Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨‍💻? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

bertonstott's avatar
bertonstott
Explorer | Level 4
8 years ago
Solved

I was infected by a Trojan it's synced in Dropbox, too. What should I do?

When I try to open or install DropBox on my Windows laptop, I get an "Infection Blocked" error from Iolo System Mechaninc (My anti-virus program).  The infected object is reported to be C:\PROGRAM ...
desktop
Setting up the apps
  • Karina's avatar
    Karina
    8 years ago

    Hi again eveyone, and welcome Kaimalino & Sparky15756 - hope y'all are good! 😊
     

    After looking into this a little bit, I’ve found some info that might explain syncing issues and infected files. 
     
    • The Dropbox desktop client uses the ".dropbox.cache" folder as a staging area to download your files in small chunks. Sometimes antivirus programs will pick up these partial files as false positives and continuously quarantine them. 
     
    • The problem is that Dropbox keeps downloading the file in an attempt to sync the file down to your device. So, I’d recommend adding the Dropbox cache folder to an ignore list so that Dropbox can correctly sync that file and/or temporarily disabling your antivirus. 
     
    • Once synced, you should no longer see these warnings or quarantine messages.
     
    Now, for those of you experiencing issues with the install or start up of the application, see if you’re also able to add the cache folder to an ignore list - If you’re still experiencing issues after this, I definitely think it would be best for our specialists to take a closer look, so please log an official request at: www.dropbox.com/support 
     
    From there, feel free to write back with your ticket ID’s and I’ll be happy to search for the cases on our back-end and forward them along. 

    Thanks so much and happy Friday! 
     
    balloon 
Karina's avatar
Karina
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
8 years ago

Hi again eveyone, and welcome Kaimalino & Sparky15756 - hope y'all are good! 😊
 

After looking into this a little bit, I’ve found some info that might explain syncing issues and infected files. 
 
  • The Dropbox desktop client uses the ".dropbox.cache" folder as a staging area to download your files in small chunks. Sometimes antivirus programs will pick up these partial files as false positives and continuously quarantine them. 
 
  • The problem is that Dropbox keeps downloading the file in an attempt to sync the file down to your device. So, I’d recommend adding the Dropbox cache folder to an ignore list so that Dropbox can correctly sync that file and/or temporarily disabling your antivirus. 
 
  • Once synced, you should no longer see these warnings or quarantine messages.
 
Now, for those of you experiencing issues with the install or start up of the application, see if you’re also able to add the cache folder to an ignore list - If you’re still experiencing issues after this, I definitely think it would be best for our specialists to take a closer look, so please log an official request at: www.dropbox.com/support 
 
From there, feel free to write back with your ticket ID’s and I’ll be happy to search for the cases on our back-end and forward them along. 

Thanks so much and happy Friday! 
 
balloon 
samarik's avatar
samarik
Explorer | Level 4
8 years ago

thanks it helps me recovering this issue.

 

I'm having lot of Questions by doing this. trust is worthy not to be lost !!  so I'm not under threat by doing this!!? Should there is proper way to clear things ?
by the way this is how to add the folder from Microsoft Security page

  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    8 years ago

    Hey there samarik - nice screenshot :wink:

     

    As per your inquiry now, could you please shed some light on what exactly is your concern about this? Are you having a problem setting an exclusion on your Windows Defender? 

     

    Any clarification would be highly appreciated. Thanks!

    • samarik's avatar
      samarik
      Explorer | Level 4
      8 years ago

      Hi every one, 

       wrote:

      Hey there  - nice screenshot :wink:

       

      As per your inquiry now, could you please shed some light on what exactly is your concern about this? Are you having a problem setting an exclusion on your Windows Defender? 

       

      Any clarification would be highly appreciated. Thanks!

      thanks, Walter for Reply,  Okay for about one week my widows' defender start to flag Trojan when Dropbox app syncing during bootup, the details show that this folder is (.dropbox.cache) with temp extension file in it. Every time starts windows, I delete this folder until I did the Exclusion as it a false indication, then its synced fully in LOL. it was a Real trojan>>> immediately deleted from shared folder online and did some test by https://www.virustotal.com/en/ on it locally all site Flagged it, so, I kept the file for more analyzing
      actually DropBox app was doing a great Job Declaring this file to windows security,

      now I have cleaned my System. it was

      • Walter's avatar
        Walter
        Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
        8 years ago

        Thanks for the clarifications samarik - glad to hear you managed to resolve your concerns.

         

        For more context now,  note that our desktop application uses the ".dropbox.cache" folder as a staging area to download your files in small chunks - this is part of the syncing process.

         

        Sometimes antivirus programs will pick up these partial files as false positives and continue to quarantine them. The problem in this case is that Dropbox keeps downloading the file in an attempt to sync the file down to your device.

         

        You should be able to tackle this by adding the Dropbox cache folder to an ignore list so that Dropbox can correctly sync that file and/or temporarily disabling your antivirus. Once synced, you should no longer see these warnings or quarantine messages. 

         

        Hope this clears this up a bit and do let me know if there's anything else I can help with. 

About Apps and Installations

Have a question about a Dropbox app or installation? Reach out to the Dropbox Community and get solutions, help, and advice from members.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!