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Bert M.'s avatar
Bert M.
New member | Level 1
11 years ago
Solved

Desktop app is stuck 'Starting' when it loads up and doesn't sync

I am a paying customer and very frustrated with Dropbox. I am ready to drop DropBox and look for other alternatives. Since Friday of last week it has been trying to sync 100Gb in files and it is ta...
desktop
Mac
sync
  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    8 years ago
    Reading through this thread, everyone seems to be experiencing similar and yet slightly different issues, so I’ll go through the general troubleshooting steps to fix all of them. 
     
    Feel free to stop whenever your app begins to sync normally, not all steps are needed.
     
    Install the stable version:

    The first thing we need is to be sure you’re running the stable version of the Dropbox desktop application, and not the beta.
     
    To do so uncheck the box next to "Early releases" here. Then, do an advanced reinstall to ensure that all beta functions are removed fully. 
     
    Instead of the download link on that page, I recommend using the offline installers for this purpose:

     

    Confirm there are no symlinks

     
    Secondly, if your app is fine, but it’s still starting, then it could be stuck in a loop trying to parse your symlinks. 
     
    What are these? Long story short for those not in the know, these are files or folder that refer to another file or folder in your Dropbox account, or even outside the Dropbox folder.
     
    This can include, but is not limited to, iPhoto/Photos library on Mac, system folders such as Documents/Pictures/Music/Downloads, databases, programming code, and many more.
     
    Removing these symlinks is vital since they can cause these issues, high CPU usage, and permissions problems.
     
    Follow step 7 on this article in order to detect the symlinks in your computer and remove any from your Dropbox folder. Generally, moving the specific files or folders to another location should remove the links.
     
    Check your internet connection

    Hilariously, this is more common than you think. You have a stable WiFi/ethernet connection to the web, other sites work, and yet the app isn’t connecting.
     
    If multiple users are having this problem on the same network, there is a possibility that a proxy, VPN, firewall, security software, or even ISP/router issues that could be restricting traffic to the Dropbox domains. 
     
    We can’t really narrow things down for you, since you need to check this out yourself as there are so many programs out there.
     
    We’ve had cases more often than not about built in security software on routers for home internet users, meant to protect users and children, but in doing so preventing the Dropbox desktop application from loading.
     
    Using a remote login

    Getting a black or white screen on the Dropbox app when you’re trying to sign in is a different issue.
     
    This usually occurs when using a remote login or even a virtual machine to another device. The graphics for remote logins are usually reduced in quality, and since the Dropbox desktop application connects to the Dropbox site to sign you in, it won’t render the login page in the app while on a remote login.
     
    Best thing to do would be to access the machine directly to login from there.
     
     
    ---
     
    Overall, there are many reasons for this cause, however hopefully this post should help in resolving most of the issues!
     
     

     

     

    [This thread is now closed. If you have a similar or new question, you can ask here.]

Walter's avatar
Walter
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
8 years ago

Hey Jim B.45,

 

Sorry to hear about this - let's see into this together!

 

First of, are you running the latest stable version of our desktop application (47.4.74)? If not,  you can find it here. 

 

Another quick question to help with this: are you having the Dropbox Folder on your main HDD - meaning the one where your operating system resides as well? 

 

Note that your user account must have permission to write to the desired location and that the drive must be in the correct format to avoid such errors. You can see more about this here!

 

As per your last query,  it is indeed true that the performance of the desktop app might decline should you have more than 300,000 files. This is a soft limit and depends highly on the hardware specifications of the computer running the Dropbox application. You can always try to improve the performance of individual computers, by using selective sync to select only certain files to sync to that specific computer. In any case, you'll still be able to access all of your files from dropbox.com or other devices linked to your account.

 

Note: This limit is related to the number of files, not to their size. Generally speaking, Dropbox accounts with a large number of files may take longer to sync but a delay in syncing or a prolonged sync is not necessarily a sign of a problem.  Usually, adjusting your bandwidth settings may increase your sync speed.

 

I hope this helps and please let us know what you find so we can get to the bottom of what is going on here. 

 

Paul A.25's avatar
Paul A.25
Collaborator | Level 9
8 years ago
I too have Dropbox stuck on "Starting" in Kubuntu 14.04. But what's worse is that my machine (HP Pavilion) soon gets wedged altogether -- so wedged that I can't even start a virtual console with Alt-Ctl-F2. That might or might not have anything to do with Dropbox, but it seems to happen only during Dropbox startup. I've installed Dropbox on other laptops, and although it sometimes takes a few minutes to start and a day or to to finish syncing, this seems much worse.

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