Dropboxcleanup.exe has stopped working - Windows 8.1

[zx80]

I get the popup error message "Dropboxcleanup.exe has stopped working" about once every hour. This has been happening in the last 12 hours so I assume there's been a recent update. I'm on 168.4.4802. The error is happening as Dropboxcleanup.exe says it can't find api-ms-win-core-heap-l2-1-0.dll.

Thanks.

[Jay]

Hi @zx80, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Could you try reinstalling the Dropbox desktop application using this link to see if this helps?

Keep me updated with any progress!

[zx80]

Thanks for the quick reply Jay. I've re-installed and I'll know in an hour or so if the problem is gone. I'll update again then.

[zx80]

Hi Jay. This worked. Thanks a lot.

[Jay]

No worries, glad to have helped out. If you need any further assistance in the future, please let me know.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

[MadamCaptain]

I have the same problem with the same operating system. I lurked and downloaded the latest Dropbox and installed it over the previous version. Perhaps I needed to delete the original first because nothing has changed. Every hour I get a new error message. Any more ideas?

Susan

[zx80]

Hi Susan,

So I was really annoyed by the message and so I'd already done this thing before I posted this message. I should have mentioned it.

I renamed the file "Dropboxcleanup.exe" to "Dropboxcleanupold" and the problem went away. I suppose I felt that the new install fixed the problem when maybe it didn't. That said, I can't find this file since I re-installed as per Jay's instructions. It seems to have been deleted. Maybe search for Dropboxleanup.exe and rename it? Or make a new post so the staff here see it and help you.

[MadamCaptain]

I had to search for the file and found it in an "update" folder. I've renamed it to "DropboxcleanupFails.exe".  Hopefully this will stop the hourly messages, but I wonder what it was intended to cleanup.  It sounds like Dropbox might have a little problem with one of it's update files.  Thanks for the info!  I have a hunch this might just be the bandaid that I need!

[zx80]

Good luck. Sounds like the location where I found it. It was under c:\users\[user name]\AppData in one of those folders. And I remember it was in the update sub-folder. But that is gone now since I re-installed it. So I don't imagine renaming it is a bad thing in your case. I've had dropbox installed on this machine since 2016 and this has been the only issue.

[evilgrin72]

This did not work for me at all.  I've uninstalled and reinstalled 3 times, I renamed the file as suggested below, then I took Dropbox off my PC completely (or so it would seem......) but this error message just will not stop popping up.  I'm at a total loss here.  Please help!