After Dropbox update it won't open on startup (Mac); asks me to go to dropboxer.net

Hi ardmara, can you click on the blue hyperlink, and attach the error message to your next response? 

It downloaded as .txt and that would not upload here, so I've copy & pasted into word; that wasn't supported so I tried pdf and that was not supported...

Megan I've pasted the message I got this morning into this thread. Hope this helps!

Hey ardmara, thanks for providing the whole error you got. 

Could you try an advanced reinstall and let us know if this persists? 

Sorry, no I can't. I've no clue what/where the terminal app is - can't find anything called the terminal app - and if I could, I don't want to start messing with putting in such instructions. I'll try to get one of our technicians to do it.

I'm also worried about the full report that I posted above. I note that other people put in redacted versions of reports. There is a button on the dropdown that says edit, but it won't allow me to do so. Can you help remove any parts of it that shouldn't be there? Thanks.

Hey ardmara, you can click the Launchpad icon in the Dock, type Terminal in the search field, then click Terminal. In the Finder,open the /Applications/Utilities folder, then double-click Terminal.

If you have someone else, and you feel confident that they can follow the steps, absolutely do that.

As for the error message, it's a safe, Dropbox error message to share with us since it's simply stating what could be happening with the app itself. However if you wish, let me know which parts you'd like me to remove from there. 

I got the same popup. I was stupid enough to click on the link. At the moment, nothing seems to have happened, but I'm now VERY concerned.

Hey NealWiser, thanks for the nudge here.

Do you see a Dropbox icon in your menu bar? 

If so, can you please hover over it with your mouse and let us know the sync status and version of the Dropbox application that's currently installed on your computer?

Sync seems fine now.

v162.4.5419

That's perfect, happy to hear that, Neal!

If you come across any issues, make sure to get back to us.

Have a wonderful rest of your day!

Hi,

I'm having the same issue as the OP. Dropbox is no longer loading/signing in when I boot my Mac. I have the same error message as the OP, and dropbox directs me to sign in with Google to "dropboxer.net" — which is very suspicious to me. I've not done this. When I open Dropbox manually, it logs in correctly.

Has my machine been hacked? What is "dropboxer.net"?

Hi Dalbot, let's jump right into this! 

Have you tried all the available troubleshooting steps, mentioned throughout this thread? 

Do you also receive any error messages, or not at all?

Let me know!

Precisely the same is happening to me. I was just onto your online chat and people are not aware of this. It looks like a classic password-harvesting scam to me. But very troubling that it's happening and seems dropbox related. dropbxer.net is some form of shortened url

JG

if you hover over the dropboxer.net link you get a very strange email address "ice-sculpture-critique" with an @dropbox.com domian 

So i found an alias on my desktop to a font "calibri." This was being installed during bootup on my desk to

(never a good sign) it would suggest a script has been installed somewhere that on booting up adds this alias.

I used font book to delete the font

I deleted the alias

I rebooted and no strange message about dropbox not signing in etc.

Can we get a definitive answer as to what dropboxer.net is? It looks to be a domain owned by Dropbox but the email used for the google auth goes nowhere. 

This should be an easy answer. 

Yes, i agree, we also need some joined-up thinking as the online chat people don't know about this. I think there should be some flag at dropbox about this issue. It isnt isolated; several of us have exactly the same issue. If it is password harvesting then its quite a serious issue.

I found out one rather troubling thing. I noticed that two alais links had been saved to my desktop during my boot sequence (I could tell from the time stamping)

These were both aliases to a Calibri font file.

I deleted to font, and I deleted the alias and no more popups.

This could be some innocent piece of code the developers used during the testing of the masOS updates

It could be a piece of code that has been inadvertently added to the source code from an infected machine in the development chain

It could even be an internal issue at dropbox.

It needs a full investigation. Dropbox in particular needs to be super secure. I have some very sensitive financial files on mine. I cant be questioning the security.

JG

There is good reason to be on high alert after this occurred in the fall

Hi thedirector, and josephjpeters, thank you both for posting! 

You mentioned, that when you hover your mouse over dropboxer.net link you get a very strange email address, could you kindly send me some screenshots, please? 

Keep me posted!

Here's a screenshot. It appears "dropboxer.net" does appear in your GitHub in the dbx-career-framework

And Megan here's the same form my experience

Ugh. And Calibri is a standard Word font.

I'm no longer getting the dropboxer.net prompt; I get the two messages I put screenshots of originally. But then the dropbox works fine. The whole thing takes longer to start up which is a pain. This is on my desktop, not on my mac air, which seems fine.

Question: if I delete dropbox on my desktop, and try to re-install, would that help? and if so, how do I do it?

The instructions I had earlier were far too technical, and I did not know the terminology you were using. I'm not a technician . I want a simple, straightforward, foolproof way of getting rid of this irritating problem, and making sure my mac is a) safe and b) fully functional. Thanks!

So the font thing is a red herring. On boot up today i was back to the original problem

Dropbox can't start popup

continue or get help (help Pressed)

Google sign in webpage liked to dropperbox.net

Very annoying, dropbox all working as expected