TerraMaster Forum

Fault phenomenon
Multiple disks that have separately installed TOS are installed together. Each volume has a folder with the same name, and you can view only one of the folders.

Applicable model
All TNAS models

TOS 5 solution
If Volumes 1 and 2 both have public shared folder, the public shared folder in volume 2 cannot be displayed: 1.Go to Control Panel >Scheduled Tasks> Create a customized plan, select the super administrator and run the script to fill in the following information: 2.After the task is enabled, execute a task. After the task is executed, refresh the page to view the renamed shared folder. 3.Edit the shared folder permission after the name is changed.

TOS 4 Solution
If both Volume 1 and Volume 2 have public shared folder, the data of the public shared folder in Volume 2 cannot be viewed:
1.Go to TOS Control Panel> Shared folder >Advanced>Select Restore to the volume where the shared folder is located that cannot be seen. 2.Select Restore to Volume 2, and then copy or cut the data from the public shared folder to another shared folder.
3. Restore to Volume 1.

I was interested in this thread because I have a brand new F2-424 with a NVMe as boot/OS drive (Volume1) and wish to have a shared folder named "Public" on my HHD1 (Volume2) but can't natively because the name is already in use on Volume1. (In fact, I don't care whether Volume1 has a Public folder as it's for Admin use only). The rename option for the Shared Folder "public" is greyed out in TOS (5, and 6) by default and can't be unlocked even by SuperAdmin — so I was curious whether I could rename it via SSH and this thread shows it should be possible to do it via a custom script within Scheduled Tasks. In fact, I've just got it working, so thank you for the explanation here!

So what is the reason for TOS 'locking' the 'public' folder on Volume1 by default? On one hand why does TM assume all customers want to have a folder on Volume1 named "public" (shouldn't that be up to the admin?) and on the other, we have proven it's possible that 2 folders on different volumes can both use the same name, whether that is 'public' or anything else.

In my case, the reason I wanted to do what I did was I am migrating from an old WD MyBookLive (single-drive NAS) which had, by default, the public share set to "192.168.x.x/PUBLIC/" and I have numerous PCs, TVs, multimedia players, and mobile devices that have that mapped as a shared folder/remote drive — so by creating a public share on my HDD1's Volume2 with that same name, I now do not have to manually change the settings on every device that had that address preassigned.

It wouldn't have been a huge issue to work around had I not found your solution in this thread but for new customers, encountering what seems like a pointless "roadblock" is frustrating and detracts from the TM migration experience. I'd much preferred to have been able to do with the original 'public' folder as I wished, even if changing or deleting it prompted an advisory warning, were that deemed necessary.

DanielB wrote: ↑30 Jul 2024, 17:26

That's the only way to adjust it for now.
We will discuss possible related optimizations in the future.

I forgot to update this thread at the time but a few months ago, after a TOS6 Beta update, my /Volume2/PUBLIC folder disappeared from TOS and I had to do a manual Restore as described in the TMRyan's instructions - easily done and I knew what to do so just a minor inconvenience. But then another Beta update went completely wrong and the system would not even initialize; when I finally found a way to overcome this and got the update installed, my Volume/PUBLIC was missing again but this time it wouldn't even come back after running the Restore command. I tried a few things, unsuccessfully, and was actually worried that I'd have to install some file recovery utility.

If I remember correctly, I was able to get it back by going through the process again, renaming Volume1's public folder temporarily via SSH, then rebooting and doing a Restore. At long last, I could now see my Volume2 folder /PUBLIC (now lowercase "/public" for some reason).

I decided that it wasn't worth the inconvenience and renamed my Volume2 folder "TNAS-PUBLIC". Doing so meant I had to remap shares on every computer and device on my network, which was a big task, and the reason I'd originally looked for an alternative solution. I finally fixed what I hope was the last remaining filepath issue last night (manually set filepaths within Kodi app that had been popping up unhelpful messages for weeks).

I suspect if I had stuck with the Volume2/PUBLIC setup, it wouldn't have been a continual issue but I do still wonder if my TOS update issue was the result of having a non-standard folder configuration.

DanielB wrote: ↑29 Oct 2024, 06:29

TOS does not support displaying the topmost folders (shared folders) of the same name on different volumes at the same time.
Regarding the problem you encountered, we will discuss and try to make some optimizations in future versions.

i had the same issue, having a public shared folder on my Volume1 that's a 256GB Nvme for OS, apps, databases and VMs. And i really wanted to have Public on one of my HDD volumes, and all devices on network my being set up to use \\NASName\Public

i tried the "restore shared folder" function, but that didn't seem to change anything

please consider this a feature request

In TOS6, you can redefine the location (volume) of the public.
Note that if the target volume already has invisible publics containing data, it is recommended that you try to back up the data first.
If you need to upgrade to TOS6, please pay attention to the update announcement.viewforum.php?f=28