Has OneDrive gone insane?!

Kees · 2026-07-21T04:30:46-0400

Josey Wales said:
That is why there are Safety Deposit Boxes in Banks.

Did you hear about this?

The spectacular multimillion-euro heist nobody noticed
It has been described as Germany's most "spectacular" bank heist in years.

On a quiet weekend just after Christmas, a group of thieves broke into a High Street bank in the western town of Gelsenkirchen, by boring through a wall with an industrial drill.

They looted more than 3,000 safe deposit boxes and made off with millions of euros.

Germany's spectacular multimillion-euro heist nobody noticed

How did the thieves know exactly where the vault was and why did no-one hear the drill? Was it an inside job?

www.bbc.com

I would never trust my precious goods to a Safety Deposit Box in a bank!

Shambles Bank · 2026-07-21T04:35:42-0400

And some of the stuff in bank safety deposit boxes hasn't always come by legally. That's why on some of these jobs, the people who have lost stuff can't go to the police and complain for obvious reasons. It's called Karma.

Edwin · 2026-07-21T04:51:35-0400

Just bury your loot in the backyard!
My great great Grandfather's stuff is still there, 150 years old, untouched!

cheaterslick · 2026-07-21T05:59:53-0400

Edwin said:
Just bury your loot in the backyard!
My great great Grandfather's stuff is still there, 150 years old, untouched!

Better yet, give it all away to charity. That way you'll have nothing left to steal.

hader · 2026-07-21T07:30:21-0400

TairikuOkami said:
A few days I noticed that my 120GB system partition went from 20GB to 100GB. It was caused by 80GB of OneDrive's logs!

Code:

Obviously I removed it and since it repeats, I set it to remove it regularly. rd "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\OneDrive\logs" /s /q

Then my fans were running loud for days, I assumed it's due to hot weather, but I have just noticed CPU at 80% nonstop.
And yet again, it is caused by OneDrive's sync service. It has written 412GB to disk, just in 2 hours! I have 23GB files only.

I am not going to join that useless Onedrive discussion. It has it's pro and cons. You use it or not. Period.
[Note]
I don't pay for extra storage that the standard 5Gb that MS is offering. (Maybe you are using it in together with with a paid subscription of 365?) Data is mine and stays on other local locations. I don't like the idea of storing personal into someone's cloud for them for possible access it. (it's encrypted I know) That's my view on things. I make on a regular bases backup that are stored on a different location. Any Onedrive data (if any) is stored at a different location; C:\Users\<username>\Onedrive and is 550Mb in size. I store my real personal data (cataloged) on a USB3.2 512Gb stick together with drivers, knowledge base, document, pictures etc. standard Programs I install. *In my case*
[/Note]

Going back to the original post. As an .etl file keeps growing for unknow reason; something is taking measurements or reports errors. I can think of one thing. It's like the system logs. But those are .evtx files. .etl files are generated by internal windows processes and are hard to read. ADKsetup can read these files but you have to download also some .SQL binary's and library's. Tried that but it is to much work on a system that has no issues. Sorry.

If I look at this location I only see under Onedrive only a cache directory. I do use Onedrive but I keep it as empty as possible. So it stores a few documents, pictures, desktop links. Your situation is different then mine..... Hard to compare....

That size of 412Gb in just 2 hours is just ludicrous! No program can handle a binary logfile of that size. I know understand why you see a 80% Usage of your CPU. If it want to add 1 line it has to go through that 412Gb..... Even for Windows standards (format etc.) this is to much. Imagine the load on your system if it want to sync it to cloud on a regular basis. OneDrive is not designed to do that!! Your system is more busy with syncing that file into the cloud then it is doing something else. The main problem is now what does it contain and who is generated it? Further more there seems to be no cap on it's size. That is very strange! You should expect normally if a .etl reaches a certain file size it's reused again. (an .evtx file (eventviewer) uses caps so their sizes are limited.)

.etl files are very technical of nature. It contains a buch of question, answers and messages from the basic Windows core engine processes, services .etc. It also can contain measurement like usages of the CPU, timings etc.. As said earlier; hard to read.

If you deleted that large Gb file, wait util it reaches 5Mb. Open PS as admin and execute "Get-WindowsUpdateLog -IncludeAllLogs" Windows is gathering all .etl files and make an Updatelogs.xxxx directory onto your desktop. Inside it you will find 3 files; USO.log, UX.log and WindowsUpdate.log.
What is what?
- USO.log (Update Session Orchestrator): The "boss" scheduling when updates download and reboot.
- UX.log: The code handling what you see visually in the Settings app.
- WindowsUpdate.log: The engine doing the heavy lifting (talking to Microsoft servers).

