I have isolated the problem source specifically to AnkiHub syncing, not AnkiWeb.
I have ~14,900 unused media files (~2 GB) associated with my decks. With automatic AnkiHub syncing turned off, I can delete the unused files, remove them from the trash, and after all my devices sync with AnkiWeb, I can confirm the files are gone.
However, when I attempt to manually sync with AnkiHub, these same unused files immediately begin to download. So, if I want to stay up-to-date with the latest deck updates, I’m forced to keep this large cache of unused media.
Additional context: Using the overhaul deck, I have nearly all fields protected other than text, extra, sketchy, IO.
I don’t understand why this is occurring, and would prefer to free up the storage space considering these media files are no longer relevant to my cards. Any thoughts or help you can offer would be appreciated!
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The developers have been notified of this issue and we will be implementing a fix for this in the future!
You are correct in that this is caused by AnkiHub, due to how the add-on handles media syncing, but this is not ideal and we want to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future
has this issue been resolved ? i tried deleting sketchy media and protected those fields but they keep on getting downloaded. protecting fields only does the work of not showing those media in the respective fields but they still get downloaded and show up on missing media! I have no use of sketchy media so i tried to delete them by batch edit addon and then replacing the sketchy field with nothing and then going foreword i protected the sketchy field but again on syncing those media files start getting downloaded ! As of now I have unsubscribed from the Anking step deck so that with each sync they don’t start getting downloaded .I hope this issue gets resolved asap! I think it is something with the protect field action - it only keeps the media files from showing in the respective fields …it does not altogether keep them from downloading!
Thanks for the quick reply Brian. That is most unfortunate.
I hope this issue gets prioritised, after all what would be the point of utilising the field protection feature if Ankihub just completely ignores it and resyncs the deleted media anyway?
The field protection feature was designed to protect the field from being edited or altered by AnkiHub (ie if you wanted to add images, or alter them, etc.), but had not initially been implemented with the idea of preventing sync, or controlling which media is synced, for better or worse
The devs are aware of it, though, I know that much. Hopefully it’s high on the priority list relative to the other tasks in front of them and I can return good news for you sooner than later.
But, I will make a note to share an announcement upon update of anything reportable, though, just to make sure that everyone is availed of news once there is some to share.
