"Dropbox cannot start / Dropbox ran into a connection issue" error (macOS Monterey)

[Jay]

Hi @mrumpf, in order to look into this matter in more detail, would it be possible to reach out to the email associated with your forum profile?

[mrumpf]

Yes, please!

[Hannah]

Hey @mrumpf, I just sent you an email, so we'll continue from there. 🙂

[Davide_Saraceno]

Hi everybody,

I think I’m getting closer to understanding what’s going on.

Since my issue happens at startup I tried removing all the 6 login items opening at login (via System Preferences > Users and Groups > Login Items).

Then I’ve added each one again, one at a time, always restarting my Mac to check the effect.

Well... Dropbox is not able to load at startup when ALSO Apple Mail is among the login items! I guess the “connection timeout error” kicks in because Apple Mail takes a LONG TIME (about 2 mins) to load on my machine — and Dropbox somehow fails connecting to the network. 😞

I’ll try to “optimise" Apple Mail and see if this fixes...

Davide

[Jay]

Hi @Davide_Saraceno, thanks for the update, this info might help other users with similar issues!

[Davide_Saraceno]

Ok, I can confirm that in my case sluggish Apple Mail loading at startup was causing the issue.

I’ve REINDEXED my mailboxes and now Mail it’s slightly faster but - most importantly - Dropbox loads at startup again!

I followed the instructions under "Reindex your Apple Mailbox” from here: https://macpaw.com/how-to/rebuild-mailbox-mac

Hope this helps most of you! 🙂

Davide

[mrumpf]

I rebuild & reindexed my mailboxes, but that was not related. Even after a fresh reinstall of Dropbox, it reports the error, published above.

[Davide_Saraceno]

@mrumpf maybe in your instance there’s another app bogging your machine at startup? Did you try removing all the "login items" except Dropbox?

Unfortunately today my Apple Mail is slow again when starting up, I guess my mailbox is too large... so I get the “Dropbox cannot start” error dialog again.

But I've found something interesting... if I don’t close this error dialog for long enough (I guess until everything else finished loading) DROPBOX ACTUALLY LOADS!

You guys could try this as well 🙂

[miguel camacho]

Finally, I found a solution @Davide_Saraceno @mrumpf 

I hope you can read it before they ban my message for criticizing Dropbox support.

After a week of useless "solutions" by email after support issued me a ticket, I had to find a solution myself.

Basically, the problem arises when you update DropBox and the files move to ~Library/CloudStorage.

There was something wrong about that that was cuasing some sort of conflict.

The problem is that Dropbox messes with your hard drive and the permits, and I could not even be able to delete by hand that newly created location.

After the multiple solutions Support offered me (which I already knew and had done like setting full disk access to DropBox or deleting some files) the thing that worked for me was to delete the complete "~Library/CloudStorage" location. I had trouble deleting it since I got the error of not having permissions, probably because Dropbox is running some nasty processes in the back. I had to force empty my Trash by clicking option+empty trash (https://support.apple.com/es-es/guide/mac-help/mchlp1093/mac) After that I did a fresh installation of Dropbox and everything is working perfectly now. I hope they give me a free year after resolving this issue for so many users, the so many hours I have spent on this issue, and a week of not being able to work on my personal computer.

Cheers

[RSTurbo]

Hello,

since the last big update of Dropbox (moving whole user's stuff from <user directory>/Dropbox into Devices) I often get the same errors.

The update itself succeeded, so I guessed everything would be fine and indeed under the Section Devices I have access to all my files stored in Dropbox.

Before posting my dropbox_error.txt file I want to mention one point that I was aware of reading the error file. It is the lines:

trace.__file__: '/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources/python-packages.zip/dropbox/client/ui/common/boot_error.pyc'

      real_path='/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources/python-packages.zip/dropbox/client/ui/common/boot_error.pyc'

                      not found

                parent not found

... and look at the subdirectory python-packages.zip as part of the long path specified. So indeed there is an existing zip archive in the middle of the path and obviously all next subdirectories and consequently the root file boot_error.pyc cannot be reached.

