Windows 7 Event Viewer Error "Failed to connect to the driver: (-2147024894)"

Hi Orion,

Dropbox have been rather quiet about the problem and, as far as I know, have not recognised that it exists.  Emails I get from Dropbox Support have been spasmodic and suggestions given have related to possible problems with my system rather than the Dropbox program itself.  Clearly, when this forum thread suggests the problem is fairly widespread, there must be a program bug.  It is disappointing that, as yet, no Dropbox technical staff have contributed to this thread and appear not to have read any of the posts despite the fact that you submitted a bug report.  Did you get any feedback afterwards?

So there appears to be no estimated time of arrival for a fix because the problem has not been officially recognised.

Hi Roberto,

That's good news regarding Dropbox running on your laptops - let's hope that Dropbox technical staff can sort this Event Viewer problem soon.  At least we can all use the program despite the irritating error message.

I have not heard from Theo or Benjamin of Dropbox technical support for sometime now - perhaps they are as puzzled by this as we are but it would be good to have a little feedback from time to time.  I'm also very surprised and disappointed that no Dropbox personnel have contributed to this thread.  There have been many views so perhaps some of those are from Dropbox staff who don't want to get directly involved at this stage.

The problem may well be quite widespread so it would be useful if viewers of the thread who are experiencing the Event Viewer error and have not posted, could post a "me too" comment or similar just to confirm the error is not just limited to a few individuals - and please, if any Dropbox staff are viewing, could they let us know if Dropbox are fully aware of the situation and working to find a solution even if none is yet available.  There seems to be a lack of communiction between Dropbox and forum members which hopefully is unintentional but still a little worrying.

Me too!

I borrowed my friend's time machine, went to the future, and confirmed this issue does not get fixed.

Hi Orion,

Interesting trip.  Whatever happened to Donald Trump?  Did Hillary Clinton eventually become the first centenarian, white, female U.S. president?  Did the UK eventually achieve Brexit and leave the European Economic Community?  Were the next Olympics to be held in the capital of the Chinese quarter of Mars after the Chinese application was approved ahead of that from India (if so, where will the sailing events be held)?  Was Windows 10 the only computer operating system still in existance and were updates still causing problems?  Oh, and did Putin eventually receive the Nobel Peace prize?

Hi Zeeshan,

The Event Viewer error has shown in the last two 'stable' versions of Dropbox on my system - they are 13.4.21 (released 24/10/16) and 14.4.19 (release 08/11/16 and the current stable version at the time of writing).  Certainly I had no problems before 24/10/16 but I'm not sure if I was still using a previous version when I first noticed the error as afterwards I carried out a manual version update.  Of course, if the program had already carried out an automatic version update then my manual update would have made no difference as the versions would have been the same - I'm not sure if the automatic updates of Dropbox are just system file updates rather than full program updates to the latest stable version - I thought probably the former as I discovered I was still on version 13.4.21 several days after the release of version 14.4.19 so I  undertook another manual update and 14.4.19 is the version now running on my system.  So, for clarification, could somebody please enlighten me as to whether the automatic updates in Dropbox are just for system files or full program version updates (possibly a few days after official new program version release).

Orion: you are very secretive about your journey in time but perhaps when Apple release their new iTEM ( smart Time Exploration Module that can be worn on the wrist), we will all be able to share what you have discovered (as long as we can afford Apple prices).

Me too!

Everyone running a Windows PC is experiencing the error.  In my latest trip to the future, I saw myself using Google Drive.   Who'd thunk it?

With more 'me too' posts being added to this thread (thanks posters), the guys at Dropbox must surely be convinced the problem is a bug in their software.  It is irritating but perhaps has not been given too much priority as it does not affect the running of the program - it would be nice though if we could get some acknowledgement of the issue on this thread by Dropbox.

Time travelling Orion doesn't give us much hope that we'll ever see the removal of that little red icon in the Event Viewer after every startup - but is he really considering Google Drive?  Only the future can tell.

I have no problems on my Puppy Linux system which is syncing well and allowing me to keep relevant files up to date with my Windows 7 system.

I am also seeing a DbxSvc error / Event ID 320: Failed to connect to the driver: (-2147024894) The system cannot find the file specified. 

This happens with the newest Dropbox installed and also after I uninstall it.

and mine is reversed -- Dell desktop doesn't work, Dell laptop does

I can work around not having the client, but it adds steps to my process

^ Me too :(

Hi rcarmich154,

The Event Viewer error seems not to be related to whether you have the free or paid for versions of Dropbox.  Nor is it confined to just 64bit or 32bit versions of Windows.  You appear to have an additional problem so it may be worth checking with the Dropbox Technical service team and/or submit a bug report.  The last program update for Dropbox (14.4.19) was on 09 November 2016 (date written this way to avoid confusion between US and UK formats).  So the program date you have, presuming you use the US date format, is a couple of days before the latest program update.  That update did not fix the Event Viewer error problem and probably has not fixed your additional problem but it might be worth checking.

Hi Kester,

I just uninstalled dropbox, made sure every file was deleted and then downloaded and reinstalled.  I checked the properties on the newly created dropbox.exe -- although the "modified date" in Windows Explorer reads 11/7/2016 (November 7, 2016), when I hover over the file I see Version 14.4.19.0 and a creation date of 11/23/2016 (November 23 2016)

So I do have the latest version.  When I run Task Manager and click on the executable, I can see the process start and then suddenly just stop.

Since I can get to the files and folders I need by using a web browser, I'm leaving it for now.  We'll see what happens when I buy a new desktop and install then