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Linux - Unable to change Dropbox directory
I'm using Fedora Workstation 25 with GNOME.
Trying to change the Dropbox directory results in the utterly useless message "Unexpected errors occurred. Your Dropbox is ok!".
Steps to recre...
I was having this same issue. I found a fix in creating a Dropbox folder in my home directory prior to connecting my account. This caused the installer to throw an error about a Dropbox folder already existing that prompted me to either delete the Dropbox folder or select a different location. Eureka! (for me at least...)
Guys solved, and the solution was the easiest and logic.
I expose my situation:
sda1 300GB --> /
sda5 8TB --> /home
As I explained, I wanted to install Dropbox below /home directory, but playing as "root" user, by default, it forced the installation on /root
So I just installed the daemon using the user who owns the home directory I want and it works properly, just remember to add the "user" to the root group.
If you need more details, don't hesitate to ask.
wrote:I was having this same issue. I found a fix in creating a Dropbox folder in my home directory prior to connecting my account. This caused the installer to throw an error about a Dropbox folder already existing that prompted me to either delete the Dropbox folder or select a different location. Eureka! (for me at least...)
This didn't work for me, but I did find a similar solution! I created a "work" dropbox account and set up a fresh installation of dropbox with that account, which places the "work" Dropbox folder in the defaut ~/Dropbox. I then deleted everything in ~/.dropbox* (with rm -rf ~/.dropbox* ), reinstalled dropbox and set it up using my personal account. Now since the folder in ~/Dropbox already contains the dropbox for the work account, I got the prompt that allowed me to either delete the Dropbox folder or select a different location for my personal account. Somehow this worked when simply moving the folder within dropbox wouldn't... I hope this helps somebody! (using Fedora 27 btw)
My support ticket has been passed on to different people at Dropbox several times, but the problem has not yet been solved.
I have established that moving the Dropbox directory to a subdirectory of my home directory, e.g. from ~/Dropbox to ~/Something/Dropbox does work which makes me think the issue is somehow related to moving the Dropbox directory to a different disk partition. However on openSUSE Leap 42.2 moving the Dropbox directory to a different disk partition does work. I haven't been able to work out why that works on openSUSE but not Fedora (using same version of Dropbox client). I've replicated the problem on Fedora 23, 25, 26. Haven't tried 24.
In my case, I think the problem is my Dropbox location is NTFS drive. If I move Dropbox to ext4, everything fine.
Hope Dropbox fix this problem soon.
Mike, do you know the location of Dropbox's log file? I can't find anything about dropbox on /var/log/
Thanks
TuanNV
- ~/.dropbox/logs/ but you can't read them. Dropbox support have told me "you won't be able to open them, I'm afraid they are encrypted and can only be decrypted here."
I've tried to open these log files, and couldn't read, maybe it's encrypted or is binary files.
- Um, did you see the part of my previous post where I said Dropbox support told me "they are encrypted" ?
- Jane
Dropbox Staff
I know those commands are taken from the Dropbox FAQ. Please have someone update the FAQ so it doesn't tell people to use sudo when making modifications to files/directories that they own, as the last two commands do. It is not required and is bad practice.
It should not be assumed that someone's usercode has sudo rights.
I've tried, but it not work, JaneA.
- Jane
Hey tuannv0708,
Thanks for your swift reply!
Would you mind sending in some more details on the matter, such as your device configuration (for instance, are you trying to move the Dropbox folder on an NTFS, HFS, ext4 drive?).
Also, are you receiving any error messages? I'd be glad to follow-up if you give me some more information on what you're experiencing.
Looking forward to hearing back from you,
JaneA
I have tried this on both NTFS and ext4 and still have issues. This is a clean OS install, other than the NVIDIA drivers that are installed beforehand.
-Installed 64bit Fedora 25 workstation
-Installed 64bit dropbox via https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux
-Formatted secondary drive (NTFS + ext4), and setup auto mount on fstab
-Opened up all permissions and using chown doesn't seem to make a difference since root is always mounting the drive
-When first opening Dropbox, I go to move the location and it returns "Unexpected errors occured. Your Dropbox is ok!"
One thing I would like to add is that about 6 months ago when I did this exact same process... I didn't have problems and didnt even need to change the permissions. Please help
-Formatted secondary drive (NTFS + ext4), and setup auto mount on fstab
That doesn't make sense. Do you mean you set up the secondary drive with two partitions and formatted one NTFS and one ext4? Then you tried to move the Dropbox directory to the NTFS partition?
