Hidden .dropbox_bi folder storing 87GB of files locally!

Hey rhythmdog, do you mind if we reach out to you via email, so we can look into this internally?

As for you, Jean-Marc P, I'm glad the issue got resolved, but I will definitely pass your comments along to our team about this.

Hannah:

Yes, please contact me about this issue.  Thanks!

Sorry for jumping in, rhythmdog. 

I’ve just logged a ticket for you. When you have some time, please reply back to me, and we’ll investigate this further. 

Thanks!

I am having the same issue with Windows 10Pro operating system.  

I have an external hard drive automatically backed up via Dropbox, but for some reason a hidden folder "Dropbox_BI " has been created and is utilizing 349GB of hard drive space on the machine that the external hard drive is connected to.  

I found the hard drive space being utilized via TreeSize disk space manager app.

I contacted Dropbox support, via chat, regarding this issue.  They let me know that Dropbox engineers are aware of the problem and are working on a solution, and that I would be contacted by Dropbox support staff soon.

Another update on this. The dropbox_bi folder on a Mac other than the one the large external drive is attached to now has over 500Gb of files under the label of the external drive attached to another computer!

Come on Dropbox, this is going on too long whilst waiting for a decent solution. And it's a solution the Dropbox engineers need to resolve as the first and second line customer service staff don't have a clue (not their fault).

I have the same issue, Win10Pro, My internal C: is completely full thx to the external drive rebound through the internal Dropbox apparently tries to do in the course of backups and this is actually a dangerous situation.  Support told me today to update the desktop app and it will fix (a little skeptical, but let's see).

As others have mentioned, I had to use that TreeSize utility to even find on my own that Dropbox was the culprit to my storage woes, because Windows disk utility doesn't show it and you pull your hair wondering where all the storage went.  That .dropbox_bi folder is hidden beyond hidden - even if you browse your directories to see "hidden" files it doesn't show up.  Which feels downright sneaky but maybe there's a reason - I can find the individual files in the .dropbox_bi by searching for them, it's just the stuff doesn't show up through normal windows explorer browsing.  I thought my internal hard drive was corrupted!!

Hey Anwick and bagofchips, sorry to see you're having an issue with this.

Can we actually reach out to you via email, so we can look further into this?

Hi Hannah, 

With respect, unless you're a Dropbox backend developer who understands the workings behind the scene then no, there's no point, it's a waste of my time and yours and I've wasted too much time on this problem so far. I've had email communications on this for a while now with various customer service personnel and all the suggested options are either not connected with this folder or they were actually guess work with 'wait and see'. 

Hi bagofchips, how are you today?

Can you share your ticket number reference with me, in order to locate it on the system? 

Thank you!

I had the same problem than you all and posted a previous message in this flow.

4 weeks later, I had several contacts with Dropbox.

They advised me to restart the backup, then restart the software, then reinstall the whole Dropbox software.

I did it and tried to restart the backup.

1. No link was done with the previous backup. That means that the program planned to restart from zero and upload 1.2 TB from zero. 😞 😞

2. After several days trying to restart the process, the software is still analyzing the hard disk and found the third. In the meanwhile, it haven't started to upload anything and so, is still blocked to 0%

This is a BETA version of the program and we understand why. It's not working correctly and causes a lot of problems.

Hannah replied "I'm glad the issue got resolved" although I only succeeded to use my computer correctly. Never the software was working correctly.

As Anwick wrote : "Come on Dropbox, this is going on too long whilst waiting for a decent solution."...

It's a pity to have the "Dropbox" name stuck to it because the standard software is working so well that I haven't thought that I was going to encounter so many problems with this Backup functionality.

Hello from me as well, bagofchips. 

I’ve located your ticket in our system, and I can see that it’s been closed in the meantime due to inactivity. 

If you’re still having trouble with this, please feel free to reply back to the same ticket and the system should open a new one. This way, our team can continue assisting you.

