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Forum Discussion

Brooknei's avatar
Brooknei
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago

Dropbox seems to be corrupting files…

I’m afraid we’re are migrating away from Dropbox, however whilst doing so we have noticed the following issue…. (Windows 11 – Latest Dropbox Version). Hence we though this may be useful. Most of...
desktop
Dropbox Plus
sync
windows
Hannah's avatar
Hannah
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago

Hey Brooknei, thanks for reaching out to the Dropbox Community.

 

Can you please clarify, how you made the files available offline?

 

You mentioned selective sync, so did you sync the files back through selective sync settings, in the application preferences?

 

Or were the files set to "online-only" and you right clicked them and choose to make them "available offline" that way?

 

With selective sync, when you sync a folder that was previously unsynced, the application will sync it as "online-only", so the issue would make sense, if you uninstalled the Dropbox app without making it available offline first (by right-clicking).

 

Keep me posted!

  • Brooknei's avatar
    Brooknei
    Helpful | Level 6
    3 years ago

     

    Hi Hannah .... I hope the below helps ....

     

    Can you please clarify, how you made the files available offline?

    Open File Explorer and navigate to the file or folder.

    Right-click the file or folder and select Make available offline.

     

    The files set to "online-only" and you right clicked them and choose to make them "available offline" that way?

    Correct ... Using the method above.

     

    • Hannah's avatar
      Hannah
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      3 years ago

      Thanks for the additional info!

       

      And can you also send us a screenshot of the error you're getting when trying to open the synced files?

      • Brooknei's avatar
        Brooknei
        Helpful | Level 6
        3 years ago

        Hi ...

        I've since deleted the corrupted files and have restored them from a local Acronis backup after replicating the problem several times.... Going by memory Windows Explorer wouldn't/couldn't open the files using the default apps noting they were damaged and didn't give an option to choose another application. The types of files that were most affected were large Zipped files and Jpeg's as most of my photos were corrupted. I have recently reduced my account to the free version hence I can't replicate the error .... Sorry.

        I was using Windows 11 Workstation (Late Feb 2023 Version) and the latest Dropbox build using a FTTP connection . I had 1.5TB of data with 1.2TB stored as "Online Only" and the other 0.3TB sync'd as "Available Offline". Using Windows Explorer I selected all the "Online Only" folders and made them Available Offline. Dropbox did its thing and after several hours notified it had completed and was fully sync'd, PC was rebooted and Dropbox unistalled .... That's all I did.... As a side note, I had turned off all power save features on the PC to prevent it from going to sleep midway through the process.

         

        I do appreciate thats not a lot to go on but I thought I had better pass on my experience... 

         

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