Dropbox app stopped working on Ubuntu 22.04

[JensRenders]

Today I booted up my fully updated laptop, Ubuntu 22.04, and noticed dropbox didn't start automatically. I manually started the app but nothing happened. I rebooted and tried again, nothing.

Then I uninstalled dropbox and reinstalled (using the latest deb package for Ubuntu 14.04 - 22.04). After this install I got a message from update notifier that a restart of nautilus was required for dropbox. I clicked the restart button and nautilus did indeed restart. Then I got a button that says "start dropbox". I pressed it and again nothing. Again a full reboot and nothing. Again reinstalled and rebooted, nothing.

I tried using the dropbox CLI. Navigated to my dropbox folder and ran

$ dropbox status
Dropbox isn't running!

Then I tried

$ dropbox start
Starting Dropbox...Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/dropbox", line 1603, in <module>
    ret = main(sys.argv)
  File "/usr/bin/dropbox", line 1592, in main
    result = commands[argv[i]](argv[i+1:])
  File "/usr/bin/dropbox", line 1443, in start
    if not start_dropbox():
  File "/usr/bin/dropbox", line 763, in start_dropbox
    subprocess.Popen([DROPBOXD_PATH], preexec_fn=os.setsid, cwd=os.path.expanduser("~"),
  File "/home/jens/mambaforge/envs/def/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 969, in __init__
    self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
  File "/home/jens/mambaforge/envs/def/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 1845, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg, err_filename)
OSError: [Errno 8] Exec format error: '/home/jens/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd'

I have no idea what the issue is. Any help is appreciated. Let me know what other info I can provide for diagnosis!

Thanks!

[Zoltan P · Accepted solution]

I've had the exact same problem on Ubuntu 22.04

➜ ~ dropbox start
Starting Dropbox...Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/dropbox", line 1603, in <module>
ret = main(sys.argv)
File "/usr/bin/dropbox", line 1592, in main
result = commands[argv[i]](argv[i+1:])
File "/usr/bin/dropbox", line 1443, in start
if not start_dropbox():
File "/usr/bin/dropbox", line 763, in start_dropbox
subprocess.Popen([DROPBOXD_PATH], preexec_fn=os.setsid, cwd=os.path.expanduser("~"),
File "/usr/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 969, in __init__
self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
File "/usr/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 1845, in _execute_child
raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg, err_filename)

I've gone through the following steps that seems to have resolved the issue for me:

1. manually removed /home/<user>/.dropbox-dist and /home/<use>/.dropbox

2. purged dropbox with sudo apt-get purge dropbox

3. downloaded the installer again and installed it with gdebi package manager

[JensRenders]

Thank you so much, finally working again. I don't think it is necessary to use gdebi, as I tried the same steps but then installed by double click (software install) and it also worked.

[Zoltan P]

Sure, gdebi is just an option. I happened to use that one, but you can use any other sw of your choice