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Forum Discussion
Rachel L.
6 years agoExperienced | Level 12
Dropbox keeps trying to download and sync files set to online only
I had this same issue with a particular folder when I first set up my new Windows 10 laptop, but closing and restarting Dropbox seemed to fix it. (Derp.) Today it randomly started trying to downl...
Rachel L.
4 years agoExperienced | Level 12
Nope...it's not File Explorer. I closed it. And it started trying to download something again. EDIT: And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. (Each of these "agains" is a time it tried doing it over and I had to again stop it. I was NOT interacting with the folder when these happened, was just trying to watch the upload/sync progress in the Dropbox taskbar popup.)
By now I have to keep File Explorer open just so I can keep telling it to make this folder online only and try to stop the downloads, when keeping it open might be exacerbating the problem (though it's obviously not THE cause, since THIS HAPPENS WHEN FILE EXPLORER ISN'T OPEN, TOO). My upload is significantly slowed down because of all this.
So this theory, the Recent Files list being the culprit, is completely busted. I don't know what's causing this and it's extremely frustrating. This app is broken.
EDIT: Every time I have to make this unrelated folder online only, it RESETS MY CURRENT UPLOAD to start all over again! It is LITERALLY slowing down my uploads! 😡
EDIT: Finally finished my upload. Navigated to the folder the problem subfolder is in. Again, NONE of this stuff is in the recent file list, but as soon as I went into the folder in question, everything started trying to download again. I had to set it to online only over and over and over before it finally took somehow.
OPENING THE FOLDER THE PROBLEM SUBFOLDER IS IN TRIGGERS IT TO START DOWNLOADING. YET THIS IS THE *ONLY* WAY I CAN SET FOLDERS TO ONLINE ONLY. What is the solution to this?
valtham
4 years agoHelpful | Level 5
oh my, I totally FEEL your frustration. I have wanted to scream at this. But having spent like 2 years feeling like this, and doing what you've been doing (but you've been more creative in your experiments) , nowadays I've resorted to this: when I'm so fed up of a whole spate of downloading starting up (my heart sinks every time it starts), I just go and right click on "Dropbox" (ie the parent / umbrella / overall folder) and just make the WHOLE Dropbox "Online only". Then... peace! (for a while at least!) Then when I need something offline, I just go and "offline" that one folder
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