Dropbox is stuck syncing after an update, what can I do?

Well, I'm kind amazed.

I came to my computer earlier this morning after reading about the 89.x update.  Dropbox wasn't even running on my computer, so I launched it to see what version I had.   It was 89.x, and at startup it looked like the last version, thousands of file indexing and downloading. 

It stayed that way until about a half an hour ago, then I had a major burst of system activity and those index/sync numbers started to come down, and finally I'm back to showing perfectly in sync.

I sure wish we had an explanation as to what was wrong to begin with -- the release notes for 89.x mention nothing about the problems I and others had.  Obviously something significant broke and got fixed.

I too would like to add that after an automatic update to 89.4.278, followed by continued crashing, and then a reinstallation of the same version, the situation has stabilized and Dropbox has now stayed in sync (and updates changes) for over 24 hours. The memory consumption is higher than before but it stays at least on the same level instead of climbing continuously.

Thank you for posting about this DanielJ.

AOW1 Located your already escalated case, so since you already have specialized members of my team working with you there I am unable to provide extra steps on my end. However, I see you responded there today and I added feedback and your latest update to 89.4 for my cooleagues to follow up as soon as possible.  

Fiona AOW1 I also had "my case turned over to a specialized team"...like days ago. Yesterday I asked them if they could reply. I got an answer :D The general copy paste thing, how we can help you, etc. Welcome to the dropbox refugee club!

A further update -- I had to log off this computer and log back in, and when I did Dropbox began a total resync cycle (?) again -- a ton of disk activity that's been going on for nearly an hour, even though when I logged out it showed in sync.  There's no apparent networking activity, so I'm guessing this isn't a complete download type resync, just Dropbox local indexes being recreated (again).

So I guess I would have to downgrade my assessment from "appears to be fixed" to "appears to be kind of fixed", as the activity shows something is happening and I assume if it ultimately finished before it will finish again.

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Shawn B.14 wrote:

So I guess I would have to downgrade my assessment from "appears to be fixed" to "appears to be kind of fixed", as the activity shows something is happening and I assume if it ultimately finished before it will finish again.

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LoL
My solution was awfull but worked for me, I asked to be removed of our TEAM dropbox and downloaded everything again, howeer the DL rate was abismal 500kbs someitmes it would jump to impressive 1.5mbps. It almost seems that their infra-structure is completly bottlenecked.

Just want to add my story to this thread, as I realized later that this is probably the same problem.

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Stuck-syncing-Syncing-372-files-Uploading-372-files-can-t-sync/td-p/392023

However, In addition to the stuckness mentioned in this thread, I also currently have a message (from 'dropbox status') that says Can't sync "eclipse_update_120.jpg".Do note that the filename changes while it is doing a re-synch, which it evidently needs to do each time I restart Dropbox - but it now ends up on the same file every time.

A glimmer of hope for me... I was experiencing the endless "Syncing....." with no numbers (no #### uploading, #### downloading, etc.)

The dropbox would be stuck at "Syncing..." for 9 hours, eat all the memory, and then die.

I got to thinking - maybe the memory "leak" is due to an infinitely recursive symlink.

I found a symlink that was something along the lines of..

/America/West/California/SanFrancisco/1234/wwwroot/homepage/images/*Symlink-to-/America*

Which resulted in the possibility to endlessly traverse the symlink:

/America/West/California/SanFrancisco/1234/wwwroot/homepage/images/America/West/California/SanFrancisco/1234/wwwroot/homepage/images/America/West/California/SanFrancisco/1234/wwwroot/homepage/images/America/West/California/SanFrancisco/1234/wwwroot/homepage/images/America/West/California/SanFrancisco/1234/wwwroot/homepage/images/America/West/California/SanFrancisco/1234/wwwroot/homepage/images/America....etc...

This must have caused the new dropbox client to get stuck in a loop, eating endless memory. Key point -- this link has been there for many years and never caused issues for previous dropbox clients.

After changing the symlink so it's not infinitely recurisve, Dropbox client is now showing "Syncing #### files.. #### downloading, #### uploading..." I can only pray it actually completes a full sync.

Thanks Fiona . I was able to complete what was asked of me by support and it has not resolved the issue. I just updated my ticket with additional notes for the support team including some information about something I noticed with .dropbox.cache. Hope to hear back soon.

As posted previously, I was able to get beyond "Syncing..." (with no numbers) by finding and removing the circular symlink reference.

However, now the syncing (with numbers) appears to be going at the speed of a snail:

Syncing 524 files • 2+ days
Uploading 278 files (0.0 KB/sec, 2+ days)
Downloading 246 files (0.1 KB/sec, 2+ days)