Indexing takes a long time

[vtay]

My indexing is taking a really long time, and files cannot sync until indexing is complete, which can be hours each time I restart Dropbox. This only happened recently. I've not uploaded or deleted a massive number of files, so I'm not sure what's happened. Please help!

[Karina]

Hey @vtay thanks for sharing this with us! 

For starters, it’s possible that a rebuild of your configuration settings could account for this behavior, or any recent OS update.

So, it could be expected for your account to take some time and re-index/sync before normal activity resumes, and you'll have to wait for this process to finish on its own.

In the meantime, can you also let me know what version of the Dropbox desktop app are you running on your device currently?

Hope this info helps and thanks in advance!

[vtay]

Thanks @Karina!

This happens every time I restart Dropbox. It will complete after some time (sometime hours), and things will work normally after. But the next time I restart, the long indexing process happens again. This only started happening recently. The indexing process used to take just seconds. 

I'm using Dropbox v41.4.80 on High Sierra 10.13.2

[Karina · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your swift reply @vtay 

Did you notice any of these indexing issues first occuring after updating your OS X to High Sierra by any chance? Or does this not at all fit in a similar time-frame? 

Also, as some advise / troubleshooting that I can offer you, I'd recommend that you unlink and relink your Dropbox account to your computer. 

 This will restore any settings which may have been changed without affecting or removing your files.

Please follow these steps to unlink and relink your computer:

1. Right-click the Dropbox icon in the menu bar at the top of your screen on Mac.
2. Click on the gear icon in the Notifications panel, and select "Preferences"
3. Select the Account tab.
4. Click the "Unlink" button in the Account tab.
5. Your Dropbox will then prompt you to re-enter your account information.

Your account will then take a few moments to re-index your Dropbox folder and sync any pending changes before returning to normal activity.

However, after doing this, your Dropbox should return to normal and expected syncing behavior (especially since you also appear to be running the latest stable build of our app, which is a plus 👌)

[vtay]

Thanks for the suggestion Katrina. I did as your suggested, and the files re-synced again after several hours. But I restarted my computer and again, when Dropbox started, it stayed on "indexing" for at least 3 hours before it completed. I don't recall this problem fitting into any specific time-frame, but it might be. I will continue to monitor and see if things get improve. If not, might need to approach you for help again. Thanks so much! 

[Karina]

Awesome, thanks for letting me know of this progress! 

So, it sounds like as far we can tell, Dropbox has resumed to performing as expected. 

If anything changed, keep me posted, and no worries at all, I’m more than happy to stay up-to-date with you on this and help out in any way I can! 

[vtay]

Hi Katrina, I'm afraid things have not improved... I've unlinked and resynced my Dropbox several times now. But the situation is still the same. Each time I restart my computer and restart Dropbox, the indexing will take a couple of hours before I can start using, even though everything was completely synced before I restarted. Is there a way to investigate further and see if there's a solution?

[vinno97]

Hi vtay,

Did you eventually manage to fix your problems? I am experiencing something similar, though I am using a Windows machine and the indexing "only" takes about 1-1.5 hours. 

[Sanchez]

Hey @vinno97, welcome to our forum! 

Can you tell me a bit more about this? What version of our app, and Windows are you using? When do you experience this indexing issue? Any other details you can provide would be useful. 

Thanks in advance! 

[vinno97]

Hi Sanchez,

I am using Dropbox v45.4.92 on a Windows 7 machine. The indexing issue occurs right after startup and as far as I can tell, it does not happen after that. The computer has an Intel Pentium G3220 with 4GB RAM. The hard drive is a 1000GB WDC WD10EZRX00D8PB0. 

The dropbox folder is quite large, at about 360GB