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Cbrown1221's avatar
Cbrown1221
Explorer | Level 4
2 years ago

Why are my files corrupt?

I have JUST noticed today that MANY files on my dropbox are corrupt.  Some are new, some are 4 years old.  I click on it, it says "Word unable to read this document.  It may be corrupt."   WHAT...
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Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
2 years ago

It sounds like the files are corrupted somehow. If there's no version history on them, it could mean that they were originally uploaded corrupted, or it's outside the recovery period.

Cbrown1221's avatar
Cbrown1221
Explorer | Level 4
2 years ago

These files range in time from last week to 3 years ago.  If they had been uploaded wrong, it seems it would have occurred years ago.  Dropbox seems the common denominator.  I have subfolders, and NONE of the documents in the subfolders are corrupt.  In addition, some of the corrupted files are PDFs . . . and I scanned those in.   

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    2 years ago

    Is it possible that the files were affected by ransomware or any malware on your machine?

     

    Are these files in private or shared folders?

    • Cbrown1221's avatar
      Cbrown1221
      Explorer | Level 4
      2 years ago

      These are in shared folders.  I share dropbox with two people  I don't know of any malware - I will run my McAfee

    • Cbrown1221's avatar
      Cbrown1221
      Explorer | Level 4
      2 years ago

      I did a search and did not find any malware or viruses or anything

      • Jay's avatar
        Jay
        Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
        2 years ago

        Thanks for the info. The only thing I can recommend is trying to recover any previous versions of the files from their version history, if they have any. 

         

        Without that, even our team wouldn't be able to assist further. 

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