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

Hey there spike1968 - Happy Monday and apologies for any inconvenience this might have caused so far. 

From what I understand you're running our desktop app and you got stuck at "Starting" - correct?

The solution to this problem usually comes from the user's end as we don't have a way to tamper with your connection in this way whatsoever. Simply put, there's nothing to fix on our end as these problems are almost always caused by security settings or setup on the user's computer(s), symlinks within the Dropbox Folder or a corrupt installation of our software. 

For more clarity now, note that when you're having connection problems like this, they're usually caused by an antivirus or security program (or even Firewalls, proxy settings and VPNs) on your computer(s). Have you made sure that this is not what's causing this? 

In addition, symlinks were never supported and we always recommend removing them since they can be the cause of various syncing issues and discrepancies. 

Finally, another thing that comes to mind in this case, is the number of the files in your account. It could take a while to move from the "Starting" stage to the syncing one as the performance of the Dropbox application starts to decline after reaching about 300,000 files as mentioned in this Help Center article. You should be able to tackle this by utilizing our Selective sync feature. 

I hope this helps clear this up to some extent and let me know what you find.

PS: This also might be caused due to your particular setup and configuration so if you're still having this issue after going through this thread, I'd suggest that you logged a ticket with our support team and let them know about this.

I had the same problem and could finally figure out who was the culprit of this symptom.

I am using Windows 10 and my dropbox folder was in a different Drive than Windows. I noticed that dropbox does not have enough permission to access my dropbox folder.

I just closed dropbox down from system tray and manually run it under administrator.

It solved the problem and dropbox started synching again.

Hope this helps others.

Thank you Jane .

I didn't have this issue with Windows 7. Perhaps Windows 10 has stricter securtiy rules that caused this issue.

I think it would be nice if the setup/installer of dropbox desktop could check whether current OS is Windows 10 while installing dropbox and if so, configures the application to start with appropriate permissions in Windows Startup routine.

Thanks for circling back to me omrani! While I wouldn’t rule out the OS permissions being the culprit either, I understand that you’re probably interested in a pro-active message detailing whether everything is still correctly configured & I’d happily pass this feedback on to our team specialists for future iterations.

Thanks again for posting us your thoughts; I’m wishing you a fruitful week ahead!

FYI just spent about 4 hours troubleshooting this with none of these solutions working. It ended up being the windows file indexing that was corrupt and crashing. Go into control panel -> indexing options -> rebuild index. It instantly started working perfectly.

Hope this helps someone.

HI All,

Thanks for all the help, I gave up on Dropbox a good 6 months or so ago, started using Google Drive. Over half the price for 2TB and absolutely no issues with syncing, a number of my clients have switched to and report better performance all round.

Shame, as dropbox used to be good and no matter what the problem, whether corrupt file or other issue you would expect that the Dropbox team would have a clear solution for the problem. 

Unfortunately they didn't and the fact that so many months on it is still an issue seems to indicate an issue with their debug and error analysis. I spent ages on support calls, dropbox don't even know what the issue is!!!!

But thanks to all who tried to help.

This is what is happening to my dropbox

• Found out my files are not being sync even though its all in dropbox folders - there is no indication there are errors or it's uploading/downloading, I have to find out via dropbox site and see that the online files are lacking 
• Thinking it may be an error I relinked my account that is holding majority of my file, it started indexing, uploading ALOT OF FILES. Again, there was no indication of the files that it's being uploaded just a regular dropbox icon
• Turned off the pc even though it's still doing dropbox activities, thinking I can continue tomorrow - please note it's 300k files not in the cloud, what if I deleted the files locally thinking it was safe in dropbox right? 
• I returned and opened my laptop, STARTING IS FOREVER NOW. Already half the day still starting up
• Thinking I should reinstall I did, and it's starting to create conflict in my local files and reuploading again.
• Maybe it's just sorting itself, I turned the pc off again and planned to continue tomorrow
• The next day STUCK AGAIN IN STARTING
• Did the symlinks command prompt, saw the list and apparently it's a cache
• deleted it
• started Dropbox agian STILL STARTING
• DELETED THE WHOLE CACHE
• STILL STARTING
• USED ADMIN OPTION
• STILL STARTING.[

TL:DR - all of the solutions are not working. 

