Start 2025 on time and up to date! Seamlessly integrate your calendars into Dropbox with these simple steps! š
Forum Discussion
I get an error message that Windows System Restore failed?
Hi
When I run Windows System Restore it fails with this error message
System Restore failed to replace the file (D:\Users\*******\Dropbox\.dropbox.cache\qebcobkqbgbzfynfuwbof\placeholder.bat) with its original copy from the restore point. An unspecified error occurred during restore. (0x80070780)
I have completed system recovery from an image without problem but on several occasions I have come up against this error when trying to correct a problem using system restore which would be easier to use if I could. I still have the problem if I run the system restore in safe mode with the same failour message
Any suggestions on allowing the restore to work
Richard
Hi everyone,
We're testing out some changes in v182 (currently in beta) that should hopefully help with this. Let us know if you continue to run into problems.
Thanks
- Walter
Dropbox Staff
Hey Richard - sorry to hear about this!
Have you asked Microsoft directly as this error is coming from your Windows computer's directly and not Dropbox?
What I was able to find is that this issue can happen in Windows computers due to various reasons. Some of them are:
1. System files corruption or missing
2. Hard disk errors or bad sectors
3. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable
4. Unknown virus or malware infection.I hope this information helps point you towards the right direction and please keep me posted on your findings Richard P.44/.
Hi
yes followed through the microsoft procedures and not found anything to help
Raised it here as the file causing the error was a dropbox placeholder file. Seems to have only become a problem since smart sync came into operation
Richard
- Walter
Thanks for the additional info Richard P.44 - much appreciated.
From what I understand (note that this is not within my scope of expertise in any way) when you run the System Restore your computer tries to restore a placeholder file from your external drive (yes, I noticed the " D:\ "part on that file's path) and fails for some reason. Do you have that external drive connected to your computer when performing your system's recovery?
At this point and to help isolate this issue, could you please try quitting the Dropbox application when trying to restore by using the following steps?
- Click the Dropbox icon in your system tray (Windows) or menu bar (Mac/Linux)
- Click on the gear icon in the Notifications panel and select "Quit Dropbox"
Let me know if this helped!
I am running into this problem also. I think that the issue is that the .dropbox.cache folder is read-only.
As DeeRoche says below, the problem isn't writing to the folder during the restore process. The problem seems to be accessing the backed up folder from the restore point.
I've tried unsetting the read-only bit from the destination folder but this doesn't help. It's the source folder in the restore point that is causing a problem.
I have doubts that I will find any kind of workaround here, but I'm still looking. In my case, I can't uninstall Dropbox because the computer I need to restore is unbootable.
Hi all.
I too am a developer and was just looking at an issue on my works PC.
Let me tell you all something.
This is not just a Dropbox issue. Onedrive now does exactly the same only on Clientlink.properties, no system restore will work.
Now any PC with onedrive installed and configured has exactly the same issue and we have around 1000 seats all over the world and this is fast becoming a global problem.
I have emailed the US guys and if they find a solution I will post it here.- This is complete bull**bleep**. Just bricked my machine over this. I am a musician and now I must reset and reconfigure my ENTIRE setup. 2 days of work.
I will be going to Google drive. Forget this nonsense. Dropbox has had how long to fix This??
Same problem here. I have also wasted an entire day trying to find a workaround, but will now be forced to install W10 and my (complex) development environment from scratch. Days of work for nothing.
Looking into my own NAS for the future.
Synology Drive 2.0 seems to be good enough: https://jussiroine.com/2019/08/saying-goodbye-to-dropbox/
I can pretty much tell you there is no workaround, other than changing the files that are saved in the restore point before you save it. After this file is included, you are out of luck. I work at Microsoft and I tried literally everything to edit the restore point with help from some developers here, and ended up just reinstalling Windows 10.
Yet another person here that was hit by this issue. Windows 10 ended up in a reboot loop after a failed Windows Update and after a lot of frustration not being able to use System Restore I found this forum thread. I lack words to express how disappointed I am to find out that Dropbox apparently has known about this for quite some time but still haven't fixed it.
I've been using Dropbox since it came out both personally and professionally. I've also recommended it to a lot of people.
