No syncing, no task bar icon

[Joe Music]

Hello, I'm not sure about the right board. And I have read hundreds of posts before, but did not find a solution. I have dropbox since years. It ran fine. In March I changed from Win10 to Win11. It still ran fine. We use a dropbox to coordinate music activities within a band. I am the leader, the owner of our box. Somewhen in May the dropbox icon disappeared in the task bar. And it didn't synchronize anymore. The only solution I found so far, is to install again and again dropbox.exe new. After installation all works fine the files are updated, my co-workers see all, I receive new files. So, the dropbox itself works. And it does as long as the laptop is switched on. After any new start the icon in the task bar disappears, pressing the desk top icon onlyopens the (unchanged) files on my computer. No connection to the online dropbox. When I (re)installed dropbox again in the last week in August, it surprisingly worked for 3 or 4 new starts of the laptop. But now it's gone again. I have no idea, how to solve this strange problem, which may have to do with the May Update of Win11. But this is only a nebulous idea. By the way, the other have no problems, when I can upload new files. One co-worker has similar problems. Has anybody an idea, what I can do. Thanks Joe.

[Walter]

Hey @Joe Music, sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

Do you happen to have a security program or software that might be causing problems like an antivirus, a firewall or a VPN/proxy setting?

If not, the next step here would be to attempt an advanced reinstall as outlined here.

Keep us posted anyhow!

[Joe Music]

@Walter. Thanks for your reply. I know already, that security programs cause problems like that. I have only the windows defender running, no proxy, no VPN. I will follow your recommendation to install new, although I did that already 10 times, but may be not in this way. I am a rather good analytical guy (this was my job 35 years, before I retired), and I want to give you some ideas. First Dropbox ran without any problems since 2020 on this computer, an hp Laptop. I am member in hp forum and worked for them 1983-1987. Then in March 2023 I moved to Win after having changed the security option in the BIOS. Dropbox continued running until somewhen in MAy 2023, I don't know the exactly date. Then disappeared with all following I desribed already. One guy in my band also changed to Win11, short after me. He has similar problems. And this effect in August, when it ran after new installation for several days and reboots. Then suddenly disappeared again. The programm is normally started when the computer starts, but in this case it is not! And it is not started too whenn pressing the desktop sign. This only opens the local dropbox folder. Does this help you to localize the problem? May be it can be started with the task manager? Regards Joe.

[Joe Music · Accepted solution]

Hello @Walter and all.

May be I found the problem or the solution. The start of dropbox was disabled in the system start. Whoever that did!..... Now I enabled the start, and so far it works, at least after one restart. I will see, if it keeps enabled, or if something disables it again. So far from me. Regards Joe.

[Walter]

I'm glad to hear you managed to sort this out in the end and thanks for keeping me in the loop too, Joe.

See you around the Community and  have a lovely week ahead! 

[Marcus_VG]

Hello Walter, 

I have the same problem. No synching & no task bar icon, also running on Windows 11.

Unlike Joe, DB is set to auto start on start-up on my PC already.

Are you really suggesting that we disable any antivirus, firewall & VPN software just to be able to use DB?!

[Mark]

If Dropbox isnt showing at the top @Marcus_VG then it even running - and so the firewall etc. isnt disabling as the software isnt open. 

[Marcus_VG]

Thanks. I assume you mean 'it isn't even running'...

I seem to have got it running now....

However, my concern still stands:

"Are you really suggesting that we disable any antivirus, firewall & VPN software just to be able to use DB?!"

Seems ridiculous 

[Mark]

No it should work happily without as long as those things are configured correctly. If they are not set up correctly then applications wont work.

[Marcus_VG]

OK. Thank you, Mark