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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 p...
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!
Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorHey 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?
Looks like my old reply got deleted? Weird... Anyways the tl;dr of my deleted reply was I don't think any of those things might be an issue. I do suspect my hardware might be the issue since it is the most outdated of our office's machines.
Anyways, it looks like I found a semi workaround solution. The 140 KB Excel file caused a lot of issues when I tried opening it out of curiosity. Windows gave me a few access denied sort-of errors and I noticed about an hour later that Dropbox was no longer syncing because it was trying to download that file. I had to quit and restart and but I still had about 40 files that Dropbox couldn't download or upload. To see if this Excel file was the issue I downloaded it from Dropbox.com and it opened just fine. I then tried to delete the file out of Windows file explorer but Dropbox.com didn't update or recognize my computer deleted the file, so I deleted it out of Dropbox.com as well. I moved the downloaded Excel file over into the same folder in Windows file explorer and it instantly synced and popped up in Dropbox.com... Now my Dropbox app is working "normally" for now.
Not sure why this file was having problems but I'm still curious to dig deeper why my Dropbox was having this issue in the first place as I'm sure this will happen again. There is still the issue of all my sync issues that non of my co-workers have.
- Megan
Hey JTizzle!
I am glad that your workaround did the trick, and your app is now up to date, and working as it should.
Now, as to why this behavior happened, a lot of different reasons could be the culprit, and it'd definitely be easier to tackle it down as it happens. I am always here in case this happens again, in order for us to look closely into this, and identify the cause.
You also mentioned about an issue that none of your co-workers have, however after a second look at your initial message, it seems this was a syncing issue with the app's syncing status being stuck, right? Looking at your screenshot now, this seems to have gone away. If you're referring to something different, let me know more.
Thanks a bunch!
The issue I mentioned are the "Sync issues" than no one else is having. I might try to reinstall, delete folder, reinstall at a later date.
I'm not seeing any logical explanation why these are happening from what I can find. Sometimes one of our folders might have a comma but it doesn't impact all the files inside. And again, no one else on our Dropbox has this issue. Might just have to live with it till we retire this machine and start with a fresh drive and install. Unless there's something I'm not understanding with these issues that would resolve it.
Thanks
