tl;dr: (most likely, but keep on reading)
- Set both
User Default * Sitetostudio-studio - Add
studioasAlternative sitestogdrive-sitesync - It will apply only on newly published files
Can freelancer publish something to test that theirs connection to GDrive works? (They can use Publisher in Tray and just upload some image.) That file should physically appear on GDrive (and freelancer should see 100%, 100% in Loader - changing context might be necessary.)
How does Loader look like for artist in the studio? (I am guessing a bit different white icon in Active site column - with 100%, and 0% for Remote site)
I am not sure if configuration under Under sitesync we have the following settings. The JSON file is distributed to the remote artist and is verified in the location is what you want, that would force everyone, even artists in studio using GDrive, bypassing your G:\ayon_test .
(It actually tells Site Sync “Artists are using studio as their active site, eg. they are publishing to G:/ folder which is available to them because of mounted disc, AND they should upload that to gdrive-sitesync”. The issue is that synchronization is always between 2 sites, but no artist Tray is called studio, each Tray has funny looking name, mine is greedy-wig-of-exception, so no one is actually uploading it from G:/ to the cloud. Why it is working for them is just side effect of that all of them have that G:/ mounted on their machines and synchronization is provided by third party Google Drive for Desktop. I am assuming that G:/ is mounted GD disk via Google Drive for Desktop or whatever they are calling it now.)
You want defaults to be User Default Active Site - ‘studio’ and User Default Remote Site - studio AND only freelancers should be pointed to configure their Site settings as it is under Below are the artist settings that looks correct.
What you are missing is set studio as Alternative site (next in gdrive-sitesync in second screenshot, see https://ayon.ynput.io/docs/addon_site_sync_admin#alternative-sites).
With a combination of User Default * Site studio-studio it would mean that studio artists would publish to G:/ drive where upload to Google Drive is handled by synchronization tool provided by Google Drive for Desktop (skipping Ayon integration).
They should handle G:/ as regular shared studio drive (without Google Drive, just regular mounted NAS), Their Ayon Trays are not caring nor handling synchronization to Google Drive.
That Alternative site would mark published product to be on sites studio AND magically on gdrive-sitesync (which are actually both physically same location).
This should then show remote freelancers to have that products accessible on their Remote site (eg. 100% in that column in Loader.)
Here should be introduction to Site Sync (from Openpype, eg. differently looking Settings)
which could provide additional information.
I would also recommend to starting ayon_console.exe --debug which should provide more logging.
(Btw. if you have something already published and then you would set up Site Sync, it would manifest only for newly published products. I would need to provide you with some database query to bump all old published files to be also accessible on gdrive-sitesync, which they physically are, but Ayon Site Sync doesn’t now about it.)