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bunnywarren's avatar
bunnywarren
Helpful | Level 5
4 years ago
Solved

Disabling auto-update on the Dropbox Windows application?

I find that the Dropbox updater will run randomly whilst I'm using the PC and this causes so much activity with the hard drive that the system is almost unusable until it completes. Since this takes ...
desktop
Setting up the apps
  • bunnywarren's avatar
    bunnywarren
    2 years ago

    For what it's worth, I resolved the issue by moving to a competitor product that didn't have this behaviour since there doesn't appear to be any appetite within Dropbox to fix it.

Hannah's avatar
Hannah
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
4 years ago

Hey Dibbs, thanks for the nudge here and sorry to see you're having trouble with this.

 

Have you tried using selective sync, to reduce the number of folders, and see if that helps speed up syncing for you?

 

3 million files is way above the 300k (soft) limit that the Dropbox app can handle, so reducing the number of files in your Dropbox folder, should help.

Dibbs's avatar
Dibbs
Explorer | Level 4
4 years ago

Hi Hannah 

Sadly 3M files IS me being VERY selective about what I keep Smart-synced.  I am attempting to reduce it even further, but the Dropbox ap. can't get far enough through re-indexing and figuring itself out after re-installing to even get there.  It's just repeatedly crashing.  

I've once again tried the pause sync trick to give it a bit of time to get the indexing done, but no improvement.  As soon as I unpause it crashes the ap. and requires me to press the "Restart Dropbox" button.  

Thanks, 

Dibbs

  • Megan's avatar
    Megan
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    4 years ago

    Hi Dibbs, does the app give you an error when it crashes, or is it a silent crash? 

    • Dibbs's avatar
      Dibbs
      Explorer | Level 4
      4 years ago

      Hi Megan , 

      Dropbox lets me know that "it has unexpectedly quit".  And lets me either restart Dropbox or Close Dropbox. 

      It's now crashing on my home computer as well as work computer, despite having just reinstalled Dropbox and resynced all the files (the ones I selected for syncing) just recently. 

      Dibbs

      • Hannah's avatar
        Hannah
        Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
        4 years ago

        Thanks for the update, Dibbs.

         

        I'll have to insist that the culprit is the number of files in the Dropbox folder. 

         

        I wonder if moving some files out of the Dropbox folder, would help, if you're willing to try.

         

        You can move them out, apply the selective sync settings to reduce the number of files and then add them back in.

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