Rsync has been regularly used to backup files in the home directory on a Linux desktop to a FAT32 USB stick.

Recently rsync has stalled due to problems with Service Worker and Local Storage files being transferred from
the home directory to the stick.

These files were deleted and rsync then rerun.

Rsync then stalled and produced many error messages of the form :-

rsync: chgrp
<file> failed:
Operation not permitted (1)

where <file> represents a filename.

The rsync command is of the form :-

rsync -v -a --max-size=4GB --delete <home directory> .
<mount point> .

where <home directory> represents the home directory and <mount point> represents
the mount point.

I realise that FAT32 knows nothing about permissions, etc.,
but the above command has worked successfully on previous occasions.

Why are the above error messages appearing ?

Do they have anything to do with the Service Worker and Local Storage files which had been created on the
USB stick in the previous run of rsync ?

What is the best thing to do to get rsync working okay again ?

N.B. I don't want to change the rsync command in any way.

Would it be okay to delete all the files currently on the stick and then rerun rsync ?

sounds like the stick might be on it's way out.

Is selinux enabled? Operation permitted seems to indicate denial by a process and not simple permissions.

Try erasing everything on the usb stick then rerun rsync. A clean new copy should work.

If erasing the data from the usb stick cannot be done then the stick may be failing, but try that first.

I have had another problem with rsync hanging. This time there is no error
message. Rsync simply stops at a small file.

Would using NTFS rather than FAT32 help ?

I would try ext4 but the files may need to be read on a Windows system.

The USB stick is quite new, so I doubt if there is a problem with the stick itself.

Rsync has been run okay on a new FAT32 stick, using the command i previously reported
(the -a option is retained).

(a) I propose to put all the files on the current new stick
into a new directory (using mv *.* backup-dir) outside of my
home directory and then run rsync again on the stick.


Presumably the new run of rsync would delete backup-dir
(as this doesn't exist in my home directory) and then just
copy over all the home directory files again to the stick.


Would rsync run okay on the same stick using step (a) on a periodic basis ?

rsync only deletes if you use that option. You do have several variants of the delete option and can delete on the source or destination depending on your wishes.