Should I opt out of File Provider?

Device
Macbook Pro M1 2021 64gb RAM
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
macOS 15.3.2
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
229.3.5074
Dropbox Plan
Plus

So I'm thinking about opting out of File Provider. I'm a design engineer and music producer. So I'm using a lot of "offline files", such as:

• Figma – downloading images to add to websites/apps
• Cursor – Developing websites and apps and I store my files in Dropbox as backup. Tons of Vue Nuxt/React Next/Python projects. I load the folders into Cursor (or any IDE) from the Dropbox folder, which I have been doing for the past 10+ years
• Ableton Live/Logic Pro X – Music production raw files, sound kits, bounce files (mp3s/wavs/aif) and backup of mastered music sent to DSPs
• Adobe Lightroom – I take pictures either for projects or for photography clients. So RAW files and JPGs to send to clients
• DaVInci Resolve - I work on videos for promoting music and some marketing videos for my design engineering business
• Screen Studio - Videos I save from screen captures

 

I'm probably missing some apps/proceses/files, but these are my weekly mains. Now, here's what happens.

1. I start working on something, usually code heavy stuff. I tell Cursor to create a feature or edit a bug. A ton of files are getting updates. Sometimes I have to install node modules. I thought about ignoring node module folders, but there's no easy way to do this in Dropbox, such as an "ignore specific folders input field".
2. A ton of files are getting synced to Dropbox now, maybe 100-1000 files are being synced because of this, because I'll spend 2-4 hours working on software engineering stuff.
3. Then I switch over to design to craft some UI for a mobile app or work on coding out some UI and need to export some icons or photos. So I work, start the export process and boom I get spinning pinwheel of death. It starts right when I hit cmd + S and the dialog window to save to a location doesn't appear. The app crashes and I have to force quit. Most of the time, Im saving these files to desktop if its a Webflow website or in my site files in Dropbox. 
4. This happens also on music production work. I'll go into the rabbit hole of crafting the best beat I've ever made in my life. This I remember, oops, I need to save. Usually I do this right after a ton of coding work. Hit cmd + s, app crashes. Try to recover work on reload of Ableton, and it crashes trying to recover the files.

So after tons of research, I found out its Dropbox's File Provider feature, because Apple doesn't allow third party cloud services unless they put them in a certain folder. Its like the ugly section in the restaurant from "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Before File provider, everything worked flawlessly. It was a beautiful backup system. 

Then when it first happened, I thought my $6k MBP stopped working properly. I'm like, no no, its not hardware. I had to delete my old user account and create a new one because I thought my files were just corrupted thus why the saving of files kept crashing.  Then it started happening here too. Oooo, and my external hard drive decides to fail around this time as well. A relatively new EHDD. I was contemplating wiping the laptop and starting fresh, then I found out...

All I had to do was open terminal (Im trying out Warp for now) and I run this command:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Spotlight.plist

• With the File Provider API, Dropbox now stores your files in ‎`~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox` instead of the old ‎`~/Dropbox` location. The old folder is often just a symlink or alias. Spotlight’s indexing and search behavior is tightly coupled to these locations, and any break in the expected structure can cause Spotlight to misbehave or fail to index Dropbox files properly.
• The ‎`com.apple.Spotlight.plist` file stores your Spotlight preferences. When apps (especially those using the File Provider API, like Dropbox) crash or behave unexpectedly while saving or syncing files, it can corrupt this plist. This is why deleting it sometimes temporarily resolves issues—macOS regenerates it with default settings, but the underlying Dropbox/File Provider instability can cause repeated corruption.

I sometimes run "sudo mdutil -E /" to reindex my Spotlight but I still run into this issue and its kicking my ass. 

So now the big question: Should I opt out of File Provider?

• Do I need to buy a new external hard drive and back up all my files before doing this?
• Will I need to re-index my dropbox on my laptop and resync?
• Are there any crazy problems not being opted into file provider, such as limitations for Logic Pro X/Ableton Files? (I've been seeing this around for the past two years)