Do I have to reinstall Dropbox every time I do a software update on my Linux Fedora 42?

Hi Beatboxer​,

Thanks for sharing all of that with us!

Are you running tree with sudo for a reason? If that's necessary, it's possible that your permissions could be messed up there. Could you run:

ls -l ~/.dropbox-dist/*

...and send us the output?

Tree ran without sudo, just now. I think I used sudo because I had the ff result early on, with the "[error opening dir]". Since using sudo gave the second result without the error, I just continued doing it.

The ls command gave me seven-five-five [for some reason the "community" does not allow me to use the numerals] all the way down. I can send that result if you need it.

====
eric@fedora:~$ dropbox start
Starting Dropbox...
The Dropbox daemon is not installed!
Run "dropbox start -i" to install the daemon
eric@fedora:~$ tree -L 2 ~/.dropbox-dist
/home/eric/.dropbox-dist  [error opening dir]

0 directories, 1 file
eric@fedora:~$ sudo tree -L 2 ~/.dropbox-dist
[sudo] password for eric: 
/home/eric/.dropbox-dist

0 directories, 0 files
===

Hi Beatboxer​,

If your permissions are 755 the whole way down, could you verify that your account and group are both listed as the owner, as well as the owner of the ~/.dropbox-dist directory itself?

Hi Beatboxer​,

Just a heads up, we had to spam your other thread as it's about the same issue and our Community Guidelines state that you should only have one post per issue.

If you could get back to me on my last comment, I''ll continue to assist.

Is this what you want? (Sorry I didn't get back. Been tied up.)

eric@fedora:~$ ls -l ~/.dropbox-dist
total 8
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 eric eric  103 Aug 12 06:45 dropboxd
drwxrwxr-x. 1 eric eric 2856 Aug 13 18:27 dropbox-lnx.x86_64-230.4.8797
-rw-rw-r--. 1 eric eric   10 Aug 12 06:45 VERSION

Just to review where we are: It seemed to me that after my computer was updated, Dropbox would need to be re-installed. That was often the case, anyway. Just now I wanted to reboot, and Fedora wanted to run updates. After the updates,  I ran 'dropbox start,' and the terminal told me "dropbox is already running." So maybe there's a random flukiness going on, and I just fall back to running 'dropbox start -i' when necessary.

This is what was updated just now:

Thanks.

(PS: I can't remember what was in the other thread and how it could have been on the same topic. It may have been about my difficulty installing the dropbox plugin for Nemo. That seems quite a different topic.)

Hi Beatboxer​,

No worries at all and apologies if I wasn't clear (my bad!), I also need the permissions for the ~/.dropbox-dist folder itself. It looks like the permissions there might be messed up, if sudo is needed to run tree in there.

drwxrwxr-x. 1 eric eric         88 Aug 13 18:27  .dropbox-dist

Tree runs ok without sudo. I had just been using sudo a lot.

eric@fedora:~$ tree -L 2 ~/.dropbox-dist
/home/eric/.dropbox-dist
├── dropboxd
├── dropbox-lnx.x86_64-230.4.8797
│   ├── ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
│   ├── allocator_metrics.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   ├── apex._apex.abi3.so
│   ├── _cffi_backend.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   ├── cpuid_native.abi3.so
│   ├── cryptography.hazmat.bindings._openssl.abi3.so
│   ├── cryptography.hazmat.bindings._padding.abi3.so
│   ├── dropbox
│   ├── dropboxd
│   ├── fastpath.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   ├── fs_api_python.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   ├── google._upb._message.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   ├── helpers
│   ├── images
│   ├── libatomic.so.1
│   ├── libdropbox_core.so
│   ├── libdropbox_sqlite_ext.so
│   ├── libdropbox_tprt.so
│   ├── libffi.so.7 -> libffi.so.7.1.0
│   ├── libffi.so.7.1.0
│   ├── libicudata.so.42
│   ├── libicui18n.so.42
│   ├── libicuuc.so.42
│   ├── libpython3.8.so.1.0
│   ├── libQt5Core.so.5
│   ├── libQt5DBus.so.5
│   ├── libQt5Gui.so.5
│   ├── libQt5Network.so.5
│   ├── libQt5OpenGL.so.5
│   ├── libQt5PrintSupport.so.5
│   ├── libQt5Qml.so.5
│   ├── libQt5Quick.so.5
│   ├── libQt5Sql.so.5
│   ├── libQt5WebKit.so.5
│   ├── libQt5WebKitWidgets.so.5
│   ├── libQt5Widgets.so.5
│   ├── libQt5XcbQpa.so.5
│   ├── linuxffi_gnu_native.abi3.so
│   ├── linuxffi_pthread_native.abi3.so
│   ├── linuxffi_sys_native.abi3.so
│   ├── linuxinfinite_native.abi3.so
│   ├── nucleus_python.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   ├── plugins
│   ├── posixffi_libc_native.abi3.so
│   ├── psutil._psutil_linux.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   ├── psutil._psutil_posix.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   ├── PyQt5.QtCore.so
│   ├── PyQt5.QtDBus.so
│   ├── PyQt5.QtGui.so
│   ├── PyQt5.QtNetwork.so
│   ├── PyQt5.QtPrintSupport.so
│   ├── PyQt5.QtQml.so
│   ├── PyQt5.QtWidgets.so
│   ├── PyQt5.sip.so
│   ├── python-packages.zip
│   ├── qt.conf
│   ├── README
│   ├── resources
│   ├── tornado.speedups.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   ├── tprt.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   ├── VERSION
│   ├── wmctrl
│   ├── wrapt._wrappers.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
│   └── _yappi.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
└── VERSION

6 directories, 62 files

Beatboxer​ unfortunately we may have come full circle, our team recommended uninstalling Dropbox, deleting ~/.dropbox-dist and ~/.dropbox, then reinstalling. Which I know which is what originally brought you here to begin with. This case is a thorny one 😬

The Fedora Software utility indicates that the Flatpak version of dropbox is installed. Is that the same as the "proprietary dropbox daemon" that the popup tells me I need to install?

Hi Beatboxer​,

When you install Dropbox from Fedora Software, what you’re actually getting is the Flatpak package. That Flatpak only provides the Dropbox desktop client (the menus and icon), but it doesn’t include the actual background service that syncs your files.

That syncing service is the proprietary Dropbox daemon, and it needs to be installed separately. Without it, you’ll see a popup saying Dropbox can’t run until the daemon is present.

Here are the steps to get it working on Fedora:

Install dependencies (required for the daemon to run):

sudo dnf install libatomic

Download the official Dropbox daemon from Dropbox:This will place the daemon in ~/.dropbox-dist/.

cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -

Start the daemon:The first time it runs, it will ask you to link your computer with your Dropbox account (via a URL you open in your browser).

~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

Run Dropbox normally:

• • If you’re using the Flatpak UI, it should now detect the daemon and sync correctly.
  • Alternatively, you can skip the Flatpak and just install the official Dropbox RPM package from Dropbox’s Linux install page, which bundles the client and daemon together.