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Forum Discussion
Dropbox freezes and crashes my file explorer.
Hello,
I am having trouble with dropbox working through my Windows file explorer. For some reason, within the last week every time I try to navigate to one of my dropbox files the file explorer cr...
Same Problem here
Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorSorry to hear this, e3ecodesign.
Unless you’re on a free Basic plan with more than 3 devices linked, have you tried reinstalling the Dropbox app?
Can you please also take a look at the rest of the suggestions here in this thread and let me know what you’ve tried so far, so that I can help troubleshoot further?
Has any progress been made on this issue?
I've had the same problem in Windows 10 for many months, and mostly just sucked it up and lived with it--but it's been pretty miserable. I can confirm the behavior described by previous posters: Explorer is very slow to select and navigate within the Dropbox directory but not elsewhere. Just today I set up a fresh install of Dropbox on a new hard drive with a brand new Windows 10 installation, and the problem recurred--again only within the Dropbox directory and all subdirectories.
I have about 96K files in my Dropbox totaling around 500 GB. I don't use any other cloud storage software that could interfere (no iCloud), and do not have any antivirus software installed (other than Microsoft's default Defender software). I can also confirm that when using a "light" file explorer like Explorer++ I have no issues.
Any idea what's going on here and what can be done about it? The only app integration I have is Overleaf, but that comprises a small share of total files. It seems like it's some interaction with Windows Explorer itself.
- Megan
Hey grossdpg, thanks for posting here!
Would you mind clarifying when you started noticing a difference on your end while using our app?
Also, which version of the Dropbox app, do you use on your end? You should be able to locate that, but hovering your mouse over the little Dropbox icon, on your task bar, next to your WiFi.
One more thing: if you quit our app and then check the behavior of your Dropbox folder in the File Explorer, do you notice the same thing?
Let me know more, and we'll take it from there!
Thanks Megan. It's definitely been many months. I think this started sometime in 2023, possibly as far back as a year ago. There's some chance it could be even longer--I've just lost track.
To your question: when I quit the Dropbox app, and also terminate Dropbox Service and any other Dropbox-affiliated processes I can see running, the behavior persists (still isolated to just be within the Dropbox directory)
I'm currently running version 201.4.5552 on this PC (that's off a fresh install; my previous install/hard drive was auto updating). One detail I just remembered: curiously it only seems to affect this machine (a 2019 Dell laptop PC, 2 TB SSD, 32 GB RAM). I have two other computers (both desktop PCs running Windows 10) where I haven't had this issue. On one of those machines I have Dropbox installed on the same drive as the OS, and on the other machine it's on a secondary drive that only has my Dropbox directory on it. All evidence that rules against any of those variables.
The strangest thing, then, is that it recurred on a single machine, across two different hard drives, OS installs, and Dropbox installs, but the same account doesn't seem to create problems on two other computers, which are also running Windows 10 Pro. Makes me think this will be a tough nut to crack except others have reported similar things.
- Hannah
Thanks for the additional info here, grossdpg.
I completely understand where you're coming from and we appreciate your feedback.
Should you want to continue investigating this issue, though, just out of curiosity, can you check if disabling Overleaf makes any difference?
Thanks Hannah. Happy to try something if you have ideas. Unlinking Overleaf unfortunately didn't fix it. Still befuddling. I'm guessing this is a pretty isolated problem/not many people have it (though some seem to have) otherwise there would have been many more threads about it than the few I've found. It may just be what it will be.
