Incredibly high CPU and battery usage by Dropbox App on Mac

[donbongo]

I have the dropbox app installed on my 2019 MacBook Pro and for weeks now I've noticed CPU usage above 100% on my machine, which often causes the fans to spin up to insane levels (thank you intel Macs for being thermally garbage) at all hours of the day, often in the middle of the night after being asleep for hours. More recently I've had my Mac drain power to zero while plugged into power. This happened once while the computer was fully asleep and then again today while under normal browser usage. Activity monitor showed intense CPU and Energy usage by Dropbox in both these cases.

I've tried reducing the number of files in my local dropbox significantly with Selective Sync to no avail. There are no sync issues. Dropbox doesn't even appear to be syncing most of the time.

I have one external disk backing up to a business dropbox account and two dropbox accounts synced to my Mac. This app is becoming a huge drain on my computer and productivity.

[Walter]

Hi @donbongo, sorry to hear about this. 

Could you send us a screenshot of the desktop app's exact status and version number as shown in your menu bar?

Also, have you taken a look at this Help Center to see if any of the reasons causing high CPU usage mentioned there is affecting your computer as well?

Keep me posted!

[donbongo]

Thanks @Walter. Here are the requested details, and here are the graphs of power usage when it died this morning and earlier this week:

 

note that it refers to screen on time between 5AM and when the battery died. I was asleep during this time and the computer should have been as well.

I have consulted that article to the point that I'm aware of its recent revisions as of a few weeks ago and spent a long time looking for symbolic links before its revision. I've reduced the number of files with selective and don't run any software that I'd expect to affect dropbox files. The only thing I can think of is that a backed up external HDD could be causing this issue, but I believe that the issue probably predates my addition of that backup.

[Walter]

Thanks for the additional information there @donbongo - much appreciated!

Could you also send us a screenshot of the desktop app's exact status as shown in your menu bar and check if there are any other apps running on your computer that could be trying to access your files for any reason? 

Have you tried reinstalling it recently?

[rmiz]

I am having the same problem with my Macbook Pro. Just in the last week I noticed that the battery drains even while it is plugged in, and when I click on the battery icon it says that Dropbox is using a lot of energy. Was there a resolution to this issue?

[Megan]

Hi @rmiz, how are you today?

Could you clarify which version of the app you're using on your end? We need to make sure that you're not using the beta version, which could be causing such an issue. 

Keep me posted!

[rmiz]

I am using v164.4.7914.

[Megan]

Hi @rmiz, have you taken a look into this Help Center article, by any chance? 

[donbongo]

I've been in contact with some engineers directly at dropbox after another issue and I have not found any solution. In fact, this morning my computer has dropped unbelievably from about 75% to 11% in just *34 minutes while plugged in* due to dropbox power usage. 

I was told to sign out and sign back in to dropbox, which obviously has not worked. I believe the culprit is an external hard drive backup which is somehow syncing my computer to death.

[rmiz]

Thanks for your reply! I have a similar but different situation. My company keeps all of our files on Dropbox, and so any time someone makes a change to a file it syncs. Even if I set many things to online-only, it is still syncing something most of the day. I may try downgrading my OS if this continues to be a problem, since I think it only started after I upgraded to Monterey.