FAQ

The service polybox is a Sync & Share storage that is easy to use and a fast way to share files with other ETH members or externals.

The service polybox is available to all ETH members. This includes students, staff, faculty, ETH-related, ETH guests & emeriti.

Your polybox directory is limited to 50 GB and a maximum of 150’000 files and directories (inodes).

In case you’re running out of space you can request an extension of your quota over the IT-Shop. If you’re not running out of space, but need an increasement to upload a certain dataset, please provide the details of the dataset that you want to upload (size and number of objects).

All objects (files/folders) on polybox are stored on the ITS central storage systems on the campus.

You can use polybox using:

• The Web Client
• The Sync Client
• The Android Application
• The iOS Application

No.  The service polybox is not a backup solution.

• Changes you make in one place are synchronized to other places which means that if you accidentally remove or overwrite a file on your local system, polybox will remove it from the server.

• If a file gets corrupted at one place the corrupted file gets distributed to other places.

• The ‘previous files’ and ‘undelete’ functionality of polybox is merely meant as a convenience and should never be relied upon as a backup function. Algorithms are in place that clean up ‘old files’ and thus, changes will get lost over time.

If you are looking for a backup solution, please check the Backup & Restore service of ETH here.

To access polybox you need your ETH username and your password for web applications (LDAP).

• ETH users can change their password via Web Center – polybox uses the password for web services (LDAPS).
• EMPA users can change their password via SWITCHaai site

Your files are securely transferred to the polybox servers using the SSL protocol (HTTPS). The files are stored on the ITS storage on the campus. The connection and the storage can be seen as secure.

The BOT guidelines apply to polybox, see documentation.

When your ETH account gets deleted (~ 6 months), your files on polybox get erased too. See the “Leaving ETH” information.

You can easily share files or folders with somebody who is using SWITCHdrive or another service which is based on ownCloud or Nextcloud. How to do this is described in Sharing – Federated Sharing

This is a known problem when using the Internet Explorer / Microsoft Edge browser.

You can:

• Rename the file from “man” to “msi”.
• Download the Sync Client with another browser (for example Google Chrome/Mozilla Firefox).
• Change the security settings in your browser.

This error normally shows up when an unsupported Sync Client is trying to connect to the server. The version of the Sync Client is too old and not compatible with the server version anymore.

If you are getting this error message, please update the Sync Client to the latest version here.

You are using a Guest account and guests can only work in shares of other people. If you have an ETH account you are currently connected with a wrong user. Please log out of the guest account and login with you ETH username to get to your real account. If you have any shares on your guest account please ask the owner to share them with the right account. To avoid issues please open a ticket at servicedesk@id.ethz.ch so that we can delete the wrong guest account. Depending on the used email address you could have issues if you have a guest account besides a “normal” ETH account. Also if you continue to have two accounts people will probably share with the guest account instead of your ETH account.

You can try the following:

1. Open your Sync Client and click on the button “Account”. There you can click on “Log out”.
2. Open your browser and login to https://polybox.ethz.ch. 
3. After the login click on your name on the top right and afterwards go to “Settings”.
4. On the settings page you will see on the left “Security”. Click on that and a new page will load.
5. Here on the security page please delete (by clicking on the trashbin icon) everything under “OAuth 2.0” and under “Browser”. Please note that this will also delete sessions from other devices, so if you have another Sync Client on another computer you will need to login again there as well.
6. Log out from polybox in your browser now.
7. After this is done go back to the Sync Client and click on the “Account” button again. This time you can click afterwards on “Log in”.
8. A browser window will be opened and you can login with your account there. The Sync Client afterwards should start syncing normally again.

With these steps a clean connection is done and you should not be asked to sign in every time again.