Properties counts between 2 Files tabs lately discrepant by one, unknown why
I copy folders and then get different item counts between original and copy. The difference is one, but I can't figure out which one or why.
Steps to reproduce:
- Don't open any app known to create a temp file that is auto-deleted when closed, so that a temp file doesn't affect item counts during this process.
- Open Files (Nautilus) app, lately version 3.30.5-stable on a Fedora 29 Linux laptop kept evergreen.
- Open a second tab in Files.
- Mount a flash thumb drive.
- Display the flash drive's root-level contents in the first Files tab.
- Point the Files app's second tab at the boot drive's (hard drive's) Documents directory, which (in my case) contains a directory for my local backups, which (in my case) contains a subsirectory for the latest date-time (in this case, <2019-02-11-a>). Open the subdirectory; it is empty.
- Select everything in my flash drive's root level and copy it all.
- Into the other tab, paste everything. I had over 20,000 items, so I allowed time.
- If you're asked whether to replace an existing file, while this is peculiar since there shouldn't have been anything to paste over, click Replace.
- When pasting is done, so that, as far as you know, all files have been copied, in each Files tab context-click (usually right-click) folders, select Properties, and await item counts. You can 't do this for sibling folders at once but you can do it for a parent folder to get an item count of all its contents. Compare results for the 2 tabs.
What I got:
At each root, I had 3 folders. Item counts were identical for 2 in each tab, and those 2 were fairly small (3,677 and 331 items). For the third in each tab, the count was over 20,000 and the discrepancy was one item, the copy being smaller by exactly one. Everywhere I checked, including by drilling down, item counts by either Properties or partial eyeballing were identical.
The aforementioned dialog (asking about replacing) named note-supp-including-via-Microsoft-Word.txt in the root of the folder with the discrepancy, thus making that write-enabled (unlocked) old zero-byte file a suspect. I copied it by itself, but the Properties count for the parent folder was still discrepant. I added a character to the original, thus making it a 2-byte file (I guess due to an EOL character being added), and re-copied the original to overwrite the destination, but still got the discrepancy. I cold-booted with a 15-30-second power-off state to flush RAM residuals but still got the discrepancy.
I can't do byte counts, since the 2 media likely have different sector sizes. Since there are so many items, I don't know if one count is undercounting or if the other count is overcounting. This also happened a few weeks ago, but didn't happen before that. When it last happened, I probably had backed up to a different flash rather than to the hard drive, but the two flashes have different total capacities and thus likely have different sector sizes, preventing byte counts. I have used the destination flash and the laptop for at least about a year and the source flash for longer, so the hardware is not suspect. It hasn't been long since I reinstalled Fedora 29. I keep my laptop evergreen, and I don't recall if the Files app was recently upgraded. I guess the problem is with Files or F29, in that order of likelihood.
Testing in an unstable version is not feasible for me. I'm not set up for that.
What I expect: Resumption of identical item counts via Properties in both Files tabs when visual item counts are apparently identical.