Dropbox is stuck syncing after an update, what can I do?

Hi S34WOLF: 

I am also a Boxifier user too because I wanted to sync files in their current folder locations and not move them to the designated Dropbox folder.  These are usually in the "Boxifier" folder under the Dropbox folder, and these contain the links to to external folders outside the Dropbox folder structure. 

Can you tell us all a little more what happened to the "Boxifer" folder after you uninstalled Boxifier, and what you will do now? 

FYI, I contacted Boxifier support who told me (in part): "Dropbox has introduced a new sync engine ("Nucleus") that at the moment is not advertised and it is only available to some users. The team discovered an incompatibility between Boxifier and this new sync engine and is working to solve this problem. We have released a beta last week which includes support for the new sync engine of Dropbox. Could you please give it a try and let me know if it makes any difference for you?"

The Boxifier Beta did not make any difference, so I am wondering which side to try to tackle this problem: Dropbox or Boxifier.

Thank you!

Ronald

Hello Ronald H. 

My use of Boxifier was circumstantial, I wanted the data of an application I was using to be saved in Dropbox - but I am not using it anymore, so I can quit using Boxifier, no need to replace it at the moment.

The Boxifier folder is still in Dropbox and all the files that had been synced by Boxifier are still there (there are no links, rather copies of the files that are outside Dropbox).

Did uninstalling Boxifier solve the Dropbox issues for you?

Dear S34W0LF 

Thank you for the quick reply! 

It is strange that I tried using Dropbox with Boxifier not running but still had the endless synching issue.

I will try the Boxifier uninstall and let this Forum know what happened!

Regards,

Ronald

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Ronald H. wrote:

 

FYI, I contacted Boxifier support who told me (in part): "Dropbox has introduced a new sync engine ("Nucleus") that at the moment is not advertised and it is only available to some users.

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Ahh, so that explains the nucleus filename I saw through ResMon. Well, I think that clearly establishes that there's something not quite ready with their new sync engine yet...

Not only is it buggy... but it's not nearly as tolerant, reliable, etc. The old engine worked well for YEARS. Now this new one is full of hidden surprises (things it doesn't like or doesn't want to support). But to top it all off -- it's much more resource hungry. My dropbox process is constantly eating more CPU and memory; at least double or triple what it used to, and it's fully sync'd. 100% CPU on one core and 50% system memory when everything is sync'd and quiet. What a great upgrade!

Thanks, S34W0LF! Uninstalling Boxifier solved my syncing issue. (It's not enough to just exit Boxifier.)

Just to add that I also have the problems described in this thread. My support ticket is #10211177

I'm on an iMac with High Sierra. I've been trying to fix the problems for about 2 weeks now, including uninstalling and reinstalling more than once. Support has so far recommended I try things I've already told them I've done.

I've now completely turned off "Smart Sync" on my account to see if that might help, and I'm selectively syncing just the one (large) folder which I really need to be functional.

It's no longer stuck, and if syncing takes ages I can live with that. However Dropbox is not displaying any sync icons (or contextual menu choices) in my finder window.

The whole process has made me look into alternative otpions; I'm still hoping Dropbox will settle and work well again, but I'm losing trust, especially with all the support references to Dropbox not working as well with larger numbers of files. If that's the case, I don;t see the point in offering 2TB+ options as anyone with anything near that size of a storage requirement is guaranteed to have a large number of files...

Anyway, I hope the syncing issues will resolve for everyone soon.

Hello all, I earlier supplied what I thought was a complete solution to this syning issue.

It revolved around using the cloud online-only files system of comerical level accounts *1, unlinking, moving content to a save location, syning using cloud only files, stopping the app, moving content back in over the cloud files, then restarting the app, and havbing it worj its way through the change in files from cloud to real, for the most part this works or did on our system of 700K+ files @ 2+TB size.

However one of the machines syncing that lot does a few more folders than the others. It stores a backups folder that is Selectively Synced to only sync to that machine this is so Dropbox holds a additional backup (of the backups) of these files. I noticed today while still doing its job anbd syning active changes it was never able to complete syning like the other machines had days before. So I ran up my trusty OpenFileView app to see what files its accessing and I found it reading its way through 4 files (it does this as it reindex/compares the content to its checksum lists & it processes multiple files at once doing this) each one of the files was over 4GB, and when it reached the end of one, it just started reading the same file again, this repeated over and over again with out end (hours later still the same files).

My resolve to this was to move the content out of dropbox it was looping on (i removed the whole backups folder which was full of these files) I am yet to reinsert them but suspect this will be fine as it wont bn a reindex/compare but arather a new file added index, which i hope will work fine. Once the files were removed the indexing moved on and is heading towards completing with the index count reapearing and dropping steadly.

While observing this now working through different files, I saw it a few times hit other 4GB files and seem to stutter on them repeatedly reading them at least once sometimes more, but then moving on.

It appears that it might be a edge event when  all 4 of the files it is processing are over 4GB the end result being a stuck here situation when it never leaves that spot.

I would again suggest the app OpenedFilesView http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/opened_files_view.html v1.86 x64 and target it to look at "dropbox" or files in your dropbox folder path, this will show you what files its processing at that time. Our Folder path ios F:\Dropbox by the way dont use that unless its yours also.

One thing to note, dropbox was designed to sync from the smallest to the largest files, so that it can have the largest number of files in sync as quick as possible, in the most cases it does this, however that means it needs to order all the files you have and that function seems to crash if you have to many files and at that time it then proceeds on with what ever the lists order is at the time, hence why it jumps up to 4GB+ files but then is doing 1GB+ files and is as i type doing some in the 100's of meg size, and some smaller but they are hard to spot as they dont always appear in the OpenedFileView as they take so little time to do they are gone before it refreshes. 

I will report again once it completes sync on what the result of reinsterting the BACKUPS folder is, this holds 55 files at 250GB ranging from <1mb to <16gb

(< 16gb as i had to split them to ensure OneDrive/SharePoint can also upload them)

I HOPE THIS INFO MAY HELP OTHERS WITH SYNING ISSUES.

Dave.

*1 if you have a free account and your stuck syning stop crying, simply uninstall the app and then reinstall. You dont have enough content for a real issue on syncing.

So there are now at least 2 stealth updates since this thread was started.

FFS DropBox, how about some announcements?  You know we're all trying valiantly to work with your software and attempting to help with suggestions and advice.

I have a ticket logged but not once has anybody told me that there have been any silent updates.  This is appalling.

We *want* to use your software, that's why we're still here ... you're making it impossible.

Give us patch notes, please!?