I get an error message that Windows System Restore failed?

Have added the .dropbox.cache folder location and the same folder location with a *.* wildcard to the FilesNotToBackUp registry key as suggested by Walter above.

Though I suspect this might help people moving forward when creating and subsequently restoring from a *new* restore point created *after* making the suggested registry changes, it does nothing to rescue the poor victims, including myself, that are trying to restore from an *existing* snapshot. It looks like the process restores the registry first which effectively wipes the new key entries and then just goes ahead as before trying (and failing) to restore that **bleep** placeholder.bat file, with the same fail outcome.

A complete wipe and rebuild is looking increasingly likely at this point which, frankly, is a disaster. 

Please can someone at dropbox give us a step by step to get us out of this? Have you guys reached out to microsoft to request a best practice way of excluding a file or folder already contained in a snapshot? If it turns out this is not possible due to a 'microsoft thing' rather than a 'dropbox thing' and out of your control then it would be great to know sooner rather than later so I can bite the bullet and get on with a rebuild. 

yes having the same issue here . . . windows system restore broken by dropbox . . 

I had to do a complete reset of my machine, and I am disappointed this hasn't been resolved yet. Its good that there is a possible workaround. It would be better if it were verified, and it would be of course better if it were fixed completely.

Let me complain for a moment. I am also a software developer. This isn't the type of issue that the companies I have worked for would let "sit". We would work on it until it was fixed; at most of couple of days.

For a company like dropbox, when your system is not only just not working, but your service prevents the host operating system from functioning properly - that's terrible. Your service is harmful, at best negligent.

We are also having the same issue with system restore failing on Windows 10 Pro (Build 1903) systems with Dropbox installed. We had a faulty driver installed on one device which caused a BSOD loop and so the device needed a simple system restore, however, that failed with the same error mentioned previously in this thread. We eventually had to restore the device from a disk image after all else failed.

This issue has caused us to lose about 3 days worth of work on that device, as well as almost 2 days attempting to troubleshoot the issue and finally restoring from a backup disk image after reading this thread. We are still attempting to locate/restore newer documents, work, and program files that were not included in the latest disk image.

For the moment, we have modified registry values on all devices to exclude the Dropbox cache folder from system restore points, however, this obviously can not be a permanent fix for this issue! Please update your software to resolve this issue, or we will begin looking elsewhere for cloud backup services (OneDrive is now syncing for the first time as I write this post), and we will be advising our business partners to do the same.

This is a very serious issue that should not be taken lightly, as anyone who has created, or is about to create, a system backup while this issue remains unresolved will be unable to restore their system if it fails at any point in the future. Your team should at least make an announcement on the app so that users are aware of this issue, and can create regular disk images until the issue is resolved, or at the very least they can be cautious and temporarily avoid unnecessary software/driver installs or any other risky activity that could result in a system failure.

Please consult your dev team and let us know in the thread when this issue is expected to be resolved. I've just realized that the initial post is from October 2018, and so the issue has been around since at least then. This is completely ridiculous. It has been almost a year now. This is something that should be a quick, simple fix on your end for a very serious issue that could affect any of your Windows users at any point in time and cause them to lose their system builds and program files. Please keep us updated.

Thanks for the extensive report sprgroup!

I have already relayed all the details of your problem to our engineering team.At this point, they’ll evaluate the problem and work toward a solution.

Apologies for any inconvenience this might have caused and while I can’t say exactly how long this is going to take, I’ll make sure to keep an eye on the team’s progress and let you know as soon as I have an update.

In the meantime (as you mentioned) the best way to tackle this is to keep excluding .dropbox.cache from the System Restore (see my previous reply for more info). 

So I ask for an update or a step by step or just a simple "we don't anticipate having a fix for this issue soon" over a week ago and am ignored completely. sprgroup asks much the same thing and gets a response in a few hours. Thanks dropbox, way to treat the little guy.

Sorry about this MartyBook - that was an oversight from my end to be honest, as I'm not in the position to advise on a 3rd party service (the FilesNotToBackup registry to be exact) and/or provide a step by step guide on how to remedy this. 

As you know, the team are aware and working on this. I'll make sure to update this thread once I have a more concrete solution for this - thank you all for your patience. 

Hello !! Sorry for my broken English . . . 

Same proble here, as a result we had made 2 times format our laptop, we lost days of work searching what cause the problem. Now we cannot trust to download and to work again with DropBox. It is very hard to understand that at 2019, a pioneer to the sector DropBox, cannot solve a problem which DropBox itself cause to its clients with subscriptions.

