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care4rei's avatar
care4rei
Explorer | Level 3
7 years ago
Solved

Syncing issue on macOS 10.15 Catalina

I have a trouble of dropbox syncing on macOS 10.15 Catalina.When I restart my macbook pro, dropbox starts syncing all the time and it shows all my files in dropbox is syncing.The syncing may take a long long time，and when I restart my MBP，it starts over again and again and again.This problem starts with the beta version of macOS 10.15 to the stable version released 2 days ago.I have tried to pause the syncing or reinstall the dropbox application,but the problem never resolved.Please HELP！Thanks.

 

desktop
Mac
sync
  • Jane's avatar
    Jane
    7 years ago
    Hey J-Sync, thanks for staying in touch here! 
     
    As a follow-up step, I’d recommend unlinking & relinking your account on your Mac once, since it recreates the local database. Can you let me know if you’ve already done that? 
     
    You could also check out the steps below. Please note that it is very important to follow these steps specifically as failure to do so may result in other issues:
     
    #1. Make sure the Dropbox desktop application is running & click on the Dropbox icon in your menu bar. → Then click next to your profile picture in the Notifications panel. 
    #2. Select 'Preferences' & then navigate on the 'Account' tab.
    #3. Hold down the 'Option/Alt' key. 
    #4. Click on the 'Fix Permissions' button (make sure you're still holding down the 'Option/Alt' key. 
    #5. You may be prompted for your a username and password, this is your computer login credentials, not your Dropbox account ones. 
     
    Once you get a chance to have a look at my pointers, please keep me updated on the results!

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  • J-Sync's avatar
    J-Sync
    Explorer | Level 4
    7 years ago

    Thanks, Fiona. Yes - I've tried reinstalling the latest version (84.4.170) twice, and it hasn't altered the behaviour.

    Is there any sort of debugging information I can give you to speed this along?

    Any ideas what could be causing this? My first thought is that it's something to do with the new file security system in Catalina. I have allowed Full Disk Access to Dropbox though. I'm stumped. Please help sort this ASAP.

  • chrisacam's avatar
    chrisacam
    Collaborator | Level 8
    7 years ago

    J-Sync Mine is actually quite stable now and I've not had any sync issues for a few days. Mine also stopped the constant attempt to sync on every reboot.

    The way I fixed this in the end is to enable the Dropbox Beta install (Mine is now at v85.3.138 ) as the most current stable release did not help me.

    I also updated my Mac to 10.15.1 which has just in the last few days been released by Apple.

    I also gave full disk access to Dropbox.

    All that, following a reinstall of Dropbox from scratch and a complete unlink, delete all Dropbox files from Finder, then relink of the Mac to my Dropbox account and wait for download of all files again, all seems to have resolved this for me.

    I'm not convinced it will do the same for others however, because I see other forum posts about this where people have also tried this and it hasn't fixed it.

    Hope that helps.

    Chris

  • Jane's avatar
    Jane
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    7 years ago
    Hey J-Sync, thanks for staying in touch here! 
     
    As a follow-up step, I’d recommend unlinking & relinking your account on your Mac once, since it recreates the local database. Can you let me know if you’ve already done that? 
     
    You could also check out the steps below. Please note that it is very important to follow these steps specifically as failure to do so may result in other issues:
     
    #1. Make sure the Dropbox desktop application is running & click on the Dropbox icon in your menu bar. → Then click next to your profile picture in the Notifications panel. 
    #2. Select 'Preferences' & then navigate on the 'Account' tab.
    #3. Hold down the 'Option/Alt' key. 
    #4. Click on the 'Fix Permissions' button (make sure you're still holding down the 'Option/Alt' key. 
    #5. You may be prompted for your a username and password, this is your computer login credentials, not your Dropbox account ones. 
     
    Once you get a chance to have a look at my pointers, please keep me updated on the results!
  • J-Sync's avatar
    J-Sync
    Explorer | Level 4
    7 years ago

    Thanks, Jane. That seems to have fixed it! I relinked, reset permissions and hard links.

    I'm running beta v85.4.155.

  • Jane's avatar
    Jane
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    7 years ago
    Perfect J-Sync, happy to hear we got that squared away! 
     
    On a brief note, you’re currently running our latest Stable Build 85.4.155. :wink:
     
    Feel free to ping us back here if you have any Dropbox-related questions in the future; it’ll be a pleasure to work with you again. 
     
    Enjoy the rest of your day for now! 🤓
  • rdejaegher's avatar
    rdejaegher
    Explorer | Level 3
    7 years ago

    Very frustrated with Dropbox. This is the second time in the last couple months where I've had constant syncing/indexing issues. It does appear to be related to macOS Catalina since updating these issues started again. 

     

    I've tried a lot of steps listed else where.

    - Checking for symlinks

    - Fixing permissions

    - Going into Terminal and resetting permissions

    - Fixing hardlinks

    - Also tried installing a beta version to see if that would fix anything

    I don't necessarily want to Unlink my account cause I'm worried about creating sync conflicts when I pair the account again. 

     

    Is there anyway to try isolate if it's a particular file or folder that's causing an issue?

  • Jane's avatar
    Jane
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    6 years ago
    Hey rdejaegher, thanks for nudging the post with this detailed description! 
     
    For starters, it’s great that you’ve tried our quick fixes, since we can continue from where you’ve left off now. Have you by any chance made any progress during the weekend? Please let me know in your next message if possible. 
     
    Following-up from your last message, it would actually be great if you could isolate whether it’s a specific folder that’s re-syncing :arrows_counterclockwise:, so I’d suggest checking the sync icons as you’re viewing your Dropbox directories. If you’re seeing the “Syncing” message as you’re pulling the Dropbox app on your menu bar, please include a screenshot (omitting personal info) in your next message with the sync status. 
     
    I look forward to hearing back from you!

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