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Forum Discussion
All files randomly started syncing and now I can't save anything
Application Affected
Dropbox app
Device
Dell inspiron 15
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
Windows 11
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
Can't find this information-- I don't see an "about" section anywhere. As far as I know, it's up to date
Question or Issue
I'm using the dropbox app on my newish computer (7 weeks or so), so it's all newly synced and up to date. While I was writing a document, a popup message appeared telling me about new dropbox icons and took me through explaining new icons (they don't look new to me...), and then my entire account started to resync all my files. It's been over 10 hours now and is still going. I was in the middle of writing an important document when all of this happened, and I have not been able to save that document. I looked at my online account, and the latest version is not saved there (I'm having to email it to myself the old fashioned way). New documents I've created last night and this morning do not even appear in my online account.
Why did this happen?? Is this some kind of update because it's really disruptive! How do I get it to stop syncing? Does that mean that files never originally synced? They seemed like they did because I've been using them. Any guidance is appreciated! I've used the dropbox app since 2019, and this has NEVER happened before.
16 Replies
I guess it's renaming everything and syncing EVERYTHING all over again. WHY?????? Surely this isn't how this is supposed to work?
Tried again, and I have no idea what to respond to this prompt:
I tried following that link you sent, signing out in order to opt out of updates... but now I can't sign back in! It wants to sync all over again?? I can't simply just sign back in? Now it's stuck in "starting..." forever!
That's horrible! I would never want anything to do with any kind of Microsoft Cloud. How do I get rid of it??
- Rich
Super User II
a popup message appeared telling me about new dropbox icons ... (they don't look new to me...), and then my entire account started to resync all my files.
It sounds like you received the prompt to update to the Dropbox for Windows update. The key sentence in that help article is this:
Throughout the process, all files and folders that are being migrated will show the syncing status icon.
Basically, your files appeared to be syncing while they were being migrated to Microsoft's new Cloud Files API.
After 12 hours, it has stopped syncing, but now it's stuck indexing... and there's NO movement on that. It's really throwing me off because the blue cycle icon is showing all the time. I rely on that to make sure new saves have synced, but it's not useful if it's going to show ALL the time now. What even is indexing??
