Dropbox Beta: Files show both icons simultaneously - green circle and cloud-arrow - but are offline

Hello Walter .  *** This TL;DR (?) ends with a Workaround that might hold a clue for a fix.

Thanks for reply.  Before attempting at the D'box folder level to reset to either Make online-only or Make available offline, do I assume that either option would apply to my entire D'box content? Or for various subfolders, would my preferences for online or offline be retained? (and especially I would hope re-establishing to the choices before this fiasco.)  If the options would apply to my entire D'box content, then neither option is acceptable. For all offline, I only have about 50 Gb free on my 250 SSD. For the online only option (OOO), I certainly do not wish to then be obliged to ramble through all to choose which for offline.

I would like to return to whatever version or configuration that permitted right clicking a folder and selecting offline or online only for all the files in the folder. Or simply selecting a subset of files in the folder and choosing off or online.

Let's say a folder has a mix of jpg, mov, pdf, docx. As noted in my first post, for the moment, if I wanted all in the folder to be available offline, I must select those files that are opened by the same program, double click - which opens them all, and then close within each program. Then they have the green check only. This is of course most irritating and time consuming for folders with large files. BTW, same problem with even an individual file. Rt click: offline available: nothing happens. Gotta open the file to get it onto my SSD. Yuck !

Would it be possible to install a previous stable version, let's say from roughly November 2022 ? Idea is to return to whatever was working previously.

         In the meantime, I have discovered a workaround of sorts, clumsy, but much less total time and hands-on time versus opening files in their apps :

Select the entire contents of a folder, whatever the types of files, or a subset of the files, rt click Compress to make an Archive.zip. In finder, one by one the cloud icon is replaced by the animated clock sweep icon to leave only the green icon. (If a multi-Gb zip, takes time, but you can do other things during the compression.) Delete the Archive.zip. 

*** This workaround might give a clue to those who might be trying to understand and fix this problem. The compression object/routine must access and engage whatever classes are needed to simply download the file without opening it. (or the compression process does not have whatever bug prevents normal operation.....)

Best, Peter

I am having this issue after a clean install and I have done what you're saying to do, both Make Available Online and Make Available Offline, with no change. I'm still getting both icons on both. The only files that have only the green icon are synced by me hitting the cloud button to manually sync/download. There is absolutely zero chance I can do this with every file I need in a reasonable amount of time. These are big directories.

Sorry to hear you're having the same issue, pennyzee. 

Just to clarify, are you mainly seeing both syncing icons for your files or folders (or both)? 

In general, if both appear next to a folder, it means that this folder contains at least one online-only file, but any newly added files should become available offline by default.

If you don't mind, you can also send me a screenshot of what you see on your end (just make sure to hide any filenames you don't want us to see).

Nancy  pennyzee 

For large folders of files of different types, you might try the workaround I mentioned in a previous post in April.

With the folder open, select all the files you want available offline, and compress to make a zip. The processes to make a local zip require that all the files are open locally. This may take many minutes, but avoids opening each file with its specific app. Once all opened with the green check icon, delete the zip.

Hey there all-at-once! I'm having the same problem... Did you manage to solve it correctly? I just can download when press 'Compress'... It's taking a long time to do even small actions.

Hey coala - sorry to hear about this. 

Could you maybe clarify your computer's OS version and the version and status of the Dropbox desktop app as shown in your menu bar?

If this persists after rebooting your computer and quitting and relaunching the app, please send us a screenshot so that we can have a visual too. 

Hey Walter, thanks for the quick reply.

My OS is the Sonoma 14.1 and the Dropbox version is the v216.3.4299;

I already followed the recommendation to properly uninstall Dropbox, reinstalled it, logged in and it goes automatically to the CloudStorage again and again... I don't know what to do anymore. I'm losing hours of work just trying to solve that.

I already made the whole folder 'Online-only' and 'Offline', to reset it, but nothing changed.

The files are not downloaded until you open each of them... impossible to work like that!

Dropbox seems to be syncing eternally, and it doesn't shows up the actual size of the folder it's downloading, which is pretty strange too.

Walter?

Thanks for the additional information, the screenshot and the nudge as well coala 

Could you try signing out of your account through the app's preferences and then back in?

Let me know if syncing gets stuck again or it finally progresses and the app shows 'up to date' at some point. 

It seems that the only possible way for solving it is changing the location back to the Documents' folder, after signing out and in again... That File Provider was making all that mess. 

I'm waiting for it to sync (3TB) and will come back with news. 

Thanks.