all 'FILE EXPLORER' FILE icons flashing whenever dropbox is running

Thanks, Lusil.  I hope to get to the ticket today. 

Hi all,

Thought I would let everyone having this problem (blinking icons) know of a solution that may save your sanity.  Here's the letter I shared with Jack of Support.

Thanks clevercrow1  Tell me if you also have a problem with Windows File Explorer "losing" the drive where your Dropbox local folder resides.  That is the most frustrating part of the problem for me.  If it "disappears" while I'm working on a document, I can't be assured that my changes will be saved to the cloud.  It's the main problem I have.  I will try the other file manager and see if that helps.  Thanks for sharing!

Lusil  I tried to start the ticket, but for some reason my password didn't work. Hope that's not the start of another problem...will dig into it later tonight.

Hi Ron,

Fortunately for me, I have not experienced the disasterous problem you have also encountered.  I felt the blinking icons and slow return to normalcy were bad but if you lose track of your drive, that would be really bad.  In my case, it would be my C: drive and obviously disasterous.  Best of luck as we work to solve this.

At present, I'm experimenting with "the other white meat" since I'm sure this has nothing to do with any of the three computers I am having problems with.  Just moved a fairly big chunk of my files to THAT sharing program and going to give it a try.  Since I'm an Office 365 subscriber the first terabyte of storage is free.

Regarding my using a different file explorer, I'm already seeing this is far from a perfect solution since my Office products always use the same "explorer" as the Windows Explorer, so unless I'm just pushing files around, anything I do within Office (mainly Word and Excel) will be still blinking.

Final observation, while the files are syncing with Dropbox (until it reports "Up to Date") you can still see the Free Manager I'm using occasionally twitching... it's not as annoying as the BLINKING but until Dropbox is finished, there are hints of its transferring files.

Best, Tim

Hi Tim,

So now I think I might be having 2 problems at the same time, the Dropbox issue and also maybe a bad cable on the hard drive.  I'm going to switch over to a laptop docked to my monitor system and see how that works, while I figure out what to do about my desktop computer.  I just don't have time to try to figure it all out while I'm as busy as I am.  Thanks again for sharing your findings.

Best,

Ron

Glad to hear that your one problem has a straightforward logical explanation.

Hope that Dropbox support is able to make progress on our common problem.

Hey RonAZ1, sorry to hear that you're having trouble getting back to me via email.

I'd sent you a ticket to the email connected to your Community profile. You can check which email is associated from here by:

1. Clicking on the Dropbox logo on the top left corner of this page. 
2. Selecting your avatar on the top right corner. 
3. Clicking on Settings. 
4. Under Basics in the General tab, you should find the email in question. 

If for any reason you can't access that email address right now or you can't find my message, you can submit a ticket via this link and let me know the ticket ID that's created. 

Try again and I'm here if you have any trouble along the way. :slight_smile:

clevercrow1, thank you once again for sharing your ongoing investigation with us. I'm afraid though there's not much further I can do from my end. My colleague who specializes in this and who's reviewing this case for you would be better equipped to answer your questions on the matter. 

Thank you for your continuous effort and time.

I submitted the ticket today. Thanks Lusil

I am just hoping to bump a reply as to the solution to this problem. Windows 10, flashing happens whenever files are updating.

Brings file management in dropbox using explorer to a halt. As organizing files is what causes the problem, its devastating to productivity. 

If only the dropbox desktop could recognize a folder rename or move for what it is, and replicate the change on the server instead of deleting and reuploading every renamed file. It has to be doing that if the files are online only anyway.

Obviously, we could probably solve the problem by changing to online only, but that doesn't suit everyone.

Since this never used to be an issue, it almost seems like it was a problem intentionally introduced in order to push people to online only. I can understand why that is preferable to Dropbox. But it is also preferable to most people who have limited bandwidth. There are ways to push people toward that goal (incentives, surcharge for the fully local option) that are better than disrupting countless hours of real people's work.

Hello Jspangehl,

In my case going silent deserves some comment and I'll also comment on your concern that this is intentional.

After several rounds of suggestions for different kinds of reinstallation of the Dropbox app from the tech support person assigned to my case, I finally was unable/unwilling to continue to just "try things" in order to find a solution to the blinking icons.

In my case, I was having the problem on three different machines where the machines were of different types and ages.  In that the problem was universal with "me" I was unwilling to keep trying things on individual machines and concluded that the problem was NOT with my machines, per se, but affect many many Dropbox users.

