Want to know more about Dash? Check out how Amy uses Dropbox and Dash to make her day easier here! 

Forum Discussion

lucamosca1's avatar
lucamosca1
Helpful | Level 5
3 years ago
Solved

Sync stuck ... and I don't know where

I have a big archive (about 80+GB and 60k files) imported to a Dropbox account, I understand that the initial sync won't be immediate but now appears stuck.

Chat support told me to check if there are any files with not allowed file names as described here https://help.dropbox.com/organize/file-names but with 60k files the manual check could last centuries.

And this raises 2 issues

 

- The first is that Dropbox UI don't show the file that raises the error (or I don't know if there are application logs), so that research is very difficult

- The other one is that the sync is stuck and is not proceeding, it could simply mark the file with illegal name with a "skip flag" and proceeds with others

 

This two issues are very bad since I cannot have my content synched on my other computer unless the first sync is completed.

  • Good news, reinstallation fix all the issues and I've been able to have all my content in sync in less than 4 hours.

     

    Some hypotesys and suggestion (sorry, I worked as a software QA 😄 )

    - Adding shared folder while the very first sync is running cause a loud mid-air collision and the client is basically blocked

    - Reinstallation restored everything, maybe because the first sync hasn't been interrupted by other invasive tasks and the application was able to perform in order all action needed (indexing, download and upload at the same time)

    - The emergency options in the "hidden" menu didn't solve my issue: since only reinstallation worked I suggest to add a button to trash every data used by application such as local database and restart from scratch, this can clean up everything and start a first sync without reinstalling.

     

    Thanks

9 Replies

Replies have been turned off for this discussion
  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    3 years ago

    Hey lucamosca1, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

     

    Can you please let us know the exact sync status and version of the Dropbox app on your computer?

     

    You can hover over the Dropbox icon in your system tray/menu bar, to see this info.

     

    And also, if you click on the Dropbox icon, then on your initials/profile pic and then on "view sync issues", do you see anything reported there?

     

    Keep me posted.

  • rmoscato's avatar
    rmoscato
    New member | Level 2
    3 years ago

    Hi Hannah, Luca here. I have to do assistance to my dad (owner of this big account, I posted from mine). Below the infor requested

     

     

    It seems no sync issues, but the values in tooltip are basically not moving. Asking in chat, ticket #22227076, I was suggested to check if some filname with stragen chars is blocking the sync

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

    Thanks for the update and the ticket number, Luca.

     

    Is the sync status not moving at all or is it moving, just really slowly?

     

    Can you try the steps here (when applicable), to see if they help?

  • lucamosca1's avatar
    lucamosca1
    Helpful | Level 5
    3 years ago

    Hello Hannah,

    the sync is basically stuck. Since last message numbers has single-digit varaition. IMHO windows client is not able to correct handle all the stuff-to-do and varius processes are stealing computer resources each other (I'm working on a noteboot - i3-11th gen, with 8G of memory and ssd disk). I can try to reinstall dropbox application without touching the content of the folder.

    Maybe first very big sync + shared folder added on the run raises this mess.

     

    Isn't there any application log to send in order to troubleshhot this issue?

    Thx

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

    Hey Luca, thanks for getting back to me!

     

    In this case, can you also try the steps here, to see if they help?

  • rmoscato's avatar
    rmoscato
    New member | Level 2
    3 years ago

    Hi, things changed a little. Fix hardlinks did nothing but Fix permissions seems to give something. Numbers changes and now the amount of "indexing" in the tooltip almost skyrocketed (from more or less 2k to 29k), upload section is actually the same but downloads are(very) slowly increasing

     

     

    I try to leave the pc on for some hours and see how is going. News soon

     

    Luca

  • lucamosca1's avatar
    lucamosca1
    Helpful | Level 5
    3 years ago

    Situation is still the same and numbers doesn't changed.

     

    Just a moment to summarize the exact order of events since I have a little time. We decided to split our data between 2 dropbox plus account, idea was to copy the entire content to an other account and then establishing data connection with shared folder:

     

    Environment: dropbox account with more or less 60k files and less than 100GB - Notebook i3 with 8G of memory and ssd disk

     

    1 - uninstall dropbox from pc

    2 - phisically delete the folder that will be shared with the other account

    3 - install again dropbox, logging in with the new account but maintaining the same Dropbox folder

    4 - while the long initial sync was starting, I ask to send me invitation for the shared folder

    5 - accepted the shared folder during the initial sync

    6 - after some files has been uploaded the sync seems to be blocked while dropbox application still use a lot of disk and memory

     

    Now I decided that is the time for the "extrema ratio" so that I've uninstalled the application again and I reinstalled it using again the same dropbox folder. While I'm writing the application is just indexing files, numers are progressing.

     

    Again, news soon

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

    Thank you for the updates lucamosca1

     

    I'll be waiting for your news in regards to this. 

  • lucamosca1's avatar
    lucamosca1
    Helpful | Level 5
    3 years ago

    Good news, reinstallation fix all the issues and I've been able to have all my content in sync in less than 4 hours.

     

    Some hypotesys and suggestion (sorry, I worked as a software QA 😄 )

    - Adding shared folder while the very first sync is running cause a loud mid-air collision and the client is basically blocked

    - Reinstallation restored everything, maybe because the first sync hasn't been interrupted by other invasive tasks and the application was able to perform in order all action needed (indexing, download and upload at the same time)

    - The emergency options in the "hidden" menu didn't solve my issue: since only reinstallation worked I suggest to add a button to trash every data used by application such as local database and restart from scratch, this can clean up everything and start a first sync without reinstalling.

     

    Thanks

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice from the Dropbox Community.

Need More Support

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!