Dropbox keeps crashing and restarting itself in an infinite crash loop

Hi there gswave, 

As a first step, since the desktop app's startup may be blocked by a third party app like a security program, could you please temporarily disable your antivirus and ensure that you've configured your firewall to work with Dropbox?

If that doesn't do the trick, could you please:

• Clarify for me if the error message appears after a certain action? For example, does it appear after trying to access files or when attempting to share content?
• Send me a screenshot (without any personal info) of the error message?

Let me know how it goes!

Hi Lusil,

There is no firewall or Antivirus blocking Dropbox.

There is no error message, Dropbox just crashes and restarts, and crashes and restart in a loop.

There are log messages in Console that indicate something might be wrong - this is how it looks right after the crash. 

[IMAGE LINK IS BROKEN AND CANNOT BE DISPLAYED]

[IMAGE LINK IS BROKEN AND CANNOT BE DISPLAYED]

Thanks for getting back to me with the screenshots, gswave - much appreciated. 

Could it be that you have symlinks in your Dropbox folder?

Symlinks refer to data in locations outside of the Dropbox folder and can be the cause of various issues such as space discrepancies, poor syncing performance, and high CPU usage. 

You can check if you have any and how to remove them if you do find some by following the instructions outlined in step (7) of this article. 

Let me know how it goes!

Hey Lusil,

I am having the same issues as gswave that only started to happen yesterday (Aug 27th). Dropbox is continually restarting no matter what I have tried. There is no error message. The app will disappear from the top menu bar and after a few seconds show up with a 'Starting' status. I have tried going through the settings to see if anything has changed, but even while going through settings the whole app will disappear and restart the cycle. 

I don't have any symlinks set-up and nothing has changed in terms of my overall usage. I have dropbox set up on multiple computers and this is only happening on one computer so far. 

Checked the firewalls and nothing appears to be blocked.

Any advice would be appreciated! 

Hi there mkoebel, 

Thanks for the initial troubleshooting steps, awesome work!

Could you also let me know if you've tried disabling any security app or your antivirus, since they may be blocking the desktop app from starting up? 

Let me know what you find!

I started to experience this problem last night. I removed symlinks but it's still happening.

Hey atomical, sorry to hear that you're also experiencing this behavior, and thanks for checking for symlinks - that definitely helps with our investigation. 

Could you also let me know if you've tried temporarily disabling your security program or antivirus which could be hindering the app from running? Additionally, have you ensured that your firewall is configured to run with the desktop app?

Don't hesitate to let me know any additional info and I'll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks!

I started to experience this problem 2 days ago. first i thought it was because of not enough space, but after free alot hardrive,dropbox still crashing and restarting by itself. I removed symlinks but it's still happening. 

Yes, you are right, i face same problem here, even though I have space in my harddrive , Dropbox crashing and restarting by itself [link removed as per Community Guidelines].

Hello,

I'm also experiencing this problem. I've tried configuring my firewall to allow Dropbox, and disabling the firewall altogether. I have no other antivirus programs. I ran the terminal command to check for symlinks, but there were none. I also uninstalled and reinstalled the app.

Most of the time the desktop app will just open and crash on loop. If I quit the app while it's booting, I receive this message. Any personal information has been replaced with [removed].

bn.BUILD_KEY: Dropbox
bn.VERSION: 79.4.143
bn.DROPBOXEXT_VERSION: failed
bn.is_frozen: True
machine_id: ed9b356e-08a1-5932-a1ab-f3b40bb6de68
pid: 1279
ppid: 1
uid: 501
user_info: pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='[removed]', pw_passwd='[removed]', pw_uid=501, pw_gid=20, pw_gecos='[removed]', pw_dir='/Users/[removed]', pw_shell='/bin/bash')
effective_user_info: pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='[removed]', pw_passwd='[removed]', pw_uid=501, pw_gid=20, pw_gecos='[removed]', pw_dir='/Users/[removed]', pw_shell='/bin/bash')
euid: 501
gid: 20
egid: 20
group_info: grp.struct_group(gr_name='staff', gr_passwd='[removed]', gr_gid=20, gr_mem=['root', '[removed]', '_serialnumberd'])
effective_group_info: grp.struct_group(gr_name='staff', gr_passwd='[removed]', gr_gid=20, gr_mem=['root', '[removed]', '_serialnumberd'])
DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH: None
cwd: '/'
real_path='/'
mode=0o40755 uid=0 gid=0
parent mode=0o40755 uid=0 gid=0
HOME: '/Users/[removed]'
appdata: '/Users/[removed]/.dropbox/instance1'
real_path='/Users/[removed]/.dropbox/instance1'
mode=0o40700 uid=501 gid=20
parent mode=0o40700 uid=501 gid=20
dropbox_path: '/Users/[removed]/Dropbox'
real_path='/Users/[removed]/Dropbox'
mode=0o40700 uid=501 gid=20
parent mode=0o40777 uid=501 gid=20
sys_executable: '/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox'
real_path='/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox'
mode=0o100755 uid=501 gid=20
parent mode=0o40755 uid=501 gid=20
trace.__file__: '/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources/python-resources/python-packages-37.zip/dropbox/client/ui/common/boot_error.pyc'
real_path='/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources/python-resources/python-packages-37.zip/dropbox/client/ui/common/boot_error.pyc'
not found
parent not found
tempdir: '/var/folders/5p/sn4xzlb51393q355k6472bf80000gn/T'
real_path='/private/var/folders/5p/sn4xzlb51393q355k6472bf80000gn/T'
mode=0o40700 uid=501 gid=20
parent mode=0o40755 uid=501 gid=20
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 766, in wrapper
File "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 5157, in handle_register_host
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'set_gandalf'