Please helpC'mon, look at this thread, you may as well write "please help" on a piece of paper, stick it in a bottle and chuck it in the sea.
The only solution to this issue is someone at Dropbox figuring it out where the issue is in the client code and fixing it. All we can do is wait for that to happen.
The support ticket I have open has now been passed to the engineering team. Hopefully one of them will come up with a fix to incorporate in to a client update.
It could be that they issue you're encountering isn't even the same error I am. We're both trying to move the Dropbox directory and we both get the same error message, but it's obviously a generic catch all message that could be displayed in who knows how many circumstances.
I went through the entire process twice. Tried it with ext4 first...then I tried NTFS and same results... as I mentioned in the very first sentence.
I really doubt this issue is beyond Dropbox. I have been able to replicate the exact same error over multiple installations with different medias... I have tried both Fedora 25 + 26 (seperately!!! for those who cant read) and have just gone to a completely different OS to resolve the issue. I did see some people mentioning Arch had similar problems and error codes.
Dear JaneA,
I have 2 OS on my laptop: Windows 10 and Fedora26. All OS install on SSD.
A HDD drive for share data. It's formatted NTFS. And I have dropbox data on this drive.
Dropbox on Windows 10 is ok as it always.
Dropbox on Fedora failed when I relocate to NTFS drive.
The permission in Fedora is ok for all file of dropbox.
Could you show me the log file location of dropbox, so I can trace the problem.
I think Dropbox team try to protect the log file, so user can't access that.
Thanks in advance.
TuanNV
tharris104 wrote:
I really doubt this issue is beyond Dropbox.
I doubt it's beyond Dropbox, but all the evidence suggests it is very much beyond the support staff who post here, hence my comment about "please help". Seriously, the first reply I got in this thread wasn't even for the right operating system. And look at the "sudo chmod" advice - does that seem like it's written by someone who's used Linux for longer than it took to write that bit of the FAQ? I'm sure the support staff who post here help lots of people, but based on this thread so far it really doesn't seem like they're equiped to provide a solution for a generic error message appearing when a specific operation is attempted with the Linux client on some distros.
Even after raising a support ticket I was given the "sudo chmod" advice again. And then after providing details of a load of tests I'd done on different versions of Fedora, with and without LVM and LUKS, and providing strace output, I was told "sudo chmod" etc. Only after I expressed disatisfaction with that, again, was I told the ticket has been referred to engineering.
If you raise your own support ticket at https://www.dropbox.com/support then, maybe after you've explained to them N times that "sudo chmod" doesn't help, that might get referred to engineering. Maybe more support tickets will mean engineering give greater priority to finding a solution.
tuannv0708 wrote:
Could you show me the log file location of dropbox, so I can trace the problem.
I think Dropbox team try to protect the log file, so user can't access that.
As I've stated elsewhere in this thread the log is at ~/.dropbox/logs/ and Dropbox support have told me "you won't be able to open them, I'm afraid they are encrypted and can only be decrypted here."
If I were you I'd raise a support ticket at https://www.dropbox.com/support
Okay everyone, I figured out why mine wasn't working.. which is funny becuase this directory has been on my Dropbox since 2012 yet I am just now having issues moving the files..
After the error.. it was always creating the empty directories and I noticed this:
drwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Apr 6 2016 Musicdrwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Aug 8 15:48 Persondrwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Aug 8 15:44 RubymineProjectsdr-xr-xr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Jul 26 2016 SEP-MP5drwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Aug 8 15:59 Softwaredrwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Aug 8 15:44 Workdrwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Aug 8 15:45 XonoticI went to the web interface and removed that shared drive from another Dropbox user.. went to move.. and no more error. So possibly if you have folders that are shared from other dropbox users, this may be whats causing issues with permissions so removing that at least gets data stored on bigger drive...By the way, after moving the drive, I readded that share via web interface and it seems to be syncing up but I have a while to go before I get all 500gb...Thanks Dropbox!
tharris104 wrote:
Okay everyone, I figured out why mine wasn't working.. which is funny becuase this directory has been on my Dropbox since 2012 yet I am just now having issues moving the files..
