Apache can't open files in Dropbox anymore

After a Dropbox update, Apache stopped opening files from Dropbox, showing a "failed opening required" error. Moving files out of Dropbox fixes Dropbox is stuck syncing forever, waiting to sync, not starting, or monkey type  files are not uploading. If your Dropbox desktop app is stuck syncing, waiting to sync, or not starting to sync, Try logging into your account on dropbox.com to see if they are there. You or someone who shared or unshared the files or folders may have accidentally moved, renamed, or deleted them.

Same issue, but started 2025 sept 24, when dropbox offer me Microsof Cloud update.
PHP under Apache can`t access file

Hi.
If it serves I'll tell you my "solution". I was also using an older version of PHP. It couldn't open any Dropbox files after updating to the latest version. Updating PHP didn't work, so I downgraded the Dropbox client and everything went back to "normal".
A month ago, I switched (permanently) to Linux, abandoning Windows. Now everything works by default.

Spent a few hours trying to figure this out until finding this page. Definitely an issue with my php files and dropbox. I am using an older php, 5.3. Did the opt out instructions which created a new, second dropbox folder. After everything synced up, php files were working like previous. I don't really understand what this did though... did it roll back to a previous version? Forgot to check version number prior to making the switch. Or it just disabled some of the newer features?

Has a proper fix been released yet rather than a workaround?

Hey richardsyuk, feel free to check out our team’s reply here, if you haven’t already.

The parent folder in windows explorer suggests it is synchronising. The sub folders and files i am trying to access all appear to be in the available offline status. I have paused and unpaused synchronising many times to try and get the parent directory icon status to change without success. Rebooted many times also. Getting other folders and files to be in available offline status was a challenge. The upgrade has been anything but seemless.

The icon in the system tray shows synchronsed.

The php script is just returning false or when using file_exists or file_get_contents().

Hey richardsyuk - sorry to hear about this.

Can you maybe send us a screenshot of the exact error(s) you're getting and one of the Dropbox desktop app's exact status as shown in your system tray? 

I have just upgraded dropbox to 226.4.5094 and a number of my PHP scripts no longer work.

getcwd() works.

file_exists() , file_get_contents(), etc stopped working.

I initially thought because files not available offline but i think all the files available offline and still experiencing the issue

I am using very old version of PHP, i.e. 5.5.12, on Windows 10 build 19045.5965

No. It's not a real solution, it's just a workaround which works for me.

It seems that PHP under Apache fails to open files with some of the new Windows file attributes. It's a PHP bug. Well, it's a misunderstanding between an old software (PHP) and a new one (Windows with funny file attributes). 

I just updated my Apache server and PHP module to their latest versions. But I am tooooo lazy and busy to test it now. If it's not working I'll have to recreate the Dropbox folder and I'm not in the mood of that. When the course is over I'll create a VM and synchronize only the web folder to test this new server version.