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Syncing is stuck on my Linux devices, what can I do?
It seems I have the same problem as mentioned in above posts. I am running Dropbox on a pc and laptop, both having Linux-Lubuntu as the os. After a "one time update" on both systems, Dropbox is stuck...
Hi holf,
At the beginning you can try fix possible permission errors:
sudo chown -R "$USER" "$HOME/Dropbox" sudo chattr -R -i "$HOME/Dropbox" chmod -R u+rw ~/Dropbox
Also, existing symbolic links could be found using:
ls -alR ~/Dropbox | grep " -> "
If no any change, check the needs for watchable entries:
i=0; IFS=$'\n'; for a in `ls -R1 ~/Dropbox`; do ((++i)); done; echo $i
The above will give you some estimation. The current upper border could be received using:
sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches
If the estimation above don't fit in last result, try extend the border using something like:
sudo sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000
Tune the value according your needs (with some reserve, of course).
If nothing helps yet, try to find out the exact files making troubles (which will give you chance investigate further), using something like:
(IFS=$'\n';for i in `ls -R1 ~/Dropbox`; do if [[ "$i" =~ ":" ]]; then cd `echo "$i" | sed "y/:/\//"`; echo -n "In folder: "; pwd; dropbox filestatus; fi; done) | grep -vi "up to date" | grep -vi ".dropbox:" | grep -vi ".dropbox.cache:"
Last command assume you have installed properly 'dropbox' command, either using debian package or by hand. Otherwise "command not found" will be signaled. Will be enumerated all folders in Dropbox and signaled problematic files inside, if any. Be patient, could take some time, depending on your content size. Once found out problematic entries, you can use different techniques for investigate, like see current file's classic attributes (the simplest one):
ls -l ~/Dropbox/Troublesome/file.ext
Good luck. :wink:
silvacarl wrote:...
in order to try to debug it, i created a fresh ubuntu 20.10 VMware machine which has the exact same results.
this is only occuring on fresh new installs, my existing ubuntu machines synching with windows have zero issues still.
...
sudo chown "$USER" "$HOME" && sudo chown -R "$USER" ~/Dropbox
sudo chattr -R -i ~/Dropbox && sudo chmod -R u+rw ~/Dropbox...
silvacarl, Fresh install? 🤔 In such a case where comes this Dropbox folder from, that you try change associated user and mode to? 😀
Try sync everything on fresh and trace what's going on to see where the behavior goes wrong and how. This will let you debug your issue further on. You may be interested in: are the files going to start sync at all; if only some of them has troubles, what's the common between all files that can't sync, etc...
Hope this gives direction.
By the way, when you're going on fresh, don't do meaningless things. Just install the Dropbox application in the regular way, without meaningless steps. Also, the package you're using (nautilus-dropbox) is obsolete (it keeps place there just for back compatibility); use the actual one. You can download a such from here. Once downloaded, install it as follows:
sudo dpkg -i dropbox_2020.03.04_amd64.deb dropbox start -i
That's enough. Don't try newer packages, since they're incompatible!!! (one more Dropbox stupidness) Newer packages are for Gtk4 based distributions only (something that miss in documentation - something normal for Dropbox). Ubuntu 20.04 is Gtk3 based (the same for 22.04). Gtk4 are from 22.10 on.
Observe with care what's going on in the terminal output where you ran Dropbox (don't close it). There will be some application output and possibly some error messages that may give some directions what's going wrong (not mandatory, but possible). Correct whatever needed and try anew to observe.
Do the things in the easiest possible way (without meaningless steps), so gonna be easier to trace what's going on.
Good luck.
Do you have a tool that can find a file that is stuck? In other words, I am 99% certain that the issue is that a file on windows is causing it to be stuck on “Indexing” on Ubuntu 20.04
How can I find that file?
Carl
🙂 If you're aware what exactly it is, I believe something could be found. There isn't something that can solve everything (i.e. some kind of magic).
If you ask for the issue, I described above, your issue (in particular) seems different, so no I don't have anything. In my case the troublesome files cannot sync to any Linux machine, not just to some.
yeah the only way i can see to fix this is to remove anything that was added after 10/08/23 from Windows 11 and then install fresh on Ubuntu 20.04 to see if the problem is fixed.
if not, then i delete the current Dropbox subscription i have and create a new one with a new logins, etc., since i have copies/backups of everything anyways to be on the safe side.
also, thank you for your ideas.
carl
So it turns out there was some stuck file someplace. so i had to create a new dropbox account and need to slowly migrate everything over to it.
i find it bizarre that after thhis many years, there is no method or tool by which to identify these problems and do somethihng about it.
it makes zero sense.
silvacarl, If the only thing that you're looking for is isolation of all files which status is not up to date, then following command can do this:
find ~/Dropbox -type d,f,l -exec dropbox filestatus '{}' ';' | grep -iv "up to date"Of course, if your Dropbox' folder position is different, adapt the path. Not necessary something different than "up to date" be troublesome mandatory (some files normal are not in sync), but you will have a relatively short list (let's hope) to look in and find actual troublesome files. For huge number of files this check will take some time, so be patient. You shouldn't expect this to solve something - it just shows status. Dropbox application should work during this command execution.
well, without a doubt something weird/corrupted was in my dropbox. there are no tools to find something like this.
in order to fix the problem, i created a new dropbox account and gave it some test files.
it was insanely fast and now works perfectly.
so i am in the process of moving files over.
if you know of a simple/easy way to move entire directories from one dropbox account to anotehr let me know.
once i have moved everything over that i want, i will kill/deactivate my old account which i have had for years !!!!!!!!!!!!
p.s. threre is/was no other way to fix this problem. which is really odd, given the fact dropbox has been around for ages. makes zero sense to me at all.
also, this method is much better/more reliable to install on ubuntu 20.04:
# use URL to drowndload latest install kit
https://linux.dropboxstatic.com/packages/ubuntu/
https://linux.dropbox.com/packages/ubuntu/dropbox_2020.03.04_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i dropbox_2020.03.04_amd64.deb
dropbox start -ithan this one:
cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -
~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd
silvacarl wrote:...
if you know of a simple/easy way to move entire directories from one dropbox account to anotehr let me know.
...
The simplest (and fast) way to move folders between account is to share them, either as share folder and follow up transfer ownership or using shared links to every one folder and follow up adding them to the new account.
It's good idea to do it step by step (folder by folder) and wait until every ongoing folder get in sync before continue to the next. In such a way if there is something wrong in some folder, you will be aware where the issue is (least the folder).
Good luck.