After my incident and the frustration it has caused my colleague already switched to OneDrive and is very happy with it.
I myself thought I'd give Dropbox support a chance to make things right so I contacted them and asked for status on this issue before I take a decision on how to proceed. If they will not fix this, I'll cancel Dropbox both personally and for my company and will recommend all other Windows 10 users to do so. Having a backup application corrupting an important recovery mechanism in your OS is simply astonishing when it's a known issue.
Unfortunately, the response I've got from support so far is that
"There is, unfortunately, no resolution to this issue at this time, nor any fix on the horizon"
I re-iterated my question to clarify whether they are aware of the issue and it simply takes a lot of time to get it solved or if it's just not something they prioritize.
The support then told me they could offer me help in two ways:
1) Help me submit a feature request fort his. Really? Feature request? This is a serious bug...
2) "Social media is a good way to raise the profile of a given issue" .. "The more people who raise the issue, the higher priority it becomes". If I've been a paying customer for a product during many years and discover a serious bug, should I really have to turn to social media to raise awareness?
Even though I do not like having to do it, I am adding my story here to increase the chances of us being heard. I'm about to ask Dropbox support one more time whether they really feel like it's the right decision to add this as a feature request and not a bug to be fixed. Their response will determine whether I will continue using Dropbox at all in the future.
The placeholder.bat in the Dropbox cache file destroys Windows System Restore :( Does anyone know how to restore Windows when Dropbox has been installed? You can exclude specific directories in restoration points in the future but before you realize this Dropbox has destroyed your system restore and you are unable to roll back. How do you exclude the Dropbox cache placeholder.bat from old restoration points?
As I understand from my own investigation and previous comments here it seems that it's unfortunately impossible. This is what makes this issue so serious becauce once you discover what the issue is you are already screwed and can do nothing about it.
I have a support case open with Dropbox that was submitted to their specialist team one week ago. No update yet but I keep my fingers crossed they hopefully will take this seriously soon.
I'd recommend all of you reading this to open a support case with Dropbox as well to make sure they become aware how serious this issue is.
LOL! Dropbox is litterally a Windows killer app!
Made a full reinstallation of Windows and lost a ton of stuff calenders, appointment etc. just to have Dropbox kill my system again before realizing this issue.
Thanks, Deadbox :(
You A-holes should probably notify users so that they can create a disk image before they loose all their $h1t like countless others and myself! Because of this, I did not install Dropbox after my latest fresh install of Windows. At this point I do not believe I will be installing Dropbox on my system again. I'm currently afraid to reboot my other two PCs. They both have Dropbox installed so I'm sure all my restore points are fried on those machines as well. fkng pissed! I will be moving my things out of Dropbox. I and the many others should be compensated for the hell this has put us through and the countless hours we'll spend and have spent trying to get Windows and everything else back up and running. Not to mention the Thousands of gigs of information that we've lost and can never get back. This Is completely unacceptable. I smell a lawsuit! Dropbox should and will be held liable! Dropbox has known about this PC destroying error for over 2 years and has done nothing to correct the problem. We could have done without weeks of BS and data loss, had these a-holes given their PAYING customers a simple heads up so that we could take necessary steps to create a system image. I will not leave this to be buried and forgotten. I will Share this information every chance I get. This company is trash and you will be treated as such! Hope your ready dropbox. You'll be seeing lots of me. This is going mainstream! I'm gonna $hit on your porch! š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©š©
I am adding one more step to a post I made a few months ago. I know this is NOT a "Fix" for this issue, particularly if you are experiencing system problems. However, it may save those of you, for whom Dropbox is critical, in the future... as it saved me. The only thing that has worked for me is to Shut Down Dropbox, BEFORE creating a System Restore Point, as follows:
1. Exit Dropbox using the SysTray icon (drop-down your picture at the top right.
2. Run the Windows "Services" Manager
3. STOP the "DbxSvc" ("Dropbox Service")
4. STOP the "Dropbox Update Service (dbupdate)" service
5. STOP the "Dropbox Update Service (dbupdatem)" service
6. Create Restore Point
7. START the Dropbox Services
8. Click "Start", type "Dropbox" & hit Enter to start the Dropbox APP
After doing this, I was able to do a Restore based on that Restore Point. I haven't tried to create a Batch File for this yet.
