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Glenn M.5's avatar
Glenn M.5
Helpful | Level 5
3 years ago
Solved

pdf files in dropbox folders will not open in MacOS Safari

I'm running Dropbox on MacOS Ventura. I tend to bookmark pdf files in Safari for quick access. I'm finding that pdf files in Dropbox folders will no longer open in Safari. However, if I move the pdf ...
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  • LynnDbx's avatar
    LynnDbx
    3 years ago

    Thank you so much for the detailed information! I've taken a further look, and we believe you are hitting a known issue on macOS 13.4. Apple has confirmed that a fix for this behavior is in macOS 13.5 and I've personally confirmed this works on macOS 13.5 as well.

     

    macOS 13.5 is currently in Beta and should release to the general population sometime in July (they haven't published an exact date yet). Please let us know if this continues to happen after updating to macOS 13.5 when that update becomes available. Unfortunately there is not a workaround that Dropbox can do on our side so we have to wait for the macOS update.

Glenn M.5's avatar
Glenn M.5
Helpful | Level 5
3 years ago

I believe I found the source of the problem but not a solution. On a separate (and fully up to date Mac) pdf files in dropbox were opening fine in Safari. This Mac had the dropbox location as /Users/username/Dropbox. However, the dropbox app updated moving the folder to /Users/username/CloudStorage/Dropbox. Now the issue is happening on this Mac, as well. It's the new location that's giving problems. The message in Safari is "Safari Can't Open the Page."

 

Dropbox folks, please fix this.

Rich's avatar
Rich
Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
3 years ago
Glenn M.5 wrote:

However, the dropbox app updated moving the folder to /Users/username/CloudStorage/Dropbox. Now the issue is happening on this Mac, as well.

Are the files marked as Available offline, or Online-only? Mark one as Available offline and see if the issue persists for that file.

  • Glenn M.5's avatar
    Glenn M.5
    Helpful | Level 5
    3 years ago

    The files are already downloaded, hence, available offline. If I move pdf files out of dropbox, they open fine in Safari. If you have a Mac available, give it a try. Place a pdf in a Dropbox folder, then with Safari, use File>Open File... and see if it opens.

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