My observation is not that OneDrive “pauses” before syncing an RM database. Rather, it is that OneDrive recognizes that an RM file is an SQLite database that is open and therefore does not sync the database until it is closed. That may seem like a distinction without a difference, but see below for more details.
Indeed, this very second I hovered over the OneDrive icon in the Windows system tray and it reported that OneDrive was active and up to date. It definitely was not paused. I immediately clicked rather than hovered on the same OneDrive icon and a OneDrive status window opened. It reported two sync issues with OneDrive where OneDrive was not able to sync a file. One sync issue was that the file jerryrm7.rmgc was in use and could not be synced and the other sync issue was the file jerryrm8.rmtree was in use and could not be synced.
That simply means that my RM7 database is open and that my RM8 database also is open. OneDrive is saying it cannot sync either one of those databases until after I close them. That’s very different than me pausing OneDrive or OneDrive pausing itself. Which is to say that OneDrive continues to sync all other files in my OneDrive folder provided that they are not SQLite databases as are my RM7 and RM8 files.
The same thing happens with any file that is open for output. OneDrive will not try to sync a file while it is open for output. I can’t speak for every piece of software in the world, but many apps such as Microsoft Excel do not keep the current file open for output while you are updating the file. Rather, they open the file for output only during a File=>Save operation. The rest of the time that you are working on the file and updating it, what you are working on and updating is a copy of the file in memory, not the copy of the file on the disk and the file does not remain open continuously for output. And for most files most of the time, the File=>Save operation is extremely brief. So after the File=>Save operation and while you are still working on the file, OneDrive will do a sync. The sync will usually be so fast you never notice it happened. And in any case, there is no conflict with your editing operation in an Excel file and the OneDrive sync operation.
Essentially what OneDrive is doing is treating an SQLite database as if it’s open for output the whole time it’s open. By contrast, Dropbox does not treat an SQLite database as if open for output the whole time it’s open. The result is that Dropbox tries to sync an RM database anytime the database is changed. And an RM database can be changed by trivial user activity that doesn’t really change anything significant. Simply highlighting a different person can be a “change” to an RM database. The result of using Dropbox with an open RM database will be excessive disk I/O, excessive network activity between your computer and the Dropbox servers, and in worse case corruption of your RM database.
I used Dropbox with RM for years safely, but only because I paused Dropbox manually any time I used RM. But I now keep my RM databases in my OneDrive folder without pausing OneDrive and without any problems whatsoever.
I can’t speak to how iCloud, IDrive, Google Drive or any other similar service interacts with RM databases because I don’t use them. They may interact with RM databases more like OneDrive or more like Dropbox. Or there may be some secret option #3 about how they interact with RM databases.
By the way, I don’t think Microsoft’s OneDrive developers are any smarter than are the Dropbox developers. Rather, Microsoft’s Visual Studio product starting using SQLite databases in the Visual Studio 2015 version. I think what happened is that Microsoft discovered a conflict between Visual Studio 2015 and OneDrive and that they fixed the conflict by having OneDrive recognize when SQLite databases are open and not syncing them until they close. I don’t know if OneDrive does anything special for Microsoft Access databases or for any other databases.
I’m a heavy user of Visual Studio. I upgraded from Visual Studio 2010 to Visual Studio 2019 in 2019. At that time, I discovered that I needed to move my Visual Studio projects out of Dropbox and into OneDrive. Visual Studio was even more sensitive to performance issues and data corruption issues from Dropbox than was RM. And I wanted my Visual Studio files synced while I was working so I didn’t want to pause Dropbox. Moving my Visual Studio files to OneDrive was a perfect solution and it also works well for RM files.
It’s pretty clear to me that Dropbox pretty well tries to sync all files continuously all the time. I don’t know for sure but I suspect that Dropbox doesn’t play well with Microsoft Access database files or any other database files. And as I said, I don’t know how the sync products that I have not used handle SQLite databases or any other kinds of databases that are updated continuously rather than going through a File=>Save.