Dropbox stuck on node_modules...

[cbowen]

Dropbox is stuck trying to sync node_modules. If I hover over the icon it says indexing node_modules. If I open it up, it says Syncing node_modules. The Sync Queue permanantly says "Checking one file" with an animation. It has been like this for days now and won't ever finish syncing. I have excluded some of the node_modules folders I used recently to see if that helps, but it has not. I have rebooted several times. I upgraded to the latest Dropbox client. Nothing helps. If I knew which node_modules folder it was stuck on, I would just remove it, but there are probably over a thousand of those on my system. How can I get the path to the file it is stuck trying to sync so I can get it to finally get caught back up?

[Lusil]

Hi @cbowen, thanks for checking in with us on the Dropbox Community.

Generally, since node_modules are like cached files for projects that you may have saved, they may have trouble syncing to your Dropbox folder.

You can check out this thread where other users have discussed this, and also this article on how to "ignore" items from syncing.

Have a look through them and let me know if you have any other questions, cheers!

[cbowen]

These are reasonable solutions except that I think I have about 1,000 node_modules folders on my system. If we just find the top level ones, there are still hundreds. It's stuck on one of those. If I knew the path, rather than just the directory name, I could fix that one and not feel I have to manually ignore hundreds of these folders to find that one. Even better, why is it so hard to create a simple way to ignore a directory with a given name? 

[Lusil]

I understand how important this is for you and thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. 

Although there's not much I can offer on this, I'm more than happy to leave this thread open for any other users who may have additional input on this.

In the meantime, if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to give me another nudge. 

[cbowen · Accepted solution]

I did finally find the offending node_modules folder. Once I excluded it from dropbox, it now completes the sync. 

[Lusil]

Glad to hear that, @cbowen! Awesome work with the troubleshooting. 

If anything else comes up in the future, you know where to find us. 

I hope you have a lovely week ahead!