It's now the question if this leads to the last error in the dropbox_error.txt file or not (see last line below)

I append the whole dropbox_error.txt:

bn.BUILD_KEY: Dropbox

bn.VERSION: 165.4.4300

bn.constants.WINDOWS_SHELL_EXT_VERSION: 59

bn.is_frozen: True

machine_id: 14ec14d1-1d2c-534a-a1cc-45a482069c81

pid: 579

ppid: 1

uid: 503

user_info: pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='ralfschukey', pw_passwd='********', pw_uid=503, pw_gid=20, pw_gecos='Ralf Schukey', pw_dir='/Users/ralfschukey', pw_shell='/bin/bash')

effective_user_info: pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='ralfschukey', pw_passwd='********', pw_uid=503, pw_gid=20, pw_gecos='Ralf Schukey', pw_dir='/Users/ralfschukey', pw_shell='/bin/bash')

euid: 503

gid: 20

egid: 20

group_info: grp.struct_group(gr_name='staff', gr_passwd='*', gr_gid=20, gr_mem=['root', '_serialnumberd'])

effective_group_info: grp.struct_group(gr_name='staff', gr_passwd='*', gr_gid=20, gr_mem=['root', '_serialnumberd'])

DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH: None

cwd: '/'

     real_path='/'

            mode=0o40755 uid=0 gid=0

     parent mode=0o40755 uid=0 gid=0

HOME: '/Users/ralfschukey'

appdata: '/Users/ralfschukey/.dropbox/instance2'

         real_path='/Users/ralfschukey/.dropbox/instance2'

                mode=0o40700 uid=503 gid=20

         parent mode=0o40700 uid=503 gid=20

dropbox_path: '/Users/ralfschukey/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox'

              real_path='/Users/ralfschukey/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox'

                    mode=0o40700 uid=503 gid=20

              parent mode=0o40755 uid=503 gid=20

sys_executable: '/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox'

                real_path='/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox'

                      mode=0o100755 uid=503 gid=20

                parent mode=0o40755 uid=503 gid=20

trace.__file__: '/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources/python-packages.zip/dropbox/client/ui/common/boot_error.pyc'

      real_path='/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources/python-packages.zip/dropbox/client/ui/common/boot_error.pyc'

                      not found

                parent not found

tempdir: '/var/folders/s_/_ms8k6n14875l1g51l1s60nw0000gq/T'

         real_path='/private/var/folders/s_/_ms8k6n14875l1g51l1s60nw0000gq/T'

                mode=0o40700 uid=503 gid=20

         parent mode=0o40755 uid=503 gid=20

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 811, in wrapper

  File "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 6279, in finish_dropbox_boot

  File "dropbox/client/message_queue.pyc", line 306, in _wrapped

  File "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 5821, in _init_components_for_account

  File "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 5745, in create_sync_engine

  File "dropbox/sync_engine_boundary/factory.pyc", line 225, in make_sync_engine

  File "dropbox/sync_engine/nucleus/classic_client/sync_engine.pyc", line 245, in __init__

  File "dropbox/sync_engine/nucleus/classic_client/modern_client/modern_client.pyc", line 322, in __init__

  File "dropbox/client/gandalf/legacy.pyc", line 296, in add_on_changed_callback

  File "dropbox/sync_engine/nucleus/classic_client/modern_client/modern_client.pyc", line 473, in _update_feature_configs

  File "dropbox/sync_engine/nucleus/classic_client/modern_client/modern_thin_client.pyc", line 286, in UpdateFeatureConfigForFswRules

  File "dropbox/sync_engine/nucleus/thin_client/fp_client.pyc", line 236, in __getattr__

dropbox.sync_engine.nucleus.thin_client.exceptions.NucleusConnectionTimeoutError: Nucleus clients are not running. Connection error: None

I hope you can help and thanks in advance

Ralf