Dropbox desktop app causes an "Event 3033" at every startup on my Windows computer

Theresa​ I tend to use Dropbox as a basic cloud storage service, along with OneDrive, and Google Photos, to spread the storage load. Important docs and photos get backed up locally on external/large disks, as I don't like to rely ONLY on Cloud Storage, as it is "someone else's computer"!. I DO like the shareability features in Dropbox, though, as some friends share pictures with us.

Hey there td47​  welcome back to the Dropbox Community, it's great to have you here 😊. Huge thanks for getting back in touch and letting us know your issue's all sorted and with such detail too – it’s folks like you who keep this place buzzing and this thread will for sure help other too 😼.

I'm Theresa 👩‍💻, one of the Community Managers. You’ll often find me jumping into conversations or starting new threads here.

Quick question... do you have a favourite Dropbox feature? I’d love to hear what you enjoy most.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

T😺
(Dropbox Community Manager)

Thanks for the update on this, td47.

I'm glad to see the solution provided, was indeed helpful.

If you have any other issues or questions, feel free to reach out to us again.

Hannah​ thanks for passing the comments on.

I just wanted to confirm that uninstalling the standard desktop Dropbox program, and installing the Microsoft Store version DID fix this issue, both on my Windows 10 laptop, and my Windows 11 Desktop PC.

So thanks for pointing that out, it IS a viable solution.

Hi again, td47.

We really appreciate you taking the time to post your feedback on this.

I've personally passed your comments along to our team.

If you need assistance with anything else, please let us know.

Nancy​ Thanks for the rather surprising information on the different products.

First, if you look at the graphic posted by DBoxTips​ you will see that the vulkan-1.dll IS signed by Dropbox Inc. Therefore it is STILL Dropbox's responsibility to get it fixed, wherever you farmed out the development and customization to.

Secondly, this Event 3033 seems to have occurred recently, so I think a product update, that has altered the vulkan-1.dll has caused this, or it has been a recent addition.

Thirdly, I was never made aware when first downloading this in 2021, that there were "different" types of Dropbox (UWP style and normal executable). 

NOTE: If you look at the Graphic on comment 6, you will see that there is a Windows 10 built-in "system" version of this DLL, both for 64-bit AND for 32-bit architectures, and they BOTH have their own LOADER extensions if needed by any app/program. This is the SAME on Windows 11.

So, if the Windows Store UWP version of Dropbox can work with the Windows Supplied vulkan-1.dll quite happily, why is a customized version required for the standard desktop version, that is seen to be causing unwanted security related system error Events? In any event, they will ALL be interfacing with the SAME graphics driver!

Sorry to complain about a "free" product, but this is NOT a good user experience, and now I am asked to uninstall what I have been using since 2021, and install the UWP version. This a bit of a mess really! 

DBoxTips​ Interesting. I just checked on my Windows 11 Desktop, it is set to OFF, and can ONLY be turned on during a full re-install!! WTH! So in MY case here, it looks like SAC has always been OFF.

I found out this is triggered by the Smart App Control feature of Windows 11. I am digging into the details of the event to see if I can find the reason why that file triggers this. What is weird is that all files in the Dropbox setup are signed with the same code signing (Authenticode) certificate, so if the certificate were the issue it would have triggered similar events with other files in the installation as well. I also double checked the signature of the vulkan_1.dll (using signtool) and it is correct, looks correctly signed. 

I will follow-up here as my analysis continues.

Thanks,
Andrew (DBoxTips)

Hello DBoxTips​ thanks for your useful input about Certificates. There are about 9 different versions of the Vulcan DLL across 5 different products. They ALL show a valid certificate, but only the ONE item (the Dropbox one) is flagged by Windows OS Code Integrity. It is possible that either the others do NOT need to call a Kernel Mode driver, or they have embedded Authenticode or WHQL certificates.   See the MalwareBytes Forum topic 325667 for info on PP and PPL protected Processes. The Vulkan list is here (Created by Agent Ransack, great bit of software), from my Windows 10 system (22H2 build 19045.5854, but Windows 11 is 24H2):