In the meantime, I had been experimenting with OneDrive and found no issues whatsoever when I duplicated my file structure to MS.  One notible with this was that the method used to indicate the status of the files in OneDrive is much different than Dropbox.  

So I don't think your comment about Dropbox doing anything intentionally to drive the community to use Online only can be supported.  I don't see why that would benefit them particularly anyway.

However, I do believe this problem is widespread (much wider than just a few individuals reading this forum) and that it could be easily verified/produced on machines local to the Dropbox tech support.  If they had their hands on an affected computer CERTAINLY they should be able to duplicate the problem.  I conclude that it does what it does because of what they do when they are updating files.  From my viewpoint, whenever ANY file in the Dropbox structure the GRAPHICAL representation of the ENTIRE Dropbox Folder blinks constantly in the File Explorer until ALL updating/synching is occuring.

NOT MY PROBLEM... and as I hinted at, I found the OneDrive implementation to be without issues so I am only providing a duplicate folder structure in Dropbox STILL HOPING that their tech support people will announce a solution or release an update that eliminates the problem.  

I personally don't care to invest large chunks of my time to "try things" for Dropbox Tech Support.  This problem is WELL DEFINED and the basic mechanism is OBVIOUS albeit I don't know enough about Windows to know how they internally handle updating icons, etc.  That's Dropbox's problem.

Personally I was supprised by the assumption by Dropbox Tech support that the problem had something to do with "my machine" when all three of my machines were affected.  And that many other individuals also experience this problem kind of eliminates "my network" as the problem as well.

Good luck to us all and it would be nice to hear that THEY have finally announced a solution.  After weeks and weeks, I can't understand WHY this is so hard.

Has anybody actually had this problem solved? I only see complaints about it. 

I've been having the same problem for a long time but it finally became too much so I searched and found this sad thread.

Do I really have to switch to OneDrive?

(Yes, I've tried the solutions suggested here, among other things, and no, not interested in being a tester for dropbox)

I understand your frustration... I have it too.  Seems like it would be a problem that could be fixed by Dropbox programmers (well defined... when you have it, it's obvious and persistent.)  However, I, like you, have been plagued by the "blinking icons" while Dropbox syncs for long months with no one really working from known symptoms to a solution.

On the other hand, I have been "forced" by the situation to give OneDrive a try, and since I have a subscription to Office 365 and have a "free" 1T of OneDrive storage, and was surprised to find it far easier to work with "online" files and well integrated into File Explorer and other major software.

My last conversation with technical support via a chat window resulted in "nada" while I was fed some deliberately misleading information... namely, I asked if there were any programs etc. while would automate transfers among "clouds" so that files could be easily transferred.  I was told "No" ... but now that I have had time to research the issue I found a fairly large number of "cloud-cloud" syncing and xfer sites... some even having a "free" membership with limited data exchange (actually using that now to move some software off Dropbox).  Oh yeah... it's MultCloud.

So, sad to say, I have been underwhelmed by Dropbox not providing a solution within months knowing it is so obviously an understandable problem with known (to Dropbox programmers) how the issue of syncing employed whatever tools to provide the icon status.

I guess... see you one OneDrive.

10 months later, and the problem still persists. Is there any news from dropbox on this problem?

I probably am one of the few Dropbox users to have found a cure to the problem.

I simply migrated my gigs and gigs of files to OneDrive and I left Dropbox with the job of importing my new photos from my phone.  That's it...  I have since used OneDrive with utter pleasure and found additional benefits (like complete and transparent integration into all software applications.)

Since I was a Office365 subscriber, I already had enough space for my needs so my Dropbox account went back to a "free" status.

Well, I never heard back from anyone at Dropbox and I guess that's about all the effort they wanted to put into this mess.

Hope you all find satisfaction with this debilitating and needless problem.

I feel this does seem to be a problem with big accounts and Windows 10... I have about 800GB in Dropbox, but only have maybe 40GB selectively synced on this particular Windows device. Dropbox.exe is constantly refreshing these icons and taking up a minimum of 5% CPU, even when paused. I can barely use File Explorer if Dropbox is running. This is a top of the line Dell Precision 5520 with 16GB of RAM and an SSD.  I have a 2011 MacBook Pro with basically the same Dropbox setup and it doesn't have any performance problems.

I can't imagine this is a problem on smaller accounts, or they would have done something about it by now. 

