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I've been having issues with Dropbox for months. Getting stuck indexing anywhere from 1-80 files
Hi everyone,
I'm a Win10 user running Dropbox v159.4.5870 on a business account with about 10 other users, all of which do not share the issues I have. I also share a Dropbox account with one person and they don't have any of the issues listed below:
I've been having issues with Dropbox for months causing it to get stuck indexing anywhere from 1-80 files. Other times it gets stuck uploading a handful of files while downloading 1-80 files. One other issue that might be related is I have about 376 files under "Sync Issues". About 30% are "Couldn't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename, e.g. emojis, / \ . " < > : | ? * ", the other 70% are "Couldn't upload. Give Dropbox permission to access this file.".
Non of these issues impact work until Dropbox starts to struggle with the uploading files issue. When this starts happening I uninstall Dropbox and reinstall and those files start syncing properly. I usually have to do this once a week or two.
I've recently upgraded my boot drive and used a drive clone software (Macrium Reflect) to clone my old drive onto the new one. Dropbox seemed to run smoothly for about a few weeks after that.
One of the closest posts I could find to my problem suggested unlinking all devices associated to this account. I did that a noticed there might have been a duplicate of my desktop, and for now most issues seem to resolved for now except all sync issues still exist and one file is continuously indexing. I've tried looking for this file name but no results come back from a search on Dropbox or Windows File Explorer.
My hunch is that I might have an issue with how my drive/partition is formatted. I've set up Dropbox at my home desktop and have had no issues while working from home. I'm curious if I uninstall Dropbox, delete the Dropbox folder, and then reinstall Dropbox if that will clear up any issues there.
Any help is appreciated. Thank you!
Finally got all the issues resolved!
The issue was being caused by a previous user profile that used this machine before me. I verified all the files having issues were from projects the previous user had worked on. Something with how the local permissions were set up or how Dropbox handles syncing files at the same destination on a different user profile.
All I had to do was uninstall Dropbox, delete my Dropbox folder completely, and reinstall. It did take a while to do but now Dropbox no longer has any sync issues nor does it get stuck uploading and downloading.
Thanks for your replies and trying to help make sense of this Megan & Walter!
14 Replies
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hey JTizzle, let's jump right into this!
When you upgraded your boot drive, and used a clone software, did you face the same exact issues as before? How long has this behavior been going on?
Can you let me know the app's syncing status at the moment? Feel free to send me a screenshot of it too, if you wish. Also, how exactly is your partition formatted?
Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!
Megan, thanks for the reply.
This behavior has been going on since I started using this computer a little over a year ago. It's a Dell XPS 8930 desktop. I upgraded the boot drive about 5 months ago. Please see attached images.
If I pause the sync and resume it it'll start indexing a handful of files, then return to "Syncing..."
If I look at my folder structure in Dropbox there's one folder with the blue syncing icon. If I follow the blue icon it leads me to one 140 KB Excel file.
My dektop's fans will ramp up intermittently and also pretty extremely. I was able to catch it when replying and grabbed a screenshot from Task Manager. Occasionally I'll see "Microsoft Windows Search Filter Host" and "Microsoft Windows Search Protocol Host" on the top of CPU usage as well.
Lastly, here's a screenshot from Computer Management of how my boot drive is generally formatted.
Happy to give any more information!
- Megan
Great job with the details, and screenshots JTizzle!
Is it possible that you're syncing locally more than 300K files, which is the soft limit of the desktop app? Do you use selective sync for any of your folders?
Also, have you excluded the possibility of your ISP, antivirus or firewall being the culprit of this?
