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Couln't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename
Recently all of my computer with Dropbox have started showing a sync error "Couln't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename. e.g. emojis, /\"<>:|?*"
The problem filename isn'...
Hey Roy2010, no worries let me share Sam's response here as well.
Hi everyone,
Sharing an update on the topic: our team is working on adjusting this, and it's expected to roll out in our next Stable Build (V190).
You can check our releases here, and we'll keep you informed on the progress.
Thanks,
Sam
I appreciate your patience on this, thank you!
Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorHi Gabrielle Neal, welcome to our Dropbox Community!
Keep in mind that the syncing issue you described is most likely due to the OS on your device.
It's not coming directly from Dropbox, but some operating systems have certain characters that they don't accept.
You'd need to rename these files via the website, and they'd then sync without any problems.
You can see more about this right here.
I hope this clarifies things.
Keep in mind that the syncing issue you described is most likely due to the OS on your device.
It's not coming directly from Dropbox, but some operating systems have certain characters that they don't accept.
You'd need to rename these files via the website, and they'd then sync without any problems.
You can see more about this right here.
I hope this clarifies things.
Thanks Megan,
I have done as suggested.
My question is HOW did this happen to files that have previously synced fine.
These are HISTORIC files, not something loaded in the last week, and they were fine when they loaded.
I actually don't know how they were ever created on any computer with invalid characters.
Majority of them had a : in the file name.
I have worked with computer a long time and this character has never been allowed by PC or Mac.
The only thing done differently this last fortnight is I upgraded to Windows 11 and then changed my mind when things stopped working. I have since gone back to Windows 10.
Next idea please.
Same here, some of these files go back 10+ years and all of a sudden it's an issue? I know Dropbox hires some of the most talented programmers on the planet. The interface that is presented to us is clumsy to even begin attempting to change hundreds of files. "Go to file" for each and every file is extremely unrealistic. It actually opens each file in a new browser window ... yes we're inside the file. We don't need to be inside the file in order to rename the file. Who designed that interface should spend a week using his/her creation and see how painful it is to use. DropBox should present an interface of all offending files like in an explorer/finder window that would allow us to multi-select and run a REGEX-based script to remove the offending characters. /\."<>:|?* C'mon DropBox, you can do better than this!
OMG, yes, this!
Dumb interface for figuring out what's wrong with hundreds of my files that synced just fine (some for years) but suddenly today are a problem fror DropBox. And, the few "problem" files that I looked at have nothing but the letters a-z and a few spaces.
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