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Dropbox gets stuck forever syncing one file, on Windows
I tend to spend much of the day editing a very small number of programming language files. Once in a while I will notice that one of these files will stop uploading through Dropbox. There is no error...
Thanks for your attempt to help. There is no way to "pause" Dropbox. If you mean pausing Dropbox syncing, I covered that already in my question, which you are welcome to re-read.
Lusil
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffDoes this only happen with text files or have you noticed it with other file types as well?
Could you also confirm if you're running the latest stable version of the desktop app?
You can do that by hovering over the Dropbox icon on your system tray.
Could you also confirm if you're running the latest stable version of the desktop app?
You can do that by hovering over the Dropbox icon on your system tray.
Almost all of the files in my Dropbox folder are text files, and the problem does not happen every day, or on both of the computers I use Dropbox on, so experimenting with actual files in Dropbox, such as using other file types, is difficult. The fact that this problem is rare may be part of the reason it has never been fixed.
If it is relevant, I have Preferences > Bandwidth > LAN sync > Enable LAN sync unchecked. I have found that allowing direct syncing between my two computers sometimes results in out-of-date versions of files.
I don't interfere with Dropbox updating, so my software should always be the latest version. I see version number 114.4.426 this morning. I have no idea if that is the latest stable version, but I would hope so.
- LusilHey David S.178, I just wanted to check back with you and see if you're still having trouble with this?
If you are, could you click on or hover over the Dropbox icon that's on your system tray and let me know what it shows?It shows "Up to date" because, as I wrote above, I worked around the problem by restarting my computer. My original question is: is there an easier way to work around this Dropbox bug than to restart the computer that is stuck on syncing?
- Daphne
Dropbox Community Moderator
We would need to do some troubleshooting when you're having the issue to be able to find out what the root cause of this is David S.178.
Next time that you see the file sync being stuck, please try these steps to see if that does the trick.
If the issue persists, does closing the app you're using to edit the files allow them to sync?
Keep me posted with the results!Thank you. I have saved these steps to both my computers and will post again when the problem happens.
I only use two apps to edit my files (Notetab Pro and Notepad), and Dropbox usually takes only 3-4 seconds to sync a file that I've saved in an editor, which is usually before I close the editor. So my editor cannot possibly be holding the file open after it saves the file, because if that were true, Dropbox would never be able to sync a file that is being edited. To test this, I just edited a file in Dropbox then saved it, using Notetab Pro. After the save completed and the sync completed, I used the "what's locking this file" app on the file and it told me that no programs were holding a lock on the file.
Perhaps there is what we engineers call a "race condition" involving closing the file. If that is the source of the problem, you need to change Dropbox to detect whether a lock is set on the file, then wait until the lock is gone before attempting to sync the file. This would cause a delay, but only until the application closed the file.
