Shared link asks viewers to request access. Why does this happen?

Hey madsvl, thanks for reaching out to us.

It might be possible that the owner of the file has created a 'can edit' link, instead of a 'can view' one; can you check with them, to see if that's the issue?

Hello again, Hannah.

I was finally able to get the screenshot you suggested might be helpful here.  It is included below along with some others that illustrate the issue I'm having.

First, as I showed in my initial post, these are the settings for the file in question:

It's set to allow access to anyone with the link, and downloads are disabled.

I've shared the link (via email, not via Dropbox's "Share Link" option) with a number of people.  When they click on the link, they receive this notice:

(The person who shared this screenshot with me has a Dropbox account, but I'm not sure if or how many others I've shared the link with do—if that matters.)

I have shared many files in this way—as recently as about a month prior to this one—and recipients never had to do anything beyond clicking the link to be taken directly to the shared file.

When I click on the link to determine "Who Has Access" to the file in question, it lists me, plus the people who have so far requested access.  Each is listed as "Can View," but when I view that drop down menu, it notes that these people can download the file despite my disabling that ability as pictured above:

Furthermore, from this same screen, when I move from "People" to "Links," it says that "Anyone with this link can view" (which hasn't been the case):

I hope this might help to determine why recipients must request access even though I have the file set to be viewable to anyone with the link.

Thanks again for your interest in my issue.

Hi @JasonSilverDBX ,

Hopping in here to add some extra info we've uncovered as it looks like there was a recent update to how "Can View" links are generated.

When you send someone a "Can View" link, it now has a special "rlkey=" field. There may have been a similar access code in previous links that stayed in the URL as you navigated, but the issue we're running into now is that when you navigate into any of the folder structure of a "Can View" link, the rlkey disappears from the URL in the browser address bar, leaving access tied to the browser session, so if you were to copy the updated URL and open it in a new session or send it to someone else or open pages from your browser history expecting it to work, now you get either a "Sign Up" page or a "Request Access" page. This was NOT an issue with previous "Can View" links before this update.

We send out links to partners and agencies that then want to share specific links to specific folders in our links amongst their teams, but this update breaks that functionality and will cause confusion as we get kickbacks like, "our team is having trouble with that link", "we tried to request access", "it's making us create a Dropbox account and we would prefer not to do that".

We actually had a similar wave of these issues when shares suddenly defaulted to "Can Edit" invite links on our Dropbox a year or so ago, and manually switching to "Can View" for each share was the solution that made sharing viable, but this update brings back most of the issues we had with "Can Edit" links.

I have a few customers that continually get "request access" when trying to open my files via the dropbox link I provide them. Sometimes they can open one link and not another. This seems to be happening to just a handful of my customers. Does anyone know why that would happen and how I can fix it?

Thank you!!

AnnieCDigitals

Hi anniecdigitals 

My guess is that they are not logged in to the same email that you sent the link to OR they are using a different machine with a different Dropbox logged in and its picking that log in up instead. 

That's what I thought too, but in an order of 8 with links they all worked except 2 asked for permission so I'm still confused. Any idea where I could find out for sure what the issue is?

Thanks,

Annette

Hey anniecdigitals, thanks for posting here! 

I've merged your post under a similar thread, so feel free to take a look around, and let me know if you have any questions. 

Thanks a bunch!

Thanks Megan. Yeah, they're all having the same problem I am. Still not sure how to fix it though .... 😮

Regarding the issue described in my OP, and on the recommendation of JasonSilverDBX, I contacted Dropbox Support and found an answer to my question.  Apparently, since the recent Dropbox update (with the new "rlkey" share links), when you share a file that has restrictions (e.g. downloading disabled) via a link, and the recipient is logged into Dropbox, that recipient does not have access until the person sharing the file approves it.  Once the access is approved and the recipient adds it to their Dropbox, that recipient has full access to the file and any restrictions placed on that file are gone.  This technically solved my problem, in that if I don't want recipients to have the ability to download shared files, I can inform them to log out of Dropbox before viewing the files (in which case they would view it in their browser as opposed to from their own Dropbox).  However, I think this recent update that caused this issue has introduced unnecessary confusion and makes one of the helpful features of Dropbox Essentials more complicated.