My Dropbox desktop app is stuck on "Connecting".

Hi Rodney,

Sorry to hear that!

Connection problems usually mean there is a proxy, firewall, antivirus or other type of security program in the way. Incorrect date and time on your computer could also prevent Dropbox from getting a secure connection, please make this is not the case before checking anything else.

If your date and time are correct please check other security applications. This Help Center article goes into detail of the latest known security problem interactions:

https://help.dropbox.com/desktop-web/cant-establish-secure-connection

If you have an antivirus and/or firewall running, make sure you do the following:
- Allow "Dropbox" (or "Dropbox.exe") to access ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS).
- Add dropbox.com to the list of approved sites (white list) and make sure it is not on a black list.
- In general, you need to allow *.dropbox.com and *.getdropbox.com to access all the hosts in our domain, since our IPs are constantly changing you need to approve/unblock by domain.
- Some antivirus have special features that scan SSL traffic, please review your vendor's documentation and make sure you exclude Dropbox from the list.
- Some firewalls also act as proxies for your computer, so you might need to add them in the proxies Preferences panel to correctly connect.

If you are behind a corporate/school network or behind a proxy make sure you enter the host and port information of your proxy using the Preferences panel. A common port for proxies is 8080 but when in doubt, contact your IT administrator if applicable.

Finally, if you have ever used Norton utilities, you may need to run the Norton Removal Tool, even if you have already uninstalled Norton's software. More information can be found in these two links:

https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/home/current/solutions/kb20080710133834EN_EndUserProfile_en_us

https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/home/current/solutions/kb20100320035324EN_EndUserProfile_en_us

Hope this helps :)

I, too, have recently begun seeing Dropbox display "Connecting..." but never completing the connection. But my problem is not a firewall or antivirus program, because I am continuing to use the AVG system--nothing has changed on my Windows 8 system, and my network works just fine.

The problem is clearly that Dropbox is failing to detect when the network comes back up after the computer restarts. It is likely due to a bug in Dropbox; it may be a bug introduced in a recent version, or a recent timing change in Dropbox or elsewhere in Windows 8 may have activated a bug that was always there.

I did find a workaround, which readers may find useful:

1.Right-click on the Dropbox icon in the Notification Area (taskbar).

2.Move the mouse to the top of the popup box and click on "Pause syncing".

3.Move the mouse down then back up and click on "Resume syncing".

This operation will restart Dropbox such that it will discover that the Internet connection is working. It will then download the file list and get itself up to date.

David Spector

Springtime Software

For me Dropbox (The dropbox syncing program running on my Windows 7 (64 bit) PC)) always starts up fine, connecting and syncing but after a few hours it loses the connection and just says "Connecting..." when I hover my mouse of it's icon in the system tray.

If I right click and exit and then restart the program it works fine again for a few hours.

Pausing and resuming doesn't work for me.

Gustav the "dropboxer" did a very good job describing a way for Technology PhDs to solve dropbox synching problem, however he did nothing for me, a private user just trying to synch my dropbox account on my computer which has worked fine up to about 2 weeks ago.  Give me real instructions that I can follow step by step, or you will lose me to OneDrive, which is FREE. 

*Michael L, I think your problem is that you did not read all the answers before posting your complaint. While it is true that Dropbox should fix its own problems, and that Dropbox seems to be ignoring this one, it is equally true that in this case I provided a workaround in plain language. All you had to do was read my answer. *

I had the same problem on Windows 7 (64bit). What worked for me was:

- Kill the "Dropbox.exe" process from Windows Task Managers/Processes.

- Restart Dropbox.

All worked fine until I cloned my harddrive to a larger ssd drive. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling but Dropbox refused to connect.  I uninstalled, rebooted and downloaded the offline installer file and reinstalled from that.  Dropbox acted like it was a fresh install.  Version 3.10.11 is working fine now.

Thanks Bodgan G.  Your solution sorted me out on Windows 7

David S's Solution works but only temporarily. In no way is this a solution. Whats the point of automatic syncing if I have to go do it manually all the time?

Dopbox some help on this matter would be helpful. 

This is a serious issue. This workaround only 'solves' half the problem. When I do some work at home and try to continue elsewhere only to find my home PC (iMac) stopped syncing, I can't fix a thing and waste time. Third time this week, and soon becoming a show stopper.