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Dimples
4 years agoHelpful | Level 5
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'...
- 2 years ago
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
2 years agoAllow me then to share the response here as well:
A change was made recently which surfaces these issues in Dropbox's Sync issues UI, but this specific issue previously existed before that recent change.
When Dropbox on macOS uses File Provider, macOS specifies certain filenames types that they will ignore, including filenames ending in a '~'. This ignore list is built-into macOS. Because of this, Dropbox can't sync files that match one of these ignored filename patterns.
If you have a file that matches this ignore list in your Dropbox on our servers (maybe you uploaded it from a different device for instance), we cannot download that file onto a device running macOS. It is still safe on Dropbox's servers. You can either ignore the warning or you can remove the file from your Dropbox through the website if you don't want to sync it to any of your devices.
mdraznin
2 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Copying and pasting that “answer” here is not resolving this problem. You’re here to understand and resolve customers’ - who pay lots of $$ and most are long time users- problems. C’mon Dropbox. Get someone on this problem who will interact here with solutions IRT and get this resolved. This prob has been going on for years now. That’s unacceptable. Pointing us to another thread is equally unacceptable.
- dsspiegel2 years agoHelpful | Level 6
Megan The claim that this is not a new issue is surprising to me.
I can see these files sync'd on dropbox from years ago. Did File Provider only recently start ignoring files ending in the ~ character? Because I have a file from a year ago that ends in ~ and is in Dropbox in the cloud, but I'm suddenly getting an error about it.
Also, what is the problem with the file .problem.c.swp? The error message suggests that the period character is an "incompatible character", but ... that can't be the case, as many many files have a period in the name. In that case as well, the files are on Dropbox from years ago (2013!) but I suddenly started getting an error message about them last week.
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