New version of Dropbox completely broken, need to revert to previous version.

Rebooting my Mac put the Dropbox icon in the menu bar finally.   It says it's a Beta release.  I didn't ask for a Beta release.  I don't want a Beta release.  Can I please get back to the previous behavior?

If I am forced to live with this abomination for now, would it be feasible / advisable to copy the entire ~/Dropbox folder (either the folder itself or its complete contents) onto (or into) the ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox folder?  Then let Dropbox sync its contents in this new location rather then re-download them all?

Hi larryy, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

As it seems you're now on the newer version of the Dropbox desktop application for Mac OS, it can take some time for the files to migrate into the new CloudStorage location on your machine.

At this point, making any major changes to the app could affect the movement of the files. Have you noticed any difference now? Are the files still in the old folder, or have they moved over?

This will help me to assist further.

Yes, apparently I am on the new version of that app.   I do NOT want to be.  Is there anything I can do to fix that?

If  I allow the complete Dropbox folder sync to the new CloudStorage location while the old Dropbox folder (in ~/) is still present, I'm not sure the system will have enough SSD  space to run without problems.  So I paused Dropbox from the small menu.

I then made a complete backup of my boot drive, so I have a full, external copy of my original Dropbox folder.  And I have turned off automatic app updates.  So I feel safer experimenting.  Unless you have a way to revert to the original behavior or some better idea, I am going to try to MOVE (not copy) my old Dropbox folder's contents into the new Dropbox folder.  Then un-pause Dropbox.

Actually, now that I think about it, if I can find a way to entirely quit and restart Dropbox I'll do that instead of pausing/un-pausing it.

If that works and I can prove the new Dropbox is syncing with my other Macs, both directions, then I just have to start the tedious process of changing a bunch of symbolic links, by hand from the command-line.  Did I mention I *hate* this change?  Who thought it was a good idea to force my Dropbox documents to be in a HIDDEN folder?  No wonder some other bright spark thought launching the Dropbox app should do nothing but open the magic, hidden folder.  Sorry, but the new design really sucks.

Question... Do the "advanced reinstall" instructions at the following link still work with the latest rev of Dropbox?  It clearly indicates you can specify where the Dropbox folder resides.  That would solve my biggest problem, allowing me to point Dropbox at my existing ~/Dropbox folder.  Should that work or is the webpage out of sync with reality?

https://help.dropbox.com/installs/advanced-reinstall

One other tidbit, rebooting my Mac with Dropbox paused seems to have broken Dropbox in a new way, preventing it from launching at all.  I'll try to attach a screen grab of the error dialog that opened on reboot:

I guess I can now add my name to the list of users on macOS that have a broken Dropbox app.  It has been working flawlessly for me for years, but today it won't even launch on my computer.  In case it helps with the investigation, the problem was first noticed today (June 15, 2023) at around 3:30PM EST.

What a mess.  I followed the "advanced reinstall" instructions precisely and successfully (but briefly) downgraded to Dropbox version 175.4.5569, and it even defaulted to using my original ~/Dropbox.  But first I noticed it wasn't syncing.  The nice contextual menu items were back, so I told it to Sync Next the most recent addition.  Didn't work.  Also,  the Dropbox menu was missing.

Then a notification dialog came up:

Mousing over it brings up a "Get Started" button:

Not wanting to update at this time, I clicked the "X" and dismissed the dialog.

But in the background, despite automatic updates being turned off, Dropbox ignored my settings and actions and updated itself to 177.3.5390, the same as when this mess started.

Meanwhile, I now had a date-time-stamped Dropbox folder in ~/Library/CloudStorage.  (With a *terrible* filename, that included the time 7:28 expressed as "7/28" -- yes, a forward slash in a unix filename.  FFS, Dropbox engineers.  Yes, they couldn't use ":", but "/"???)

I deleted the Dropbox folder in CloudStorage and replaced it with my ~/Dropbox folder.  Apparently Dropbox was still running, despite not appearing in the menu bar, because a warning came up that my Dropbox folder was no longer where it belonged (~/Dropbox).  At this point Dropbox quit running.

I'm going to reboot and see if the new Dropbox will sync properly with my old Dropbox data in its new location.  Fingers crossed.

Oh, one nice trick that will help alleviate the pain of an invisible Dropbox and a hundred broken symbolic links...  I made a symbolic link from the new CloudStorage Dropbox to ~/Dropbox, and for all practical purposes it looks like Dropbox is back where I want it, and my command-line environment is back to working.  This will probably help a lot of others.  And Dropbox might want to consider creating this link automatically.  It's just this:

ln -s ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox ~/

Well, maybe in 21 hours I'll know if this worked.  I rebooted, launched Dropbox manually, it showed up in the menu bar, I looked its preferences, it wouldn't let me change the location away from ~ to ~/Library/CloudStorage, probably because my symbolic link was confusing location checking.  But I selected the Sync option for enabling "the updated Dropbox for macOS on File Provider", clicked through a few pages, clicked the button to start the sync, and it looks like it's working, and claims the process will take about 21 hours (which is silly, since all the files are already in place).  It also looks like it's going to mess up my "Date Modified" and "Date Added" attributes for everything, but I can live with that (though it is genuine nuisance in some cases).  I'm worried that my disk space still seems to be ticking down, but I can't find any duplicates anywhere, so hopefully this will finish and NOT crash the system.  More later.

My worst fear is that it will corrupt all these files somehow, copying the same files over themselves, and the corruption will propagate first to the server, then to every syncing device.  But I have that one complete backup I grabbed before doing any of this, and can start over if I truly must.  What fun.  NOT.

I am experiencing similar symptoms on MacOS that began with an update pushed at ~1PM PST; the app version is 178.2.762 according to app bundle information. I can likewise say this is the first non-functional Dropbox update in all the time that I've used it.

I cannot start Dropbox at all; Activity Monitor shows the the app has launched, but the icon doesn't appear in the menu bar, and the it quits a minute or so later (as verified with Activity Monitor). Hence, I cannot access the preferences for the app at all, and I confirmed that files are not being synced, even when the Dropbox processes are running.

I am running MacOS 12.6.7, build 21G708. Console.app shows a number of errors related to Dropbox when it launches, but I can't tell which are relevant to this issue. MacOS doesn't create a spindump for this issue as far as I can tell.

My issue seems to be fixed with a new Dropbox version: for me, the new, working version is 178.2.763. I did a standard install of the app, and it auto-updated several times until it finally installed that version