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Terry H.10's avatar
Terry H.10
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago

Some Dropbox folders in Windows Explorer take minutes to refresh

Let me give you an example of what's happening: I am in a Windows Explorer folder that is synced with Dropbox. I click to re-order the items in the folder (e.g. sort by date, sort by duration of musi...
desktop
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Windows
Megan's avatar
Megan
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
3 years ago

Hi Terry H.10, I'd be happy to look into this for you! 

 

Did you notice this behavior consistently throughout all the updates of the app? 

 

Do you also happen to know approximately how many files are syncing locally to your device at the moment? Are they more than the soft limit of 300K? 

 

Lastly, if you could locate your old ticket number reference, from your past communication with our Support, that'd be amazing.

 

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there! 

Terry H.10's avatar
Terry H.10
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago

Hi Megan

Thanks for the reply.

My Dropbox locally has 256GB and 56,000 files.

It is consistent as in it occurs every day in certain folders. Today for example the green bar in Windows Explorer sat there advancing slowly for 5 minutes, which makes it unusable.

 

I have found the support thread from Feb 2021. The ticket is Ticket #12007104. Your support wrote to me:

"I’ve taken a look at your account, and there appear to be some issues with the Dropbox software currently installed on your computer. To ensure that the software is working correctly, I’d like you to do a complete reinstall to try to fix the problem. This will not affect or remove the files in your Dropbox folder." ... It then goes on to give those complex instructions including editing the registry, which I didn't want to do at the time! You will see the instructions when you look at the ticket.

 

I am hoping there is another way around this because uninstalling would involve me resyncing 256GB which is massive.

 

Thanks

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    3 years ago

    Thanks for the update here, Terry H.10, and sorry to jump in here.

     

    These look like steps to an advanced reinstall of the Dropbox application.

     

    Would you mind checking something, before we try anything else?

     

    Please close/quit the Dropbox application and let me know if the issue persists with the app closed.

    • Terry H.10's avatar
      Terry H.10
      Helpful | Level 6
      3 years ago

      Hi Hannah.

      I quit Dropbox and I checked in Task Manager that it wasn't running.

      But the slow refresh of Explorer is still happening, just the same as when Dropbox was running.

      Terry

      • Hannah's avatar
        Hannah
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        3 years ago

        Thanks for the update, Terry.

         

        If you see the same behavior with the Dropbox application closed and not running, that means that something else is probably causing this behavior.

         

        Do you have any third party apps looking into your Dropbox folders?

         

        Or perhaps your computer is having a hard time sorting through too many files/folders/subfolders.

         

        You can try to simply uninstall the Dropbox app, restart your computer and reinstall it, though, to see if that helps.

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