What does 'refresh to update' on my offline files mean? How can I do it?

Meanwhile, I have STILL not heard back from the Dropbox Support team that said the update is a KNOWN problem as I described it and I still cannot download to my ipad!!!!! 

Not surprising about that, the Dropbox support team are dismal. Only helpful person is Lusil here on this forum.  But the official Dropbox support team is unhelpful and somewhat rude when if you happen to get a reply. Good luck.

Dear Dropbox, this "refresh to update" bug has been going on for way too long. This is such a core feature of your service and if you can't figure this out in months/years it's been reported, I don't know what to tell you.

"refresh to update" message gets triggered on offline folders that haven't seen changes in months and years. This means I never know whether my offline folders will be available when I need them, or there'll be this error message visible instead where there should be files present.

If you can't or won't prioritize this as it should be, your users will happily find a provider that has their offline sync together.

I also suffer from this bug and unlike the solution presented as "solved" here, going to the account tab and hitting refresh does not work for me either.  I hope dropbox fixes their software with ios 13, but in the meantime, here is another workaround I found that works without having to go into each subfolder.  Choose first "remove from device", and then immediately "make available offline" for the folder you have the problem with.  It won't redownload everything, it'll just do a hash compare (I think) and you'll get the green icon back.

This is a problem that has been around on Dropbox for years, and yet when you call them, they seem to be perplexed about the issue.

I have described for them the exact issue which is described here.  I have upgraded to Business Advanced, I have reinstalled the App.

The problem is that if I happen to be out of internet connectivity when Dropbox gives the Yellow Exclamation point, then it shows NONE of my files.  The reason I want a local copy on the iPad is so that I have a version of the document when I can't be connected to the Internet.  

Dropbox needs to resolve this issue.  

Hey everyone, thanks for your reports!

The team is aware and looking into this. Thanks again!

C’mon... it’s now been 8 months and this issue still isn’t resolved! I reckon I’m going to give it another 2 weeks before I cancel my account and move over to another provider. This is a key feature, but it doesn't even work :(

Indeed, nothing seems to happen.  Some more info:  many of the 'permanent' files on my ipad seem to be reloaded over and over again, even if NO changes were made to the files at all.

Enjoy Xmas, hopefully this gets resolved before the next one, but I'm not holding my breath (anymore).