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Dropbox CONSTANTLY Syncing/Indexing on Mac
Hey everyone, I've got a mid-2012 Retina MacBook Pro that I've been using Dropbox on. However, for the past 3 months, my dropbox app has been completely non-functional and I have not been able t...
Ive been using Dropbox for several years but a few months ago set up another mac which syncs to the same dropbox account. Often very very slow - sometimes 15 mins to sync. Suddenly was asked for password to update permissions - did this and had to watch as all 500,000 files were re uploaded - took 3 days.
It then asked me again several days later (which I did not do) but then made contact with Dropbox help. They told me to unistall and reinstal the app. I did and of couse went thru the same uploading of 500,000 files - another 3 days. They looked thru and found I had symlinks which I dont know how they got there but eventually again with help I moved them.
However when speaking to another Dropbox 'help' person he told me, a lot - and I mean thousands and thousands - had bad file names - starting with an '*' and a '•'. So I changed them. Not only did the original machine have to re upload and delete the changes but of course the second machine had to then download all the files. This time I couldnt work for three days as I couldnt get into any of the files that were redownloading! Its all been a bit of a nightmare but Im hoping all is calm and working better. Does seem to be a lot 'indexing' going on still but Im watching patiently!!!
Will say that the Dropbox help team are very good and quick to respond on 'chat'.
My upload and download speeds varied a lot and one day it took over 24 hours to sync 200,000 files. They say the smaller files are synced first so I m guessing alot of the the larger files were last to be synced so took much longer.
Hope some of this helps!
Jane
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox Staff
- Jane
Hi Jane,
The thing is that there is nothing inside that folder in my dropbox, which confuses me. I closed Dropbox, moved the folder (it is a team folder) onto my desktop and restarted Dropbox, and I was asked to enter the password to change permisisons on my personal dropbox folder, and then was told I cannot move that folder to my desktop as it is a shared folder and must be kept within my Dropbox Work folder.
Any thoughts now? I appreciate your help on this!
- Jane
Hey Jane,
I'm so sorry for how late my email response is...I was hoping things would go back to normal by now but I guess not.
For those messages, I don't see them anymore but I still have the same issue with syncing lagging. I'm wondering if there's something fundamentally wrong with my computer now....I can't think of another reason to be honest.
I am having a similar issue. I have a Macbook Pro and an iMac with a very simiar setup on both. Both have Dropbox syncing the same folders and both have Avast Security installed.
On my iMac, Dropbox indexes and syncs very quickly. On my MBP, regardless of WiFi network or its speed, Dropbox takes forever to index or simply never stops indexing. I followed the advice in this thread and confirmed there are no other services connected to Drobpx.
Again, exact same Avast on both computers. On my MBP, I have to disable Avast file protection in order to get Dropbox to sync. So far at least, adding an exemption to the Dropbox folder has not worked. I have to disable Avast, let Dropbox sync, then re-enable it.
Once the initial indexing finishes, subsequent syncing works fine for the remaind of the time I'm logged in.
So it seems Avast somehow interfers, but it's not clear why on one computer and not the other!
Ive been using Dropbox for several years but a few months ago set up another mac which syncs to the same dropbox account. Often very very slow - sometimes 15 mins to sync. Suddenly was asked for password to update permissions - did this and had to watch as all 500,000 files were re uploaded - took 3 days.
It then asked me again several days later (which I did not do) but then made contact with Dropbox help. They told me to unistall and reinstal the app. I did and of couse went thru the same uploading of 500,000 files - another 3 days. They looked thru and found I had symlinks which I dont know how they got there but eventually again with help I moved them.
However when speaking to another Dropbox 'help' person he told me, a lot - and I mean thousands and thousands - had bad file names - starting with an '*' and a '•'. So I changed them. Not only did the original machine have to re upload and delete the changes but of course the second machine had to then download all the files. This time I couldnt work for three days as I couldnt get into any of the files that were redownloading! Its all been a bit of a nightmare but Im hoping all is calm and working better. Does seem to be a lot 'indexing' going on still but Im watching patiently!!!
Will say that the Dropbox help team are very good and quick to respond on 'chat'.
My upload and download speeds varied a lot and one day it took over 24 hours to sync 200,000 files. They say the smaller files are synced first so I m guessing alot of the the larger files were last to be synced so took much longer.
Hope some of this helps!
