Dropbox v165.4.4300 not releasing disk space

Hi Deskal, do files in the folders themselves have different sizes and dates?

Which files have the sync icons next to them?

Hi Jay,

All the files in the cloud dropbox folder have the cloud icon next to them as they are all online.

The files in the old "hidden" dropbox folder do not have any icon and they are all offline as they were before the update.

The files in both DB folders generally have the same dates unless one or the other has been updated. File sizes in the cloud DB folder are zero bytes, files in the old DB folder have full sizes. As I said above.

It just seems that the update to the cloud created a new DB folder but did not tidy up the old folder and now has no knowledge of it.

Regards,

Des

Hi again, Des!

Can you try one more thing, as a test? 

What I’d like you to do is to delete a folder/file from the old Dropbox folder and then, check both your new local Dropbox folder and your web account. Is the file/folder you deleted still there? 

If it is, then it means the old Dropbox folder no longer syncs to your account, so you can go ahead and delete it from your computer and free up your hard drive space.

Hi Nancy,

I hope I can explain what I have found and it is entirely weird.

If I select the DB folder in the Finder side panel, I get a list of all the folders and each one has an icon to show whether it is offline or online. If I select any folder in the DB folder, and right click and "get info", the pop up shows the correct file size depending on whether off/on line.

If I right-click on the DB folder and "get info" - the breadcrumb shows that the DB folder is located in "username>dropbox" and NOT in the library cloud.

Now if I search in finder for a particular file, say "my jvc movies" (which is online only),  I get two results for the search (as I do for every folder).

"username>dropbox>my ivc movies" and

"username>library>cloudstorage>dropbox>my jvc movies"

Now, remembering that "my jvc movies " is online only, you would expect the cloudstorage folder to be a few bytes -but it is 20GB and the first search item is ZERO bytes. So it looks like the directories are highly confused.

Let me just repeat that. If I go into the DB folder (new) and select any online file or folder - it is the correct size (zero bytes). If I do a finder search for "dropbox" - the cloud version is full size instead of zero bytes.

For this reason I am very reluctant to delete a dropbox folder.

 I have brought about 50% of my files offline and dropbox collectively is occupying 150% on my SSD.

And finally, anticipating a question you may ask, if I pick an excel document in DB (new) and edit it, it syncs up to the cloud. Then if I do a finder search for that document, I find two occurrences, one the updated file and a second identically named file which is in a state before the edit. So, my SSD contains a copy of every DB file as it was before the latest update.

Sorry to jump in here as well, Deskal.

Generally, if all your files and folders are available in your account online, deleting a file from your old Dropbox folder, isn't risky, since you can always restore it, if need be.

That being said, would you mind deleting or editing a file to test whether the changes in the old Dropbox folder, sync to your account online or your new Dropbox folder?

If you're still concerned, you can always create a copy of the file somewhere else on your hard drive, before deleting it.

Thank you Hannah,

Day by day my situation deteriorates.

FYI, the old DB folder is hidden and I only see it when I do a search in Finder for a filename. So the old DB folder cannot be deleted.

If I delete or modify a file in the old DB folder, it is not synced to the DB cloud.

If I delete a file in the old DB folder I get a message to say it will be deleted from all devices - and it is not - only from the old DB folder.

Some files which are marked online only in the new DB folder, appear as zero bytes in the old DB folder and full size in the new DB folder.

In addition to there being two copies of every file (one in old - one in new), there are duplicate copies of several files with exactly the same breadcrumb, same size and same date - in the new DB folder. 

So I have no confidence in the integrity of file sets in either DB folder.

Further, if I reformat my disk, I have no confidence that I can rebuild the system and applications folders from Time Machine as it too has been corrupted by the DB upgrade. And if the disk directory system is corrupt, I would not want to restore from TM in case it propagates the errors.

Regards,

Des.

Hey Deskal, are you still having issues with this?

If so, could you provide us with a screenshot (omitting any personal information) of the delete warnings and another one of both of your Dropbox folders?

Also, can you clarify the path of both your old Dropbox folder and the new one?  

Thanks so much!

Hi Walter, I did not get a solution from DB support and they told me that what I was experiencing was a known fault and they were working on it. I found a workaround myself as it was not possible to go forward with DB as it interfered with Time Machine and I had 2 copies of every file on disk. I deleted all DB files in both folders. I deleted the duplicate DB folder that was the folder before the update to the cloud version. When this was done - TM worked properly. I then restored all my DB files from the website (this took 4 days). Then I noticed that the cloud library DB folder was missing and I now had a DB folder on my HD under my username (exactly as it was prior to the upgrade). However, all new files and updates to files made after the cloud upgrade were missing. DB and TM were backing up the DB folder that was static, whereas my edits were going into another DB folder.

My current DB version is v169.4.5684 (please comment). However, I am very concerned to apply any future updates in case the same error occurs and I end up with 2 versions of every file. Please advise.

Des

Hey Deskal, can you please send us the ticket number for your communication with out support team, so we can look it up in our system?

https://www.dropbox.com/support/ticket/20503374

There you are Hannah.

Hey Deskal, thank you for the ticket number.

According to the engineering team, the issue should now be resolved and won't affect you in the future.

However, if you run into any other issues, do let us know.

Hannah,

I would like to know specifically what has been resolved.

I have great concern that any future upgrade to DB will generate the same issues that disrupted my computing for 2 months.

Before I upgraded to the cloud version of DB, I had a DB folder containing 1TB of files and 0.5TB of free space on my internal SSD in my MacBook Pro. When I initiated the update, the DB installer said there was insufficient space on my SSD for the DB cloud folder and gave me no alternative choice except to accept that all files go to cloud storage only. When I accepted this (reluctantly) and checked my new DB folder, it was empty but I still only had 0.5 TB free. The 1TB previously occupied by the old DB folder was "missing" and had not been released by DB. I spent a huge amount of time trying to resolve this with support. When I did a file search with Finder, I found 2 copies of every file - one offline and one online. The cloud DB folder was visible but the original was not visible but files in it could be located with Finder. As I edited files, I subsequently found that these files were in the original folder and not in the cloud DB folder -so nothing was being synced. Therefore when I deleted all files and downloaded everything from the sync web storage, I had lost all edits and new files. The same happened to Time Machine.

So, my question is - has the above described issue been identified and properly resolved and if I try to upgrade DB again, can you assure me that the process I outlined above will not occur?

Regards,

Des.

Thank you Nancy.

Des