Dropbox app freezing Windows Explorer

[OscarV]

Hi!

I'm having troubles with the Dropbox desktop app. It is syncing correctly, and I can access it just fine through my Windows Explorer, but after selecting a file it crashes my Explorer.

I have tried several fixes, including making an exception for Dropbox in my Virusscanner and checking Firewall Issues. Also tried re-installing it (several times). 

Can you suggest an alternative fix?

Kind regards,

Oscar

[vitoriocj]

Hi @Daphne, The advanced installation did not resolved the problem. Nor the office + os resinstall.

Any other help here before I move definively to google drive ? 

Tks!!

[Daphne]

Hey everyone, just a little bit of an update on this for you all!

Our engineering team is aware of this issue that you've reported here and are currently working on it to release a fix as soon as we can.

I don't have an ETA to share on this at the moment, but I'll keep you all updated with any news on this.

Let me know if you have any questions in the meantime!

[gaspeer]

Daphne,

I, too, am struggling with this Dropbox/Windows Explorer freeze or lockup. I went through the entire 9 pages of struggle in this forum thread. Nothing helped. (A lot of it I didn't understand, but I tried as much as I could. 🙂 )

Dropbox has been a mainstay for me first as a freebie and for the last couple of years as a paid customer.

I LONG for the days before all the marketing people hijacked the coders and felt compelled to add all the bells and whistles. It was marvelously simple and fast to store files, to move files, and even to work directly on files whose databases were stored in Dropbox.

But, no, that just wasn't going to stay simple and useful, was it?? First there was Paper -- which I have still not figured out and which is much, much easier just to use Google Docs and Google Keep instead. And now, there's Smart Sync. Smart Sync would seem to be simple and useful.

And indeed, Smart Sync really is simple and useful.

Except for this little matter which has been beaten to death and not solved in this 9-page forum thread -- the freezing or locking up mess.

I guess I've said all that just to say this: Please, friend Daphne, do keep us posted when the coders are making progress or have something to report or suggest to solve the problem.

Thank you so much. And thanks to all those forum members/users out there who've kept this thread alive. May we all find cause to cheer the coming solution. PLEASE! 🙂

[mmarcinkevicz]

the last issue I had with this, the desktop was actually crashing.  I found it was a certain number of folders in windows that would cause it.  I sent the APPCRASH from the Windows Event log and Dropbox fixed it.  You may want to check the Windows Event log and see if there's anything interesting in there during the time frame that you are opening things.

[Mohameddragon]

Hi there i would like to confirm that i tried all the previously suggested solutions and the only one that worked with me was to open a new admin account on my pc and open my Dropbox account there where i had to download everything but it worked like a charm. 

1 - I tried opening a word document and excel from the browser option

2 - I tried disabling my Firewall

3 - I tried disabling my antivirus both 3rd party and windows defender.

4 - Un-linking my account and linking it again

5 - i did not try uninstalling Microsoft Office as it's too risky for me as i might not get it back.

I tried other things in the previous suggestions but all of them did not work except this one. Even thought i had to move all my files to the new account it is better than not formating or reinstalling Windows.

I hope Dropbox finds a solution to this issue as it was very seriously and not jokingly frustrating to have because it concerns my work files and very important documents plus it was very difficult to even find this thread that talks about this problem i had to look for this thread for at least a few hours before finding it as it is usually confused with freezing as in Not Syncing but in this case it is freezing the window that uses Dropbox folders and in Task manager it does not even say that it is frozen or unresponsive it just takes a lot of time to get access to any file or folder inside the window and only the Dropbox window.

[tcandeias]

Hello,

I changed my main drive a couple of weeks ago from a 250GB SSD to a 1TB M.2 Drive.

I simply cloned the main drive and since then I have had this problem.

I can access every file on Dropbox using any program or using the Dropbox Desktop App, but not from the file explorer directly.

As soon as I click the Dropbox folder, the file explorer crashes for about a minute, then resumes activity. If click any folder or file, it crashes again.

I know there are a number of other posts regarding the same problem, but none of the solutions presented had any effect.

I tried advanced reinstalation multiple times and didn't work. As soon as I reinstall Dropbox on my system the problem persists.

Also tried pausing the Windows Firewall to check for conflicts. The problem still persists.

Tried moving the Dropbox folder to a different drive. Still a problem.

Are there any other suggestions?

Thank you.

[RichT]

I have just installed dropbox on a new high spec desktop computer with Windows 10 x64 Corei5-9300H CPU, 16GB RAM. I've put the Dropbox Folders on a second SSD hard disk which is secured with Bitlocker. I have to unlock the drive with a password before running dropbox when i reboot, which is fine. My problem is that the Windows Explorer Right-Click menu is now ridiculously slow on any folder or file within the Dropbox folders. It takes about 30 seconds before the right click menu is displayed. There's no heavy CPU usage. It must be the Dropbox Windows Explorer shell extension causing problems. Please help.
My dropbox client is 94.4.441. I've tried disabling Windows Security Real-Time Protecion but it makes no difference. The files and folders are fully synced and i have a high speed WiFi internet connection.
Additional info, its also slow if you double click folders in the right hand pane of Windows Explorer but its fine if you navigate the folders using the left hand pane! Weird.

[Walter]

Hi @RichT; welcome to our Community!

When it comes to the version of our desktop app which you're using, I guess you meant 95.4.441 since this is the most recent, stable build - right?

Have you tried re-installing the app since you first noticed this happening?

If you haven't yet, please give it a go and let me know the results as soon as possible so we can look further into this. 

Thanks a bunch! 

[Mohameddragon]

Hi there @tcandeias, 

I hope you a nice day and would like to know if you tried my solution of opening a new Admin user on your system and opening you account in the other account and you will have to re-download all your files from dropbox again.

For me this is the only solution that worked and now i have moved all my work to the other new account.

[joaomarquesfran]

SOLVED

For me the problem was windows, i had to create a new user. Try create a new user to see if the problems persists.