And not only that, the problem is not to its software but damage the Operating System.

Microsoft give a restore point option in order to feel safe in any hard situation and Dropbox not only canceling this option but have you to run, to search and to spend time, money and thoughts for NOTHING !!!!

DropBox in this situation, help you with a lot of SILENCE !!!!!

At least GIVE US A FIX BUT A REAL FIX (When our pc stuck at the point that windows restore point give us a message that cannot perform due to DropBox cache file xxxxxxxx.bat

I dont know what more i can say !!!!!       

Has any one made progress on this issue?  I discovered that I had a problem 7 days ago - but it took me 5 days to find this discussion and understand what is wrong (mostly understand).  I did start to tinker with the registry modification but I don't know enough and haven't seen any change from the one attempt to modify the registry (syntax probably wrong)

At this point, whenever Windows updates and trys to make a restoration point, my files go to the earlier version of the last good restoration point.  Then I wait until Dropbox downloads the latest version of my files.  The first time 7 days ago I had to wait 2-1/2 days to get the correct files in place (660,000 files had to index).  I have since removed a big cashe of files from my DropBox so these re-sets don't take so long.

I can command Windows to make a restoration point but I can't restore to that new point.  Dropbox has really gummed up the works here!!!

So I'm really suprised that Dropbox has gone 11 months with no resolution on this issue.  I'm sure it is affecting WAY more customers than know about it.  Dropbox is actually lucky that Windows is pretty stable these days.

You guys that have left DropBox, what did you go to? (I'm sure they are no longer listening in).

Thanks all

So, have you created this registry entry to exclude .dropbox.cache as part of a future version of Dropbox?

I am also having this problem. When will a solution be provided?

Dropbox have known about this issue for years. Solution should be fairly easy to implement but nothing has happened, so I wouldn't expect DP to do anything about it :(   

You can also fix the problem by migrating all company data Sharepoint or Google Drive.

This is how my company have chosen to fix the issue

In a few days from now it is by by Dropbox

😄

Not sure why Walter's suggestion was accepted as a solution.  He did point us in the right direction.  But here are more specific instructions on how to edit the Windows Registry.   I posted this solution on Page 10, 01-18-2021 08:36 AM.   This seems to work well.

1. Start "Regedit"

2. Navigate to 

           HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToBackup
3. Add a Multi-string Value with the Dropbox directory

     a. Right-Click in the window on right-side

    b. Select New

    c.  Select Multi-string value
4. Give the value a descriptive name, like "Dropbox"
5. Double-click the value to open the value editor 

6.  Enter the following string:   %UserProfile%\Dropbox\*.* /s

       (NOTE: This means to ignore all files inside the "C:\Users\{yourusername}\Dropbox" directory and Subdirectories.)

7. Press ENTER

8. Click OK to close.

9. Now, navigate to: 

        HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToSnapshot

10. REPEAT the above steps 3 thru 8 for this key.

11. Close Regedit

Then, to test if it works, 

1.  Create a System Restore Point

2.  Try to System Restore to the point you just created.

Good Luck & Best regards,

Jacob

I have not messed with Windows 11 yet, at all.  I'm waiting for my software development toolkit providers to certify on Win 11.  Some lag a bit behind. 

It's April 2023!!

I just found out about this bug/issue, so I'm not able to recover my Windows 11 state from a Restore Point.

This is very sad news!!

How is it possible that this is still an issue since 2019!?!.... 🤯

Dropbox should have released an update that forces the regkey change to exclude the folder automatically by default!

Maybe add a toggle button for people who still wish to take their chance by not excluding it?  And some info next to the toggle button explaining the possible risks/issues with creating Restore Points.

Lol, this is still an issue. Unbelievable.
Boycott DropBox forever.

i have the same problem now.. cant make my windows system restore, i need help as windows update destroyed my computer and now i cant get back because of dropbox!!!!

Hi Everybody,

Thanks to everyone who has reported this. We are currently investigating this system restore issue and require a bit more information from affected users.

Does this error message completely prevent system restore? Has anyone been able to proceed with the system restore in spite of the error message?

For those who cannot proceed with the restore after receiving the error message, does the system restore simply fail/quit as a result of the error?

If anyone has been able to proceed with the system restore after receiving this error message, how has the restore affected your Dropbox files?

Regards,

Ben