Dropbox Apple Silicon (M1) install

No company with enough money to buy Dropbox will have the technical ability to fix Dropbox. (at least in the short-term)

Sorry to go off topic a bit, but I cannot find a way to start a new thread.

So I just configured a new Macbook Pro 16 with the M1 Max chip. I ran Migration Assistant from my old MBPro, but then realized I needed to change my short User name (& therefore the name of my Home folder). I got that done successfully, but Dropbox can't seem to deal with this. It keeps throwing up a message about needing to change permissions for {former name of Home folder} - this is a simple window seeking input of user password, but no option to edit folder name or otherwise tell Dropbox which folder to use. Of course when I enter the password nothing happens, because in fact the old folder name Dropbox cites is long gone from my machine.

I have stripped out all Dropbox-related files from the hard disk, re-downloaded & reinstalled Dropbox, but nothing changes this behavior. Does anyone have any suggestions for how I might fix this? (oh yes, in every other respect this machine is a dream! and no other apps seem to have trouble with the changed User name)

Thanks,

John

Hey John,

I had the same problem from my migration. Oh, Dropbox... enjoy your inertia!

Here's how I fixed it, requires some terminal time so tread lightly

1. create an alternative admin user

2. reboot

3. login as the alternative user, not your main user

4. open the terminal fix permissions and relocate, depending on which folders are linked. I only linked my Desktop, Documents to Dropbox for auto-backups. You will need to change these commands for your account. If you do not understand, don't run these commands! (readlink Documents is to prevent you from operating on files that are not symlinks)

$ cd /Users/yourusername/Dropbox

$ OLD_TARGET=$(readlink Documents)

$ readlink Documents && sudo chflags -h nouchg Documents

$ readlink Documents && rm Documents

& cp -a $OLD_TARGET ~/

Do this for the remaining symlink folders you need to fix.

5. Log back in as your normal user, setup the backup process again. Make sure to rename your computer before doing this. My new MacBook kept the same name as my old one, so the new Dropbox backup directory was oddly named.

Hi Rob,

Hmm, I think I will need to learn a bit more about the specific references in Terminal before trying this. But thank you very much for this reply.

John

What did you migrate to? 

"What did you migrate to?"

-- I was migrating from OSX Mojave to Monterey. Quite a jump, as it turned out.

I ended up wiping the disk, starting over completely. I discovered that in fact I had not caused the renaming of the Home folder/smaller User Name - that may have been related to my migrating across numerous OSX upgrades.

I solved the Dropbox issue by deleting anything related to Dropbox immediately after creating my boot drive, then changing the 'short name' of my Home folder, and only then re-installing Dropbox. All good now!

Seriously? Yikes. I just received my new 2021 M1 Max MacBook Pro and can't get the Dropbox installer to work. I appears I need Rosetta. Come on, Dropbox. Don't drop the ball. 

I am considering getting a new M1 MacBook pro. Rosetta is built in within? If I read you well, you need to install rosetta to be able to access dropbox