Forcing Dropbox to synchronize?

[reiner_rosin]

I have some trouble synchronizing a particular file on Windows 10. It's a database file of Filemaker Pro - the file is opened and in use the entire day. At evening Filemaker Pro is closed and the file ready to be synchronized. The computer is then shutdowned with a batch file, giving a 5 minute delay for synchronize before shutdown. This time is sometimes not long enough to have the file synchronized by Dropbox

I wonder if there is a way to force Dropbox to do the sync? It should be done within the batch file. I plan to shutdown and restart Dropbox, but I'd prefer a more elegant way, if available

Any hint?

[Rich · Accepted solution]

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@reiner_rosin wrote:

I wonder if there is a way to force Dropbox to do the sync? It should be done within the batch file

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No, that's not possible. There's no way to force Dropbox to sync. It just syncs automatically while it's open and when there isn't a lock on the files due to them being in use. As soon as your file is closed, Dropbox should index it and sync it if needed.

[azreiner]

I have a similar problem as well.  For some odd reason the database file will not update.  I've tried purging the cache and this did nothing.  It seems silly to have to delete the data base and reinstall it.  There must be a way to get Dropbox to do this automatically otherwise this negates the value.  My son works for Intel and he tells me this is an Apple/Dropbox issue and it cannot be resolved.  Any thoughts?

[reiner_rosin]

Thank you for your reply. Do you have any idea, why Dropbox doesn't detect the file is ready to sync, even within a 5 minute range? I guess I will try to update the last-modified timestamp of the file to see if Dropbox starts to sync then

[Rich]

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@reiner_rosin wrote:

Do you have any idea, why Dropbox doesn't detect the file is ready to sync, even within a 5 minute range?

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Usually when this happens it because another application still has a lock on the file and Dropbox can't access it.

[reiner_rosin]

This I can exclude, the file isn't locked 100%. I can rename it and it gets synchronized immediately. I guess Dropbox is not periodically polling for file changes but is waiting for a signal from Windows. It seems after the file was locked for a long time Dropbox doesn't get informed properly after the lock is removed. 

[Rich]

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@reiner_rosin wrote:

I guess Dropbox is not periodically polling for file changes but is waiting for a signal from Windows.

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That's exactly how it happens. Dropbox registers itself with the operating system to receive change notifications for everything in the Dropbox folder. It's not polling the folder itself.

[Tunneller]

I have a lot of .yaml files that I edit with Notepad. Dropbox routinely fails to notice changes on them. I don't know if that is a Windows or Dropbox issue. Either way, what works is to save the file to a new name - it will show up almost immediately as needing to be synced. Delete the old file. Then save that temporary file back as the original file name. Problem solved.