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ruffabit2's avatar
ruffabit2
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago

"Lost" files and folders

In the last few days, all files and folders in one of my synched folders have disappeared.      This folder is shared by about 200 users so I am used to the odd "disaster" with this folder but Versio...
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ruffabit2's avatar
ruffabit2
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago

This is the scenario.   

  1. We have a shared folder TopFolder which has several subfolders eg SubFolder1,  SubFolder2, SubFolder3 etc
  2. A user (wrongly!) deleted TopFolder.
  3. As TopFolder is a large folder, the Event log indicates that it took approximately 5 minutes to complete the deletions.
  4. During these 5 minutes, there is an Event log item  [user_x] removed their access to the shared folder SubFolder2.

 

  1. Later, I could easily Restore TopFolder
  2. This was largely successful.  TopFolder and all subfolders were restored, except for SubFolder2
  3. I could find no reference to SubFolder2, so this folder could not be restored.

My questions are

  1. What action by a user causes this Event log entry [user_x] removed their access to the shared folder SubFolder2.  My understanding was that subfolders cannot be individually manipulated in this way.
  2. Could this sequence of events be considered a Dropbox bug?      At the very least, allowing a folder to be deleted without any way to restore it, seems to be very undesirable behavior. 
Walter's avatar
Walter
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago

Hey ruffabit2 - sorry to jump in here, but could you take a look at your sharing tab and let us know if you can find the missing folder there to add it back to your account? 

  • ruffabit2's avatar
    ruffabit2
    Explorer | Level 3
    3 years ago

    Thanks Walter    Actually, it was easy to get the folder back - just recreate it.      The real problem is that there was no history of the files that were in that folder, hence they could not be restored.

     

    Also note, the files were missing for all 200 users that share the folder.

    • Mark's avatar
      Mark
      Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
      3 years ago
      ruffabit2 wrote:

      Thanks Walter    Actually, it was easy to get the folder back - just recreate it.      The real problem is that there was no history of the files that were in that folder, hence they could not be restored.

       

      Also note, the files were missing for all 200 users that share the folder.

      Once a share is unshared it looses all history etc. 

      As it says 'person left share' they need to go to www.dropbox.com/share and rejoin it 🙂 That should give them all history etc. back 

      • ruffabit2's avatar
        ruffabit2
        Explorer | Level 3
        3 years ago

        Thanks Mark      SubFolder2  is a subfolder of  TopFolder and the user who "removed their access to the shared folder SubFolder2"  is not the owner of TopFolder.       

         

        How can a nonowner unshare a subfolder?     This seems like a huge security issue.

         

         

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