Many Google Drive migration errors relate to Google Drive’s unique characteristics, such as specific metadata properties applied to files, folders and Google docs, duplicated files with the same IDs found in multiple locations throughout the tenant, or rate limiting errors. Sections below cover Google-specific issues and contexts.

Metadata, ownership, and permissions errors

No permission to download a file

This error typically occurs in the following scenario:

A file is shared with a user through a domain link or group.
The user mounts the file on their /My Drive.
The user does not have permission to download the file. This may be due to the ACL for viewer or commenter permissions. Also, the user might not have access to list permissions. As a result, Box Shuttle doesn’t know whether the user has write access to the file.

Failed to export file size

Google Docs and Google Sheets might experience the following export errors:

Google Docs: Failed to export file size: Forbidden.
Google Sheets: Failed to export file size: Bad request.

The root cause is the same.

Google file is shared with a user who does not have permission to export it. This frequently happens with Google files that are shared through read-only domain links.
The user mounts that file on their /My Drive.
Box Shuttle tries to export the file. However, Google returns a 403 error and the above message.

The owner of the file has export permission. The owner often has that same file located in their /My Drive directory. In this case, the file can be exported with no permission issues through that account.

The Failed to export file size: Forbidden error also occurs when transferring Google Docs from a suspended user namespace.

File not found

These files have two main characteristics.

Source Account, or owner of the file, is different from the namespace ID, or namespace in the file location.
Google field capabilities_canMoveItemOutOfDrive is set to false.

The namespace user does not have permission to move the file out the current /My Drive location and cannot transfer the file. Remediating the break in ownership may resolve the issue.

User does not have permission to read revisions of a shared file

Similar to File Not Found, the namespace and account users are different. In this case, the Google field capabilities_canReadRevisions is set to false, so the namespace user cannot read the versions of the file.

The authenticated user does not have the required access to a file

This issue may come from several causes. It is a common variant of the User does not have permission to read revisions of this shared file error.

Duplicate files errors

These issues are related to duplicate files in Google Drive.

Shared files are not included

Files and folders on Google Drive can be shared out with other users. These appear in the users Shared with Me drive. However, these items can be mounted in the contributor’s /My Drive location.

When the contributor mounts the shared file or folder on their own /My Drive, it exists in two distinct physical locations: the owner’s /My Drive and the contributor’s /My Drive.

Box Shuttle transfers a single instance of each item, shares it with the applicable additional users, and filters out any additional instances of that item with the error message Shared files are not included. This eliminates data duplication on the target as well as excess byte transfer charges.

Transferring files that have duplicate names

Two entirely different files with different IDs may exist in the same location. For example, /My Drive/GoogleDoc and /My Drive/GoogleDoc can be in the same namespace, but be completely different files with different content.

In this case, the first document is transferred with the original path and the second document is transferred with the file ID appended to the file name. This allows Box Shuttle to sync the two documents correctly.

Rate Limiting errors

Google Drive rate limiting

Google Drive jobs may experience rate limiting, however, your request may be partially or completely denied at Google’s discretion. Box is not responsible for Google’s response.

Errors resulting from Rate Limiting, such as ENOTFOUND and ETIMEDOUT, may mean the affected files can transfer when the job is run again.

The following items need more requests and may increase the rate limiting incidences.

Files and folders with extensive sharing, about 25 or more collaborators per item.
- The item transfers; however, some or all of the sharing may not be included,
- The item displays in the transfer report as partial-success because not all sharing is applied.

Many Google Docs migrations and file sharing transfers run without issue. For many issues, the following measures help resolve rate limiting.

Run Google Drive jobs after normal business hours, or when users are not accessing Google Drive.
If you are running a job with permissions, transfer the data in a data only job on one run, and apply the collaborator permissions in a separate job.
In the event that you do hit a quota, you may not see any progress on your job for several hours, but that does not mean the job is not active. Shuttle will regularly check on whether the quota has expired, and resume transfer when it does. So you are better off just letting the job continue to run even if the transfer rate flatlines.
If your jobs appear to have rate limiting with errors or high retry rates, attempt to divide the job into smaller jobs.

Several types of rate limit errors occur in Google Drive. Most affected files and their permissions transfer on re-run. Situations where Google Docs have extensive commenters may require a third attempt. These are not permanent errors and often resolve through repeated attempts.

Access denied

This error in most cases is a rate limiting error. With Google rate limits, 403 errors are returned instead of a 429 error. These errors frequently resolve on re-run when caused by rate limiting.

Export errors

Failed to export file size: File too large

The exporting API provided by Google supports a max size of 10MB for the exported file. Google Docs greater than this export size generate an error. These must be divided into smaller files to export.

File format cannot be migrated

Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Draw, and other Google apps can be exported. Google Forms, Maps and other apps cannot be migrated and are filtered out.

Internal server error

Some files may experience Internal Server errors on export - especially Google Sites. Confirm if a downloadable file exports and experiences an error. Many Internal Server errors are persistent. These files cannot be exported and are not transferable.

Access errors

No support for the Google Drive app

The user may not have the Google Drive app enabled for their account. Confirm the user’s app listing at admin.google.com. If the Google Drive app is not enabled, they do not have any storage space enabled. In addition, Box Shuttle does not support external owners or collaborators.
Note: Box Shuttle cannot access the data if the drive is not activated. Data may still be available and transferable if the drive is reactivated.