Really a bummer. I've been a Dropbox customer for 10+ years (paid for most of that), have always loved it, but I'm about to have to jump ship. It really just does not scale to store this much data, I guess. This is combined with the constant nightmare of SmartSync screwing stuff up, and the inability to fully disable it. Good times.

We continue to use Dropbox, but I no longer work with a local folder, which is more of a pain in the butt, and was the reason we migrated to Dropbox in the first place. As soon as the problem starts affecting the boss, I guarantee you we will have to migrate away. He's not going to understand why he has to download a document, modify it, then upload it again (we were doing that with our old system). This seems like such an easy problem that could have been solved.

Edit:

Thanks to anonymous  I now use ShellExView to remove Dropbox's invasive buggy overlays.  Still awkward and annoying, and needs to be done every time Dropbox forces an update - but much better than ad hoc registry deletions. From their post:

Be sure that you only disable Icon Overlay Handler as shown below:

Then restart explorer with Ctrl+E to apply the changes.

---End Edit

It really is inexcuseable.

I finally discovered a way to hack into my registry and delete specific dropbox elements (icon overlays), which stops the problem, but every time dropbox updates, I have to go back in and do it again.

It's not for the faint of heart bc it involves deleting registry keys, but I am stuck with dropbox and suffering so it was worth it.

Here are the steps I take - I'm not recommending anyone do this - only posting this as an example of how HORRIBLE dropbox is that it requires a user to do something like this to simply use the product:

1. Launch Windows Registry Editor (type regedit in Windows search box to find it)

2. In regedit, navigate to this folder (I just saved this location in a file so I can paste it into regedit directly, or you can click through to it):

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers

Note the title "ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers" - this is the term for the annoying little check/etc icons that are rendered on top of the folder icon.

3. Inside this folder I found a number of Dropbox registry entries (I've deleted them already, but I think there were 5 or 6).

I deleted every Dropbox file in that folder - right click or press del key and confirm you want to permanently delete the key.

4. Restart Windows Explorer

May be other ways to do it, but I do it this way:

Launch task manager (ctr/alt/del)

In the Processes tab, under Apps, I usually see Windows Explorer listed - right click on it, select 'restart.'

After I do this, I have no more dropbox icons in windows explorer - until Dropbox updates and reinstalls the icons - then I have to do it over again.

I also noticed there are instances where I still see the icons - when a program opens explorer to find a file, for example.  I haven't bothered to try to find a simpler way to resolve every instance of the icons, or find a way to block dropbox from installing that component.

ANYWAY - like I said, I can't recommend this approach because it may break other things (so far hasn't for me but ???) - and yes, this is terrible and dropbox is terrible - at some point it will either resolve itself or I will change services, I don't know.

this is madness pepehands 

Same problem happening for many months, along with many others here.  Shimmering icons flickering around when something in the Dropbox folder changes.  Interferes with naming folders causing partly typed names to be accepted.

Why has this not been fixed?!!

Windows 8.1, approx 14GB in my Dropbox folder.

Hey everyone, thanks for all your ongoing reports on this, and sorry to hear that you're still having trouble. 

Out of curiosity, could you let me know if you've tried a simple reinstall of the desktop app? 

If you have, could you make sure that you have the latest stable version installed (99.4.501) by hovering over your Dropbox icon? 

Could you also check how many files you're syncing in your Dropbox folder?

Let me know what you find and I'll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks again!

Hey CorradoBarbero, thanks for reaching out to us and sorry to hear about your frustration. 

Have you by any chance contacted our Support team so as to have a better look into this matter for you? 

If you have, could you let me know the ticket ID (eg. #1234567) associated with your discussion? 

Thanks again! 

You are certainly right.

After being plagued with this problem for more than a year, I finally decided to "quit" my Business Dropbox and use my OneDrive account.  Haven't had ANY problems and found many other benefits.  For example, the whole Windows interface (File Explorer and other apps) seem to be flawlessly intergrated with OneDrive so I don't have to really worry about whether something is on a cloud or on the local machine... just like it should be.

Best, Clevercrow

How can this still not be fixed, STILL icons flashing and shimmering every time I make a change to something in my Dropbox folder when the Dropbox applicaiton is running.  The shimmering does not occur when the Dropbox application has been exited.

Clearly not just a freak problem impacting a couple of users.  For me on Windows 8.1 with approximately 14GB of sync'd data.

I do not have time to uninstall and re-install the application.  How about Dropbox developers actually find out what is wrong and fix their software with an update.

@Dropbox, please response and let us know what you are actually doing about this?