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Dropbox re-syncs 10,000+ files after every reboot
Dropbox re-syncs 10,000+ files after every reboot - files that I haven't touched, and it always looks to be the same directories affected, not the whole Dropbox.
This also seems to happen after I p...
I am not sure what types of files you have, and how they are being modified, but I have seen posts where people had problems using Github and Dropbox together. In principle, if a file is not modified, it does not require to be re-indexed/re-uploaded by Dropbox. Note that even if you are not making any changes to those files, but some other program may be changing some meta information (like time/date stamp etc.) on those files. Are there symlinks present in your Dropbox directory? FYI, Dropbox does not support symlinks. Also, note that if you have more than 300,000 files, the performance of your Desktop app may degrade. I think it is better to move your working project directory out of Dropbox, and make manual backup (by copying, also you can reduce the file number by creating single zip of the whole folder having 40k+ files) in Dropbox if that is a viable option for you.
Hi there,
It looks like the propblem is still happening - I just rebooted after having not changed any files, and Dropbox is stuck 'Syncing' thousands of files. I don't have any .git folders, and only one project/folder with node_modules - this node_modules folder is the only one 'Syncing'.
If I perform a Windows search on that folder and select only files modified 'today', no results are found. Can you tell me how Dropbox decides if the file has changed or not? Because Windows is saying that it hasn't changed.
I only have 111,091 files selectively synced to my PC (there are much more in my online Dropbox). The problematic folder has 29,940 files in 4990 folders - far less than the 300,000 file limit recommendation. Could the problem be that Dropbox is struggling to traverse the node_modules folder structure?
Jane
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHey Jane, yes, issues still apparent as described.
- Jane
To those that stumble upon this - I didn't realise I had symlinks in my node_modules folders, and it is most likely these causing the issues - as Elixir mentioned, symlinks aren't officially supported by Dropbox, and I can't do without the symlinks, so we are not troubleshooting any further.
20200415. Macmini
I'm having this issue in 2020, I don't have other processes using the files, they are all OFFICE documents and JPGs, nothing else.
160,000 files and it says it will tke 27 hours. I have not been able to work all day (I'm on a laptop).
I can't figure out why it's happening.
- Lusil
Hi there Martha R.9, thanks for nudging us on this thread.
It might be worth checking this article out which suggests a few reasons and ways to tackle what you describe.
Let me know how it goes or if this helps, and I'll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks!
Hi Macmini,
Did you fix the issue? I have the same issue as you described. I have tried all kinds of different things, however, nothing worked.
