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The latest desktop update on my Windows 11 wiped out 2 days of work.
Application Affected
Dropbox basic
Device
Dell XPS
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
Windows 11
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
239.4.8301
Question or Issue
Consider this a bug report.
When rebooting today 1/13/2026, Dropbox forced an update. It had been working fine yesterday. When it was done, everything I had worked on for the last two days was an old version. There was no indication of that, but when I looked at one of the files it was clear that it was old.
I would report this as a bug, but that doesn't seem to be an option on the free plan.
It's not a lot of files, but it was a lot of work that was lost.
Going to the online activity tab, it shows nothing since Aug. 2024. I only noticed that because the app doesn't seem to be showing changes I made on the desktop int the "Your activity" section.
As a test, I created a new text file, DB shows no new file in "Your activity". Yet when I save it, I see that the DB icon shows it is syncing. Going online shows that the file is there, but nothing in Activity.
The "good" news is that I have found some "conflicted copy..." files that seem to have more recent versions. Now I have to manually merge them.
The bad news is that I have no idea what has happened to the shared files directories and without a working "activity" log, no reasonable way of checking it.
I've been using DB almost since it was new. This is one of the worst failures I have seen.
I say that first because there was no indication of any problems. But I'm still flying blind in trying to figure out if it's working since none of the activity indicators are functional.
2 Replies
It was the Dropbox for Windows update, I guess, since it happened on Windows. The version is coming from the taskbar, when I hover over it: 239.4.8301
I can't find the version any place other than doing a hover.
When this version installed (again it seemed like I had to do get DrobBox to work) it wanted me to log in, and was acting like I didn't have DB. After doing that it rebuilt the DB database.
(Sidebar: Those same actions happened on a different computer a day or two earlier. I didn't worry about it because I assumed the DB format had changed and a rebuild was needed. Also that computer tends to receive the sync files, while the corrupted one usually generates the newer files.)
It's hard to answer on syncing status. I always assume DB is syncing all of the files in the areas it is supposed to, so I rarely pay attention to it. I don't know that I would have noticed if it had stopped.However, the "conflicted copy..." files all had newer data than the Windows version. But on inspection (from my memory) I know that some of the file updates were missing my latest work. There was no indication that there was any DB problem before I rebooted.
The "syncing status" in the taskbar has always shown "Your files are up to date." Some files have appeared in the status since my original post. I have often noticed the icon change to its sync version. Earlier today, I was seeing that happen but the list of files in "Your activity" was indicating that it wasn't syncing because the file names weren't listed.
The "version history" on the web DB does show changes for the files. However some of the updates that I made yesterday are not listed.
After looking at a couple of frequently changed files, syncing probably stopped happening the afternoon of 1/11.
As best as I can tell, everything is working now. I just have no way of knowing if something is old because the only clue was the "conflicted copy" files. And I only found those because I did a search file files changed within the last week using FileLocator Pro. Surprise: there was potentially a way recover some of the information. But even those files didn't have all of my latest changes.
I'm not including screenshots because everything looks normal. The old Activity status is from Dropbox.com, in the column of icons on the left side (Home, Folders, Activity, More). The data in Activity there is ancient.
- Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
Thanks for your post, OPunWide!
Do you remember what sort of Dropbox update that was? Are you referring to an update to the latest stable app version (239.4.8301), or to the Dropbox for Windows update?
Did you also happen to check your Dropbox account online yesterday, and the updates you had made were already synced to www.dropbox.com? If not, do you remember if the syncing status of your Dropbox app was up to date, before today’s update took place?
Besides your Activity page, have you also checked your Events page and version history and they don’t show any of your previous edits either? If not, I’d like a screenshot of all 3 pages, so that I can investigate this further.
Finally, I’d like to know the current syncing status that you’re seeing on your desktop app.
Let me know once you have more updates.