What else would you like me to do, because this is really screwing all my files and putting my files at risk that I don't know if it's possible the application can delete it. If it cannot show that my files are actually not properly uploaded in the online version I wouldn't be surprised really if it sneakily deletes it.

Smart sync also confuses of which one I can use immediately or need uploading. I know this is a seperate issue but it would be great to have some sort of identification 

Hi Kurosa,

This problem has existed now for over 2 years, dropbox team seem unable to fix the issue without the need for custom interactions by the user on their local machine and that does not always work.

I have had a number of clients experiencing the same issue and this is on vanilla windows 10 installs, in some cases, with some really high level hardware machines. 

What's worse is that I was an upgrade customer so paid for higher level of data storage and the notifications to say there was a problem was obvious so sync could be out days if I didn't keep an eye on it.

I moved to Google Drive, no issues with sync at all. Notifications are really good and it ended up being cheaper for more space, extra bonus.

Hello 

Thank you for the concern, I have Google Drive and P Drive 2tb, but Dropbox holds crucial files and right now they are at risk of the application not doing what's it being paid to do. It's really disappointing when I thought that DB has uploaded my files in the cloud and I can safely unlink only to find out that it's not. Will they recover crucial files, hopefully the rewind can do it but when simply uploading files won't work which is the main job of the application this is very troubling. I may have maxed out the 1TB size and I was ok and I was glad of the increase.  Again files that I have and can harm my business by simply missing is what making this a big issue. 

Email sent, please respond via email.

An update and I hope this helps because no one responded to my email (disclaimer, sent a response an hour after Jane sent hers so we're not expecting quick response here)

I have reinstalled dropbox and made another round of uploading files in a fresh new folder. I'm really close to abandoning dropbox as it wasted my time now. No work was done because files are needed to be in check before we do anything else. I uploaded PER FOLDER and like I said I have 300k+ files around this application and this will be a grueling task but I want to make sure every folders are sorted and there and to eliminate the issue that it's syncing/down/uploadign a lot of files. Syncing is there it's not stopping but I'm seeing the files complete there so I continued on until it's starting to sync 5 files when it should be just 3. What the F is dropbox syncing.  Dropbox kept saying symlinks doesn't exist but when I checked it's picking every file I uploaded even the simplest one and cached versions. 

Then when I noticed that this new Smart sync version is on and in ONLINE ONLY and it's the only new DB has. I turned off and set it to LOCAL. It stopped syncing and went back to UP TO DATE

Yes, Smart Sync wasted my time. Good job. I really apologized that my post is like this, annoying and irritated but what can you do? Here I was thinking it maybe  my equipment or my file naming or something but a feature you introduced put me in this situation. I do hope this will help others. 

Well, I am "glad" someone else has these experiences, in non virtual life there'd be some consequences for all the time and data lost, we re not talking 5 mins, or 2hrs, more like weeks alltogether, if u add the worth of the lost data and the time i could have invested in other projects, it really adds up to thousands of dollars - isn't it strange u have to apologize for being frustrated but for them(!) making mistakes in their products and not being able to offer practical, i mean really practical solution,... i asked for a reimbiursing, nothing, they won't get it. Well, I 'll never ever recommend Dropbox again, ever, of course. I did it all the time in the past. They lose more (potential) clients that I'd recommend than they d lose giving me some extra months for free (should be like a year or 2  at least) , nor did they pay me back the fees for the 2 (!!) years i couldnt use Dropbox due to their problems -  - thanx for sharing. I ll make a copy of this, not on dropbox, in case they won't publish this,... 

I am alright with minor troubleshooting, I think these days we should be expecting bugs with application especially on live. However I do agree I also cannot recommend Dropbox, simply because it did not upload the files that are already set in dropbox folder while the notification is set to up to date - fooling us that it's there and safe. It's like that meme 'You only have one job and one job alone...' Do you know that files in the cloud / .com are not there while it's just sitting here in the local drives? Notification are up to date, no syncing info whatsoever, it's disappointing to say the least. Connections are fine Pcloud, googledrive are up syncing, high speed internet. I would like to advise users to check from time to time if what they're uploading is in the cloud. 

