My .txt files appear empty when previewing them on the iOS mobile app

Hey davide4​, thanks for the heads up! 

I'd also suggest that you further troubleshoot with Microsoft, and gather as much info as possible from there.

I'm saying that because based on the info you've provided, it looks like the files are synced to Dropbox as 0kb. Which means that they are somehow created as empty, even though they have content in them. 

In this case, it'd make sense that they wouldn't preview on our website, or mobile app. If you check with Microsoft, don't hesitate to give us an update, and let us know if you managed to get to the bottom of this. 

Hello Megan, 

yes, the font is definetely supported (Consolas, regular, 11).

However, I have cheked the file size as per your suggestion and... it's  0 KB (!); and this is not rounding. because the "size on disk" is 0 KB , too!

What's weird is that the file does have content, because when I open it from the mobile app is empty, but when I open it from the Dropbox folder on my desktop computer everything is normal  and I can see the content.

I suspect there might be an issue wiht my Office suite (which I have regularly purchased).... but could not find any similar problem reported on google so far. Very strange.

Anyway, if you don't have any further comment or idea, I think I should investigate the issue with MS

Hey davide4​, let me also jump in here!

Keep in mind that since the same behavior remains even when you download the content, then these files may have been corrupted in the first place. It might even have something to do with the Office version you're using.

How large are the .txt files that fail to open when you try to preview them?

Can you ensure that the font used in the document is supported by Office Online? I was also wondering if you can try changing the font within the document to resolve the issue.

Feel free to also have a look here. 

Hello Hannah​ , 

thanks for following up.

To answer your questions:

• Yes, I have tried to uninstall and reinstall the app and it did not help.
• Dropbox App is version 440.2.2, and it's running on an Iphone 13 Pro Max ith iOS 18.6.2
• I was not able to open the .txt file on the normal Dropbox website - it says ".txt files are supported, but there was an error" (see attachment). Note that if I now click on "scarica" (=download), then the downloaded .txt file is empty (when in reality it's not)

   

Additional information:

I did some tests, and it seems that the conflict is only with .txt files generated on my private desktop computer (on which I run Win11 Home 24H2 with MS Office 2024 Professional Plus).

In fact, other .txt files (generated on a different machine that runs Win11 but with a different MS Office suite) can be opened without any problem.

Hope this helps.

Hey davide4, thanks for reaching out to us about this.

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app, to see if that helps?

If it doesn't, can you let me know which iOS version and which Dropbox app version you're using?

Also, can you open and preview the files in question on our website as normal?

Let me know what you find!