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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 icon (round blue arrows). There was also a file "canary.enabled", but that one seemed to be static.
When I delete the ".canary" file, it simply reappears. This file doesn't show up on my online account (natch).
I can see it on my two linked computers, my desktop (Win 11) and laptop (Win 10). Both are running app version 214.3.5104. I have a basic (free) account.
Anyone know what's going on with this canary file? Why can't I delete it? Where did it come from? I'd like to clear it so my local backup will run, but I'm also concerned that this might indicate a security issue, as I have no idea where this file came from.
Thanks for anything you can offer!
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.
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- Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey EricPleaseHelp, sorry to hear about that syncing issue of yours.
You mentioned that you've already contacted our Support team about this. Would you mind sharing your ticket number with me, in order to locate on our system?
I'd like to check the steps provided, and the progress you made there. Did you also perform the advanced reinstall on your end? If so, did you notice the same behavior after it?
Thanks!
I have the same question/problem, the same .canary file in the same folder structure but under my username, whereas none of the other dropbox users under my account (i manage the account) have this in theirs, and none of them have the problem i have which is a red x over dropbox in file explorer, with "Syncing" that keeps growing every time a file is changed as if it's still stuck on some file that hasn't synced correctly. And yet under "sync issues" none are listed. I've had open tickets with DB and i've gotten useless advice to reinstall the app but the problem persists.
running version 222.4.5042
Success -- the Dropbox cache folder was skipped, and no warning was generated. Thanks for the help.
My backup did not ignore the cache folder. I'll change the configuration and try again tonight.
Yes, I think I have set up the backup to ignore that folder. I will tell you in the morning if it solved the problem.
- Rich
Super User II
are you able to ignore that file in your backup software?
Ultimately you should be ignoring the entire .dropbox.cache folder. There's no reason to back it up at all.
I'll figure that out, and let you know in the morning whether it worked. Thanks.
Hi, Nancy. Below is the listing of the cache directory along with my attempts to type the contents (which is only one byte anyway). The filepath is
C:\Users\Derry\Dropbox\.dropbox.cache\.canary