After the error.. it was always creating the empty directories and I noticed this:
drwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Apr 6 2016 Musicdrwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Aug 8 15:48 Persondrwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Aug 8 15:44 RubymineProjectsdr-xr-xr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Jul 26 2016 SEP-MP5drwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Aug 8 15:59 Softwaredrwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Aug 8 15:44 Workdrwxrwxr-x 2 tharris tharris 4096 Aug 8 15:45 XonoticI went to the web interface and removed that shared drive from another Dropbox user.. went to move.. and no more error. So possibly if you have folders that are shared from other dropbox users, this may be whats causing issues with permissions so removing that at least gets data stored on bigger drive...Which means the problem you were encounting is completely different to the issue I'm encountering.
Just saying... you should check permissions on those empty directories.. or even on their website.. it will have a lock next to the icon.
tharris104 wrote:
Just saying... you should check permissions on those empty directories.. or even on their website.. it will have a lock next to the icon.
What empty directories?
I have no shared folders. I can reproduce the problem even after deleting everything in my Dropbox directory. I can move the Dropbox directory within ${HOME}. I think we have both encountered things that cause the Dropbox client to chuck out the same generic error message but the underlying issues are entirely different.
mike _. wrote:
What empty directories?
I have no shared folders. I can reproduce the problem even after deleting everything in my Dropbox directory. I can move the Dropbox directory within ${HOME}. I think we have both encountered things that cause the Dropbox client to chuck out the same generic error message but the underlying issues are entirely different.
You are probably right aboout that.. The directories I am talking about are created on the mount (or wherever your moving to) after trying to move the folders.. I was messing with mount points and actually ended up with my 2TB mounted inside home. But after looking at the empty folders, thats when I saw the permissions it was trying to move..
100% match to my issue, Usng Fedora 26 - Followed all the permisson changes in this thread. However I can move the "~/Dropbox" directory in to a "~/subfolder?Dropbox" sync works. Unable to move Dropbox folder to another partion on same SSD or any HDD Drive. (internal or external).. Would you recommned I open a new ticket to raise the awareness to support?
pix365 wrote:
100% match to my issue, Usng Fedora 26 - Followed all the permisson changes in this thread. However I can move the "~/Dropbox" directory in to a "~/subfolder?Dropbox" sync works. Unable to move Dropbox folder to another partion on same SSD or any HDD Drive. (internal or external).. Would you recommned I open a new ticket to raise the awareness to support?
Yep, sounds like same issue I encoutered. Dropbox support told me earlier today that engineering are "not actively working on a solution for this problem". Which is disapointingbut not particularly surprising given the obscureness of the issue and the number of people who'd be affected by it.Someone else raising a ticket may make them more inclined to look at the issue. Tell them you think you're encounting the same issue as ticket 6168712.
It'd be interesting to know if the issue occurs on any distro other than Fedora. I can't replicate it on openSUSE. I've not tried any other distros. I've not yet had time/inclination to try other distros.
Mike, I moved off Linuxmint 18.2 why? After the lastest upgrade I cannot fix low audio and distortion issues.
So in my efforts to track down the root cause over the past two weeks l've tried various flavours of Ununtu based distros, 16.04.04 & 17.04. this audio issue is common to all with kernel 4.6.xx. Back to your Dropbox question, in these distro tests (a real machine not inside a VM) the Dropbox app allowed me use any folder on my HDD (I'm adding +30GB of images per week to Dropbox, so I know for sure they worked.
As a workaround I'll try to setup LM 17.3 on a Virtualbox, I can sync up Dropbox to shared directory, thats is if i can fool the app to use it as drive and not a network share.
Hi Mike new ticket raised. F YI : https://dropbox.zendesk.com/hc/fr/requests/6332540. let's hope this moves this issue up the food chain. .
I have a virtualbox running WIN7 , witha shared folder, sync is working.. Minor provlem of with file conflicts - but hey, I'll just wait until the sync is 100% and then sort the file duplications.
Same problem... A possible workarround is to do it by a simlink :
- dropbox stop
- mv <old_path>/Dropbox <new_path>/Dropbox
- ln -s <new_path>/Dropbox <old_path>/Dropbox
- dropbox start
- Good idea LeviEE. I'll try soon.
Thanks. I'd already attempted this, both as a user & root
tried chmod 1777, to remove any risk of permissions restrictions.
Created new Group "dropbox" added root, sudo and users to group. linked
Created firewall rules,
Disabled the firewall.. +cold booted
Removed user install and reInstalled Dropbox as "Root" and even as root I cannot move Dbox folder to HDD
sadly nothing has worked : erm... YET...
