reported when it finally exceeds its allowed retry count. So in my case, I have 18 failed directories, each of which is reported on the first attempt and then each of the 5 retries I allowed plus again when the retries exceeded message is given. That is: (18 problem directories) * (1 try + 5 retries + 1 exceeded message) = 18 * 7 = 126 fails. Now it is up to you whether or not you sulk about the "fails" not being unique, but that seems to be how they get counted. Hope that helps.

ROBOCOPY summary says Dirs FAILED but shows no error messages

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