Now, Having said that... I received an eMail from Dropbox Tech Support, but I have NOT had time to test her suggestions. I am posting it here in case some of you would like to try it. Please let us know if you DO try the following suggestions and whether it works or not.
Hi Jacob, Thanks for your patience. My name is Maddison, and I work in the Dropbox Advanced Support team. As I understand it you're getting a Dropbox-related error message when doing a system restore. I would recommend using the steps below to clear the cache. This won't affect or remove the files in your Dropbox folder and will also free up space in your hard drive. 1) Stop Dropbox: ā¢ Click on the Dropbox icon ā¢ Click on your profile picture or initials to the right of the search bar, and select "Exit Dropbox" 2) Next, carefully follow the instructions here: https://www.dropbox.com/help/328 3) Restart Dropbox: ā¢ Run from Start > All Programs menu. If the problem persists, please remove the Dropbox cache folder completely. This involves following the steps stated above to clear the cache folder, but this time try by fully deleting the main .dropbox.cache folder instead of deleting just its contents. If you're still unable to perform the restore, please let me know. Regards, Maddison
Best regards,
Jacob
- In regards to the above Message, Removing Files or folders from your Dropbox Will not help the situation. That's what Dropbox has been saying since the beginning and if you read the full thread here you'll see that it does not work. Reading the entire thread you'll see the only thing that has been foolproof for people Is Creating another partition on your Hard drive for your Dropbox Folder . Exclude that entire Partition from Automatic system backups And you should be fine.
I have the exact same issue right now and it's a major pain in the behind. This bothers me to no end and it's absolutely fantastic to see that Dropbox have known about this issue now for over 2 years and yet they clearly don't care the tiniest little bit about their customers. I really don't want to move over to OneDrive but I guess you leave me no choice?
- This is a known and acknowledged issue since 2019, however Dropbox support no longer responds in the other thread and I am now also bricked by this bug. Deleting the .dropbox.cache folder didn't help, so I cannot restore.
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-installs-integrations/I-get-an-error-message-that-Windows-System-Restore-failed/td-p/302390/highlight/false
Major red flag that they've not bothered fixing this. Gee, how about this for a "How we use Dropbox" story! Sure, Emmet backed up a decade of photos, but how about John has NO PHOTOS and NO COMPUTER and has been sitting around for 3 days with his bricked computer trying to work out a solution to the "placeholder.bat" problem that Dropbox knew and kept quiet about since 2018.
Never a single warning to customers: by the way, you're going to lose your restore functionality.
If Google's motto is "Do No Evil," the Dropbox mentality here must be "Do Evil" : Keep quiet and maybe the customers will never know they're making all these restore points they'll never, ever be able to use...HA HA HA!! This must keep the Dropbox engineers cracking up for days.
Think about the irony here: a company that we all pay dearly to PROTECT OUR FILES ends up DESTROYING OUR ABILITY TO RESTORE OUR COMPUTER!
Absolutely maddening.
Can anyone say "Class Action Lawsuit" ???
I saw somewhere else in reading that I can't find now that it is smart sync that is corrupting the file, so I turned smart sync off during the most recent fresh install. Subsequently, I was able to successfully update Windows 11 without having to restore/being unable to do so because of a corrupted dropbox cache file, but it's only been 10 days, so I can't say with certainty that turning off smart sync is a truly viable workaround.
This happened to me today (7 years after the first comment above) on a new w11 laptop. Is there any way to fix it so I can do a successful restore?
The app I have installed is whatever I downloaded. I ended up having to reset back to the new factory settings and start over, due to the Dropbox glitch of not allowing the reset, which I needed to be able to do in order to do a different app's reinstall, since the restore didn't complete. I did capture a screenshot before I did that though. How do I send the screenshot to you?
Just happened to me too. What is the solution? Is it possible to exclude dropbox files from a restore point? This is going to waste multiple days of my time.
Thank you - I'll be on the edge of my seat and alert to when he does that so that I can respond quickly.
