Stuck on "upgrading dropbox"

[Martin T.1]

As of today Dropbox is permanently stuck on "upgrading Dropbox". I'm running Dropbox in Linux. I've found references to such error messages a good while back by Googling, but no simple fix.

[Lusil · Accepted solution]

Hey there @Martin T.1!

So as to have a better understanding of what you’re seeing, could you please send me a screenshot of this message (omitting any personal info)? Please keep in mind that if your Dropbox desktop app is trying to update, the latest stable version should be at 53.4.66 - could you hover over your Dropbox icon and let me know what version you see outlined?

Thanks in advance! 

[ngtr]

Huh? That was not solved. Asking for a screenshot is not solving this problem!

[Lusil]

Hey @ngtr, if you’re running into the same notification, could you please let me know if you’ve tried reinstalling to the latest stable version of the desktop app (69.4.102)?

If the behavior persists, could you please let me know what the Dropbox icon reads when you hover over it?

Thanks!

[ngtr]

How can I tell which version I'm running? Dropbox on Linux seems to have zero possibility to show the version. I'm installing the newest one from your website, it does not refer to the version you mention, but says 2019.02.14. I will see if the problem reoccurs.

[Lusil]

No worries, @ngtr. Let me know of any updates and I’ll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible. 

[ngtr]

So I figured this out: Dropbox seems to check for a new version and if one is available, then fails to upgrade to it.

From then on, it keeps saying "upgrading Dropbox" constantly. This never gets better, unless I upgrade it by hand. Is there way to fix this or prevent it from trying to upgrade?

It is very annoying, as it constantly makes it look like Dropbox is still syncing. I also don't see any files that are being synced, as the "dropbox upgrading message overlays any other messages.

This has been true for any Dropbox version going back about 1 year from the date of this post. It would be more professional of you if you could make Dropbox log error messages, this makes a problem like this solvable.

This is on Debian Stable (Stretch) Linux.

[ngtr]

Your instructions for headless upgrade says this:

cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -
~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

This works, EXCEPT that the second command does not work, because it says that another instance of dropbox is still running. So doing:

cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -

dropbox stop

~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd &

works.

Maybe you want to update your instructions accordingly.

[Lusil]

Thanks for keeping me in the loop, and awesome work on the troubleshooting, @ngtr! 

I've passed your feedback along to our dev team so if you have any further comments regarding this, please don't hesitate to let me know. Cheers! 

[DBOnLinux]

As someone else in this thread noted, a request for further information is labelled - wrongly, obviously - as a solution.

Now, user ngtr was good enough to actually provide a solution, but (1) it is manual whereas the application should do this for the user, (2) it is not permanent. To expand on drawback 2: every time Dropbox tries to upgrade itself, I must reapply the fix. Moreover, when Dropbox is going through its regular and doomed struggle to upgrade itself, it uses some resources and indeed in such a way as to slow down my system, especially Firefox. All of this is pretty disastrous. So, Lusil, please ask the developers for an actual fix. Thank you.