Looking into these text files is.... Very hard to understand! Even for me! (Several processes talking to each other.....)
Try to filter some lines out of the log files;

This will show every event and that maybe to much. In my case I saw a lot of *FAILED* lines while nothing is wrong with my system. So use the ones that are important like Error or FATAL.
PS as Admin:

Code:

Select-String -Pattern "FATAL|FAILED|Error|Exit Code" -Path "C:\Users\<Username>\Path\UpdateLogs.xxxxxxxx.xxxxxx\UX.log" > C:\Users\<Userename>\Path\UpdateLogs.20260721.121727\failed.txt

Maybe the filtered output shows some Error that is there in very large numbers.....
The main purpose is where is it pointing at and who is generating these files and why?
Did you checked your system with "SFC /Scannow" and "DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth" to check if your installation is healthy? I suspect you have.... This is not an easy task to investigate..... It started at a certain moment. Did you made changes to your system? Did you scanned your PC for viruses etc.?

Josey Wales · 2026-07-21T07:54:46-0400

Kees said:
Did you hear about this?

Germany's spectacular multimillion-euro heist nobody noticed

How did the thieves know exactly where the vault was and why did no-one hear the drill? Was it an inside job?

www.bbc.com

I would never trust my precious goods to a Safety Deposit Box in a bank!

Yes but I do not live there, I do not have a Safe Deposit box. My backups are safe where they are. I am very well protected against any sort of robbery.

HeavyHemi · 2026-07-21T10:57:12-0400

Josey Wales said:
Yes but I do not live there, I do not have a Safe Deposit box. My backups are safe where they are. I am very well protected against any sort of robbery.

Do you practice what to do if there is an armed invader entering your domicile?

badrobot · 2026-07-21T10:59:35-0400

TraderGary said:
Seriously though, we had a home burglary 12 years ago and all my wife's jewelry and my computer and backups were stolen. Thankfully OneDrive was the offsite component of my backup strategy, and I didn't lose any data or photos.

I don't understand why burglars would steal backups. That is just hilarious. Unless they are on your PC.

pseymour · 2026-07-21T11:03:05-0400

I don't understand why burglars would steal backups. That is just hilarious. Unless they are on your PC.

TraderGary said:
Seriously though, we had a home burglary 12 years ago and all my wife's jewelry and my computer and backups were stolen. Thankfully OneDrive was the offsite component of my backup strategy, and I didn't lose any data or photos.

Josey Wales · 2026-07-21T11:09:54-0400

HeavyHemi said:
Do you practice what to do if there is an armed invader entering your domicile?

No need to practice, I have been trained in such things.

Scannerman · 2026-07-21T11:17:59-0400

hader said:
I am not going to join that useless Onedrive discussion. It has it's pro and cons. You use it or not. Period.

This is a common trend in the forum. The solution to the issue described in the OP was addressed on the first page. Sure. It would have been convenient if the original poster had marked the thread "solved" but this commonly doesn't happen. What often follows is a discussion triggered by the information presented in the original post.

I have recommended setting up a "Discussion" panel but it was only a suggestion. Threads that degrade into extended discussions are ubiquitous in all sorts of forums. Personally, I like the banter. Not only is it amusing and entertaining but there are also precious gems of information that tend to surface on occasion in the midst of these discussions.

Anyway, that's just my take on it. This is a great group, not too formal, not too chaotic, featuring some of the finest minds from all around the globe and unique individuals from undisclosed locations. (Rumour has it that there are aliens among us.) People from all walks of life post here and I find it fascinating given that I live in a fairly isolated area in North Western Canada.

As for the whole One Drive fiasco, I can only say that in most cases there is frequently more than one solution to a problem. One man's solution might be another man's problem. My own solution to One Drive is simply not to use it; but this is not an absolute. I still have some data on One Drive. Occasionally, I will put more there but the nature of the data is such that I wouldn't mind in the least bit if the whole world accessed it and used it. This of course, does not mean that I allow One Drive to inundate my network. Quite the contrary. This is the beauty of owning multiple PCs.

When any application consistently results in multiple issues the simple answer is to stop using it. Find something that works. For me, the whole OneDrive/Cloud thing was a consistent headache. There are also tutorials on how to deal with headaches of this sort posted in this forum in the tutorial section. For this I am truly grateful.

hader · 2026-07-21T11:19:49-0400

badrobot said:
I don't understand why burglars would steal backups. That is just hilarious. Unless they are on your PC.

Just that they can steal your personal data and empty your bankaccount. In practice a hard thing to do but not imposable with the right tools.

Has OneDrive gone insane?!

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