After several weeks of exchanges with different people of the Dropbox assistance, my problem has not been solved at all.

My case in a nutshell :

I just received an answer from a Dropbox expert and the provided solution concerns the disk space full. It's not the problem anymore ! So, this person didn't even read my case before answering !!

Hi,

I posted several times in this exchange and I just wanted to update you about my case.

I had a lot of different Dropbox people assigned to my case.

Each time I had to reexplain everything.

The proposed solutions are always the same :

• deconnect/reconnect
• update the software
• reinstall the software

But it does not change anything. It does not work.

I finish with the same conclusion than the last time :

If you read this forum before using Dropbox Backup, don't use this tool !! It's not working properly !

Hi Jean-Marc P, sorry to hear about that! 

In regards to your case, do you have an active ticket with our support? If so, could you send it over to me?

Keep me posted! 

I had a lot of tickets about this problem but the latest one is #20197408

Hi Jean-Marc P, thanks for letting me know! 

So, I did some digging, and it seems that the initial ticket (the one you sent me) was closed due to inactivity. I can also see that you responded some days later, but the ticket was closed.

Should I reach out to you anew, so I can re-escalate your case? 

I received some replies on this ticket number and I'm still exchanging on it, so it's not closed.

I'm not complaining about not receiving any answer.

I'm complaining about the fact that none of the solutions is working and solving the problem.

My backup was blocked and was frozen.

After several attempts, it appears that after having:
- Deleted the whole online history
- Stopped all the current back-ups
- disconnected the hard drive and having reconnected it
There is a way to relaunch a new back-up.

To make it work, it is necessary that:
- No previous backup is already present online
- I only connect my hard drive after Dropbox launched (in the past, the disk was already connected before the computer boot but it's not working anymore)
- I relaunch a backup starting from nothing (and therefore losing everything that had saved before - upload days and bandwidth for nothing)
- At least for the first backup, I never switch off my computer. It means that I had to keep it permanently on for 10 days!

And then it works.

Hi teroam, have you tried these steps to resolve the issue?

I've just deleted the hidden "dropbox_bi" folder that was planted in my user directory.  All told it looks like 300GB of my primary M.2 was being constantly written to on boot up.  Currently attempting to delete the Dropbox backup of my external drive that was occurring without my knowledge.  The timestamp on the backup looks like it corresponds to a time when I unplugged and re-attached the drive, but I never received any popup or notification that backups would now be started for that drive.  I am keeping the drive disconnected while cleaning up this mess for fear that the backups might start again (it was kicking off after reboot even with automatic backups disabled).

I don't know what kind of buggy nonsense you guys are up to over there but I never told Dropbox to backup any of my drives and it apparently uploaded 2TB of data to the cloud, filling up my available space and preventing syncing.  Then Dropbox got into a loop of "conflicted copy" issues (probably because my allotted 2TB space had been ransacked by the unapproved backup) and decided to start downloading files that were already locally available on my E: drive to a hidden folder in my User directory on C: drive, putting my primary drive into a constant state of overflow.  By the way, this hidden "dropbox_bi" directory is not even visible when "Show Hidden Files" is enabled in Windows 10.  The only way I am able to interact with the directory is through git_bash commands.

So your beta backup sub-application;

- Sent my data to the cloud without prompting for permission

- Has been constantly writing data to an SSD with a limited lifespan, into a directory I could not view except through a third-party shell.  An SSD I never authorized Dropbox to use for any purpose.

- Has monopolized my allotted cloud storage, preventing me from using Dropbox at all

It's been an hour now and the cloud backup of my drive has still not deleted, and the only sign of activity is a blue bar dashing back and forth along the bottom of my browser window under the text "Deleting Elements backup from Dropbox...".  The 1.92TB backup size has not diminished.  Dropbox is still prompting me to upgrade because I've run out of space.  At this point I'm not sure I'll be renewing.  Will I get to use Dropbox to sync files again or will this unauthorized copy of my data sit in limbo in the cloud forever?