When using google drive to sync to your computer, this will lag sketchup every 2 seconds or so you will experience a lag, at least this is what happens on my end. When I use one drive, I’ve never had this issue. It’s too bad, because I refuse to use overly complicated microsoft apps anymore, so recently I’ve switched everything over to google workspace… If you’re experiencing this issue, close google drive from running and you will notice the lag completely disappear…
Does anyone know of a good work around for this where I want to sync my computer files to my google drive and have a non laggy sketchup?
This thread can also be a place for us to discuss other issues known with google drive or online cloud storage and how it effects sketchup.
Best approach is to download the SketchUp file or better, the whole project folder including LayOut files completely to a non-synced location and then do your thing.
It’s really tempting to open files directly, but bound to have error’s eventually, especially when collaborating.
Thanks for that suggestion Anssi, this issue has sparked me to look into drop box, drop box seems to have a lot of extra benefits over google drive, so I might make the switch to that. I will keep it in mind though for sure, thank you.
There is much more at stake than the lags you experience. The statistics I just invented say that 87.23% of the file corruption reported here on the forum has happened to files saved to the cloud or synced there. I have no idea if the same happens to users of other software who store large files in the cloud or if SketchUp has something in the way it writes files, or if having Autosave on or off has a part.
Well I wonder why the lag just completely dissapears once I exit google drive on my computer… How is your connection synced? One way, two way? I’m not sure how the syncing options work, I’ll look into it now… I’m curious how you’ve got it setup though…
EDIT: Oh I guess you just said it, you have it set to backup and sync periodically? Maybe it’s because mine is syncing all the time… I’ll have to check my settings…
I’m using the My computer (Folders from your computer) option…
Don’t know how it works but I guess Google is monitoring the folders that I am backing up to Drive and when it detects a changed file it will back it up.
So every time I hit save some moments later I notice the file has been backed up.
Just clicked on the Google Drive option and I can see the options for streaming or mirroring.
Never dived into that but I just have a feeling that it’s gonna cause issues - as can most likely be borne out by this forum?
I’ll just second that we do repeatedly see unrecoverable file corruption here on the forum caused by working on files opened directly from a cloud drive. Best guess appears to be an unlucky interaction of SU autosave and the sync process overlapping, but when it does happen the file is no longer openable and is not recoverable.
I use Google Drive as well as Trimble Connect to share, but I always sync manually, your milage may vary.
Any ‘streaming’ will cause issues eventually, since the upload speed is always different compared to the download speed of your connection.
If you have installed the ‘Google drive’ and save/open from that location, which is basically a shortcut like Onedrive or DropBox, and have ‘Create backup’ in the Preferences enabled, the system has four temp files to cope with, two for downloading and two for uploading the last version (sync software always creates temporary files in case anything goes wrong.
This might cause the lag experienced.
If in the meantime someone else (or yourself on a different device) is trying to open it or leave a file open, which happens mostly on Mac, btw, things can get screwed up real easy, and this chance is exponentially with the file size.
Autosaves will create temp files in the working directory, so probably they won’t have affect on the uploading speed or connectivity with the cloud location.
If you have material and component libraries in a cloud location and open those locations in the panels, it usually works well for those files are downloaded only and aren’t that big.
Opening working files on the otherhand is not the safest way to go along, that’s why it’s not recommended and the advice is given to download the file first, and then open it.
Which is exactly what Trimble Connect is doing when you open a model from their cloud. It doesn’t create a backup that needs uploading, SketchUp hauls untill the download is in it’s memory and then you start editing.
Yes so I’ve just found the issue that on my google drive I have it set to streaming, where I need to save my files to the computer locally and than get google drive to sync my local computer files to the cloud, so I have now set it to mirror in my google drive desktop settings and the lag has completely dissapeared. @Andries
Yes, I believe you download the file when you drag it from the Google Drive directory to somewhere on your computer’s hard disk. Wherever you have or create a folder for SketchUp files. When you’re done you can drag a copy back. If you want to have a version trail, do Save As or Save a Copy as and add version numbers to the files. If you drag back a copy with the exact same name, it probably asks if you want to overwrite the one already there.
I find iCloud confusing because it moves the file when you drag it, not just up/download a copy.
