1 byte files when uploading many photos through Dropbox iOS app

[jacovg91]

Hi all,

After each vacation, I always upload my photos from my iPhone using the Dropbox app. This works fine, whenever I select like 300 photo's. Any more than this, Dropbox will continue uploading the photos as 1 byte files. Obviously, this is not the photo. I would just like to select all my photos (usually like 3000-4000 at once) and let the app do its thing, instead of doing it in batches. This has happened for many years now. I've finally decided to create a topic to see if this is normal behaviour or if it can be resolved. Maybe good to mention, i keep my phone active at all times and do not leave the dropbox app while uploading. 

[Walter]

Hi there @jacovg91, sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

Could you please clarify if you're manually uploading your files via the (+) button within the Dropbox mobile app or if you're using the automatic camera uploads feature?

Can you maybe send us a couple of screenshots of a sample file showing this behavior and how the upload is logged in your events page?

Any additional information is more than welcome! 

[jacovg91]

Hi @walter, thanks for the response! I've reproduced the issue and attached all screenshots. 

I'm using the + button, manually selecting all photos (just keeping my finger on the screen and dragging it down to select hundreds). Usually, about 300-400 upload completely fine, but then the rest will start uploading (really fast aswell) as 1byte files. This happens both on my wives iPhone 12 Pro and own iPhone 13 Pro, by the way. Our apps are fully up to date, and this has happened for many years already. We've always had issues uploading alot of photos at once using the iOS app. 

Hereby some screenshots and what I did to reproduce the issue. My app is in Dutch, but you'll get the idea. 

Step 1: Remove the automatic lockscreen on my iPhone, so the screen won't go dark to keep the app alive. 

Step 2: Selected 1147 photos, press upload in the iOS app. No issues here, it just takes some time preparing the upload. There are also videos in this selection. 

Screenshot:

Step 3: The uploading of the photos has now started. No issues here. I put the phone down. 

Screenshot:

Step 4: Suddenly, without doing anything, after successfully uploading ~800/1147 photos, the upload will continue but will upload the photos as blank 135 byte files. In the past, it has many times also already happened after it has uploaded ~400 photos. It seems to be a little random. 

Screenshot from app:

Screenshot from desktop: 

from what I can see looking at the file names, it seems to be some kind of retry mechanism because it goes up to "(16)". What is also strange is that the faulty files have a file name containing the date and time of the upload, instead of the date and time the photo was taken. 

The event page just tells me that the file has been uploaded, nothing else. When I try to open the file, it shows me this:

I've double checked if there is anything "weird" happening during or after the photos taken at 15/12/2022 15:12 (the date&time after which it starts failing) and I can't seem to find any issues. They are normal photo's. 

Hope this displays the issue that I'm having clearly. Hope to hear from you 🙂 

[Hannah]

Hey @jacovg91, thanks for this helpful info and the screenshots!

If you try to upload your photos using our camera uploads feature instead, are you getting the same behavior?

[Perezdaniel]

I have the same problem, were you able to find a solution?

[Perezdaniel]

@walter 

were you able to solve the problem?
I can find no solution

[Megan]

Hey @Perezdaniel, let's jump right into this! 

As a first step, can you clarify the version of your OS, and the Dropbox app that you're using on your end? 

Also, do you upload content using camera uploads, or manual uploads? 

Let me know more! 

[jacovg91]

Camera upload is not an option, because I don't want to upload everything. I want to select only certain photo's. 

[jacovg91]

Unfortunately the issue still persists. 

[Megan]

Hey @jacovg91, have you tried to upload content using a different connection, or cellular data?

Do you notice the same behavior then?