A Brief Guide To Troubleshooting Google Drive For Desktop

For fixing sync and other issues in the Google Drive desktop version for Windows, it can be useful to generate the diagnostics report for reference or directly send a problem report to Google.

Google Drive sync issues

Before doing that though, you can first try these basic troubleshooting tips when connected to the Internet:

Close and restart Google Drive: Close and restart the Google Drive desktop version. To do that, click on the gear icon from the Google Drive icon in the system tray. Then select Exit.

exit Google Drive desktop

 

Pause and Resume sync: This is often useful when files seem stuck during sync. Click on the gear icon and choose Pause syncing.

Pause syncing in Google Drive for desktop

Then, enable back the syncing by choosing Resume syncing.

Resume syncing in Google Drive for desktop

Disconnect: Log out or disconnect your Google account from Google Drive and then log back in. For that, again go to Preferences.

accessing Google Drive preferences

Then click on the gear icon from the Preferences window.

Google Drive preferences

Click on the Disconnect account link.

disconnect account

Then sign in again and check if the errors are still there.

Restart PC: Restart your computer.

Reinstall Google Drive: Uninstall and reinstall the Google Drive desktop version.

The above methods would usually fix most of the Google Drive issues.

sync issues fixed for Google Drive desktop

However, if the issues persist after trying these fixes, then you can create diagnostics report or send a problem report. Here is how:

Manually generating the diagnostics report:

Left-click on the Google Drive icon from the system tray.

Google Drive icon from system tray

Hold down the Shift key and then click on the gear icon. Doing this will show a few additional options like Enable verbose logging, Generate diagnostic info, and Reset User Preferences.

Shift button enables diagnostics options

 

Click on Generate diagnostic info. Wait for a notification to appear under the Notifications tab.

Diagnostic info generated for Google Drive desktop

It will only appear after the diagnostics information is created and stored as a zip file on the Desktop. Extract it if you would like to see what it contains.

contents of the diagnostic reports for Google Drive desktop

Directly sending the problem report:

Without manually creating the diagnostics information too, you can send a problem report. To do that, click on the Google Drive icon and then on the gear icon. There is no need to hold down the Shift key for this.

Feedback for Google Drive desktop

From the menu, click on Send Feedback. A form is displayed. Include the error details and enable the option Include diagnostics logs.

filling the feedback form

You can also enable the option of being contacted by email if required. Click on the Submit button to send the problem report.

feedback form submitted for Google Drive desktop

 

Happy syncing.

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