Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨‍💻? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

joshbreindel's avatar
joshbreindel
New member | Level 1
12 months ago
Solved

There's a .canary file causing syncing issues on my Dropbox app.

Hey all!  My local backup software failed out yesterday - it reported that there was a file in use in Dropbox.  I poked around and found that ".canary" in my Dropbox cache was marked with the syncing...
Delete
desktop
sync
  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    6 months ago
    Johnxi wrote:

    This problem, the canary file and folder can't be backed up because they're not accessible ... Has anyone come up with a simple effective solution to this problem.

    You should be excluding the .dropbox.cache folder from your backups. There's no reason to back up this folder. It's a cache folder and contains no data that would be useful in the event of a restore.

WokeDucks's avatar
WokeDucks
New member | Level 1
11 months ago

Hi Walter
After the installation of the stable version (Standard installer) in systemtray the same features appear: Dropbox 217.3.4297
2nd trie: I dowloaded the Dropbox 216.4.4420 Offline Installer.x64.exe
Features in systemtray: Dropbox 216.4.4420
Unfortunately both installations end with the the same problem...
Should I uninstall Dropbox first and thén trie the stable version?

Walter's avatar
Walter
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
11 months ago

Yes, that would be my next suggestion too WokeDucks 

Let us know how it goes!

  • WokeDucks's avatar
    WokeDucks
    New member | Level 1
    11 months ago

    Hi Walter,
    Uninstall completed with Revo-Uninstaller.
    Re-install completed with Dropbox 216.4.4420.

    Still the same problem.
    Status says: Sync planned (and that does not change)

  • WokeDucks's avatar
    WokeDucks
    New member | Level 1
    11 months ago

    I deactivated the firewall.
    Then dubbelclicked the canary-file.
    Message: RPC-Server not available...

    • Nancy's avatar
      Nancy
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      11 months ago

      Hey WokeDucks, did you first disable your firewall and reinstalled the Dropbox app after that? 

      Please also make sure to restart your computer in the meantime. 

      If this doesn’t help either, we’ll look into this further.

      • WokeDucks's avatar
        WokeDucks
        New member | Level 1
        11 months ago

        Hi Nancy,
        Since the misery started after a recent update I got the idea to change some settings in "services" from automatically to manual... (see below!)

        I am not sure if there were made adaptations by the new install...

        After I did that I saw your advice en re-installed like you said with the firewall disabled and now it seems to work alright!
        No sync-issue anymore because the canary-file (I deleted before) has not automatically been put back...
        The status of the C:\Users\ruite\Dropbox\.dropbox.cache now is:

        Question 1: Is this OK?

        Question 2: Should I keep the settings in services like they are now since I changed them?
        Or should I make other changes?
        Hope you can give me advise what to do best...

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.

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, Facebook or Instagram.

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!