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Dropbox unstable in iPad OS Files App.
The problem I have is that Dropbox seems to crash when running on an iPAD via the apple files app. If I open an application that uses the files app, such as Pages or Final Draft, when saving to the D...
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Hannah
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorHey flaviomuff, sorry to see you're having trouble with this.
Do you mind if we reach out to you via email, so we can investigate this internally?
sure! do you have my email?
- Hannah
Yes, no worries! I just emailed you, so make sure to get back to me, when you have a chance.
I've got the same problem as everyone else. Can you please help me solve it?
Nobody at Dropbox seems to care.
How would anybody give money for a service like this?
- Megan
Hi mirismile, how are you today?
Can you walk me through the steps that you take when this behavior happens? Are you trying to share content from the Files app, and vice versa or do you follow a different route?
If you could also let me know which OS you're using, along with your Dropbox version of the app, that'd be amazing.
Let me know!
Hi Megan, of course: I have to reboot my iPad which is currently running on OS 16.2 (20C65). Then Dropbox in the Files app will work for editing approximately four .jpgs and then it will freeze and I need to reboot again. Dropbox is on version 310.3.2.
Thanks for your help!
- For some background This has been going on for months in fact over a year I think and many people have tried rebooting reinstalling re-everything. Nothing works in my mind this is a problem between Apple and dropbox. This doesnāt happen if you just use dropbox app to access files on its own and it doesnāt happen if you just use the Appleās file app on its own say on iCloud files and not accessing dropbox. Therefore there is some sort of demon that runs sitting between files app and dropbox and when you access dropbox through or via the Files app this is when the problem occurs it doesnāt matter what you do it will always occur eventually. many users have now experienced it. I have stated this on multiple occasions. Unfortunately neither Apple nor dropbox seem keen to do anything about it.
Unfortunately, if you want to say attach multiple documents to something that Apple uses for say Safari or another website or anything else you will encounter the problem because you are accessing your files through the files app going to dropbox and that causes the problem.
I have tried many ways to resolve the problem. The quickest and simplest is to reboot which instantly solves the problem. The reason for this is that it will reset anything that is running. One other tell-tale thing which is very interesting is once dropbox has failed. If you try and access it via the Files app you will see you cannot when you press on dropbox absolutely nothing happens you can see no files. However if you then close the Files app and open the Dropbox app, you can see all your files there for the problem is definitely accessing dropbox via the iOS files app. - Thank you for summing this up. I don't know how many times the same thing can be tried over and over.
- Thanks Vince in a previous life working I used to work in IT security Let me tell you in a none of it surprises me. The amount of bugs in modern software, including Apple by the way is astounding. Things are just chucked out these days, irrespective of loads of bugs and they donāt seem to care too much about them!!! and this problem is so easy to reproduce the people of dropbox and Apple must be well aware of it and given five minutes with an iPad or iPhone with dropbox on it. You can reproduce this problem if you were an IT support person š
totally agree. itās a chicken or egg problem.
i am in contact with an engineer from apple. trying to capture the issue when it happens so they can check the logfiles for those timestamps.
keep u posted.
f.
I had this problem arise again today. When working on a Pages filed stored in Dropbox on my iPad, the Pages app crashed and the Files app became unresponsive. I reported this back to Megan who had previously helped on this forum using my previous ticket number and got a reply from someone else telling me how to log out of Dropbox if I wanted to do so.
This problem occurs every day for me. I am now so used to it that I have a button on my iPad which I click on the screen which automatically reboots the iPad. This always solves the problem. This points to - I believeā¦.as I said in previous posts thereās something running in the background that falls over and dropbox fails -this cab always be checked by attempting to use dropbox THROUGH the Files app. You will find when you click on it nothing happens. However if you use the native Dropbox app you can see and use the filesā¦. it affects any app using dropbox VIA the files app. So for example, the last time I was trying to open a iOS pages file using recents, the file which was stored in dropbox would not open just spinning circle yet soon as I have rebooted everything works perfectly again and this is always the case on whatever device Iām using I have 4 different iPads and phones all are the same. Reboot always resolves the problem. However, this is not a solution Apple and dropbox need to talk to each other. I continue to wait for that momentous eventā¦ I wonāt hold my breath š
Thanks, very well summarized! I can confirm it too.
This bug has been there for (at least) over a year now and no update of ipados nor Dropbox ever changed anything!
Good point and In fact I raised this after prob 6-10 months of struggling so I reckon this issue has existed for 2 years and they def know it exists you can easily reproduce it just use DB on any IOS device and it will show within a matter of 20 mins if you are using it regularly - I thought it was just me at first as Google of issue did not throw up muchā¦.but looks like anyone that uses DB and any app that access DB via IOS Files will face the issue.
Same problem happens for me for at least a year. Why is this not fixed already?
- I was advised to clear the cache by selecting the cog wheel options, then deleting the app from iPad. Restart the iPad, then download Dropbox again.
So far it seems to have solved the problem although Iām not convinced. We will see if it comes up again, I have a lot of work to do this week so Iāll see. - I think I did something similar it worked for a while and then the problem started again so I am very interested to see if it works this time - let us know if you can š
Update - so I tried the cashe delete and reboot and reinstall process and it crashed with 5 mins unfortunately I have had to reboot 3 times so far today just to upload files in various apps (doing work on my finances for impending tax year end !) I now have created a reboot button on the accessibility features of iPad, so I can just click on the accessibility icon and one of my options is reboot as I have to reboot so often. This problem occurs on all my devices so it has nothing to do with my iPad.! it also happens on my wifeās as well. She also has different iPads and iPhones to me what I canāt understand. Is why Apple and dropbox clearly donāt have discussions with each other because to be honest give somebody an iPad store a few files in your dropbox folder work as normal within an hour youāll see the problem, in fact, if you were to store say 20 files and try to upload them to any app Eg we transfer this issue will soon show its head ā¦..very easy for dropbox to see whatās going on and indeed Apple be nice if one of these two companies picked up the baton but two years into this Iām not holding my breath ā¦. I am sure that support will continue to suggest - delete and reinstall then reboot along the way lol BUT if anyone out there HAS worked using dropbox on an IOS device without getting the freeze issue or the circle of doom endlessly - would love to hear any tips š and thanks everyone for all the attempts so far ! We will get there ! You are not alone trust me I am as frustrated as everyone else here š
- Ok, well Iām convinced. Back to iCloud.
I canāt work with the thing freezing all the time.
Any app at all on an iPad will eventually find itself frozen trying to access Dropbox. - I agree been looking into it myself not long to go until I have to renew my Dropbox annual fee over 100 quid.
same issue here. But even when I reboot the iPad, the dropbox is unusable in files. I just tried to open a file...and while rebooting allowed me to see it, there's no way to download it or open it. Just frozen. This extends to apps beyond files: pdf expert also loses annotations to things stored in dropbox. really a shame.
- Yes, itās definitely something in the Apple <-> Dropbox interface.