Hey kurosa, I’ve just left this discussion open as a direct point of contact. Have you managed to resolve your concern by any chance?

Should you need any additional assistance, please feel free to get back in touch with me on our ongoing email discussion. Thanks again!

Hi Jane,

Would be nice if you actually posted the solution as this is a long term issue, not yet resolved and as far as I am concerned this issue exists because dropbox struggles to synce any files/folders that exceed a combined size of 500gb.

The reason Istopped paying for Dropbox 2tb service was because I was being sold a 2tb service that was not fit for purpose. Yet Google Drive doesn't have any issue.

You would/could not fix the issue or refund for taking payments under false pretences and I still do not see a fix anywhere where the user does need to make custom changes to their system.

So it would be nice if you could stop hiding behind private emails and actually post a fix.

Hello Jane 

Although it's great that you're messaging us here, but it's really not good when this is actually a 2 year problem (as some mentioned)

I encountered the issue of STARTING once again, and, again, smart sync seems to be the culprit of this problem when I ask to move major files as local. Restarted and now stuck in STARTING  

AGAIN.

What is actually the purpose of a Smart Sync? I'm really not sure this is the best update you could give us as I think this really stresses the Dropbox application to almost always upload/download files and pushes the pc and hdd as well to get files. And when I'm hearing the issue the difficulty of DB with more than 300k files, why are you putting this option? Here are some of my thoughts about this ridiculous add on:

1) It saves up space yes but it confuses customers that it's actually there, there is an incident where I swore they already downloaded only to find it empty and difficult to upload as if it's downloading from dropbox first before it actually does the job that I asked for which is just moving the files out of dropbox. In order to fix this we have to slowly put it to local every folder that doesn't go beyond 100 files or else it will stuck to starting whenever it restarted. Smart Sync is OFF, ONLINE ONLY SINCE WE'RE MOVING MOREF FILES THAN WE SHOULD AND GOD KNOWS I WISH I PUT THIS TO LOCAL ON MY 5TH ATTEMPT TO DO THIS REISNTALL REDOWNLOAD EVERYTHING. WE ALSO HAVE TO CHECK THAT LOCAL IS CHECK AND NOT ONLINE ON EVERY FOLDER BECAUSE WE'RE NOT SURE WHAT SMART SYNC IS DOING TO OUR FILES

2) Does Selective Sync also does this? To be honest this is the better alternative than smart sync, if you don't have the files then it's not going to show and you can manually update it using selective sync, very simple and secured if the computer was compromised. I have been using this for years now and stuck to DB because of the control I have for my files, I need these files I click it to selective sync, if I don't I remove it. Does it also save space? Yes because it's not in my HDD and it in the account file which I can check via browser easily. 

I don't need refund I like to stick DB but I want a fix on this issue especially this smart sync. 

"however you should have a consistent performance with the Dropbox desktop app if you have less than 300,000 files synced to your computer. "

That is my point exactly, you sell packages of 2tb that would easily be 2million photos with a sync service that cannot handle that. Hence dropbox is not fit for the modern internet cloud storage requirements.

That's why I moved to Google Drive and I have 1.5tb of synced files with no issue.

We are a large company in the Seattle area and have always  recommended DropBox for business.  "BUT" lately; DropBox has been failing and customers constantly complain about the app getting stuck on stupid...........or what DropBox has, stuck  on starting.  So, you know what we are going to do; have all of our customers cancel their DropBox for business and move everything to Microsoft OneDrive; it is WAY more stable.

Hi tj0011,

I did the same thing a few years ago now, moved to Google Drive/One and I no longer have any issue and use it everyday as a backup service for my clients. You have made a good decision. This issue has been around for too long and the only answer they can give is the "accepted solution" (the solved link above) above which does not resolve that issue if you are syncing data larger than 500gb.

That cap is not per file save but the combined size of your dropbox folder, so if you have more than 500gb of photos it will stop syncing. It has been confirmed to me by  dropbox support that the syncing issue cannot be resolved for large data folders.

Your post yesterday confimrs this again.

Having very similar issues to this, more than ever, in 2019