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Forum Discussion
Dropbox Syncing Issue Where Updated Files Aren't Really Updated
Hi Everyone
Has anyone experienced an issue where they edit a document. Save it. Dropbox shows it was synced and updated successfully. Then went to PC 2 to open the same document after waiting for Dropbox to update/sync successfully and still see a previous version and not the latest edited version.
We have the following 2 scenarios:
Scenario 1 - Mac OSX Mojave
We have a MacBook and and MacBook Pro, both on OSX Mojave. When I used the MacBook to edit Word or Excel file and save it, as this file lives in the Dropbox folder. Dropbox will show that it synced and updated successfully.
Then I check our MacBook Pro and when I open the same file, I am looking at an older version. For example, the new version has 10 pages and the old version had 4 pages. Both Mac's show that Dropbox updated successfully.
Scenario 2 - Windows 10 Home
We have a customer who built their workflow around Dropbox and sometimes, we had maybe 6 cases reported where User 1 edited Word Doc 1. Saved it. Dropbox showed it synced and updated successfully.
Then User 2 opened Word Doc 1 and is looking at an old version and not seeing the current, edited version. User 2's PC showed that Dropbox has been updated and synced.
Both Windows PC stay on 24/7, so it's not the case where a user edited, saved, and shut off their PC.
The big issue that happened today was that 2 users spent a few hours editing a document to make it start from 3 pages to 10 and now, everyone only sees the 3 pages and not the 10 pages.
We looked into the PC that edited the pages, searched its Dropbox history, Word history and no luck, so now, they are very concerned about editing a document again and having the same results.
We told our customer to save the file locally to the PC, edit it, save it, and then upload it to Dropbox, while keeping the original file on the PC as a backup, as a workaround for now.
On our Mac testing environment, we are not behind a firewall and our experiences of this issue has been random, but does occur.
Please advise at your earliest convenience.
Sonny
- Hannah
Dropbox Staff
Hey SonnyP, thanks for reaching out to the Dropbox Community.
This is definitely a strange behavior you're reporting here.
Just wanted to clarify, whenever you're making edits to the files locally and they appear to sync, can you then access these edits online?
And when your customer makes their edits and saves the file outside of Dropbox and then uploads it, does it work?
How about the version history of Word, when they edit within Dropbox? Are the edits gone from there too?
Let me know and we'll go from there.
Hi Hannah ,
Thank you very much. Sorry, let me explain more in detail below and let me know if you have any questions:
1. My Macbook and Mac Pro are both using the same Dropbox email account.
Not sure if this will cause an issue or not, as I have seen some comments on using Dropbox with 2 different email accounts; however, my Mac environment is using the same Dropbox email account to sign into both Mac's. The Mac environment is using the free account from Dropbox.2. Our customer's Windows 10 environment is using 2 different email accounts. We have the main admin email and then users emails. This Windows 10 environment is using the Business account from Dropbox and has about 10 computers all signed into the user email account and the admin account is signed into 1 separate computer, the CEO.
3. For both Mac and Windows 10 environments, all documents are stored on the Dropbox folder using the Dropbox Desktop app. Users will edit by accessing their Dropbox folder and then opening the Word, Excel, or PDF files that they wish to edit.
Files are usually saved and users know to wait to see that Dropbox has said that files have been successfully updated.
This is the preferred route, as Dropbox keeps the version histories.
4. This option is not preferred, as confusion will arise when users have to download a document and save it locally, say the desktop, edit it and the upload it to Dropbox.
This way does guarantee that the latest version is on Dropbox; however, Dropbox doesn't have the version history on this document. Word does show the local version history though.
Any help is very much appreciated. At first, I thought maybe the issue is because of using the same Dropbox account for all computers, as is the case for the Mac environment; however, when I looked into our customer's environment and found that they actually have about 4 different Dropbox business accounts, that ruled out that theory.
Thank you very much,
Sonny
- Hannah
Thanks for the additional info, Sonny.
I'll still need some clarifications, though.
Are these Word files shared between you and your customer? Meaning, are they in a folder that both your accounts share?
And also, after editing the files and saving them locally (which appear to have synced), if you then open them from dropbox.com, do you see the updated versions there, or the old ones?
