Re: Couln't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename

I have received an error report in the last couple of weeks from my Dropbox stating that files could not be downloaded due to incompatible characters.

These files are mostly archives and some are over 5 years old.

It is not possible to save a file with incompatible characters.

Has Dropbox got a problem they need to tell us about?

Has someone made a programming error that has created incompatible characters where none existed?!!

Has anyone else in the Community had the same error?

Several of our staff have the same problem.

Can we please get some help to fix these files!!

It will take weeks to go through every single file and fix the errors !!!

Yes! I am having the same issues. I have a list of over 999 sync issues - ALL WITH FILES THAT ARE OLD AND HAVE BEEN SYNCED PREVIOUSLY. Again, these are not new files. These are old file that have been in my folders for years and years. It just started last week and is starting to get frustrating. I'm thinking about cancelling to be honest. We work with hundreds of files a week.

-Giancarlo

Megan,

I have a list of over 999 files....that does not seem practical. Any other suggestions?

-Giancarlo

Thanks Megan,

I have done as suggested.

My question is HOW did this happen to files that have previously synced fine.

These are HISTORIC files, not something loaded in the last week, and they were fine when they loaded.

I actually don't know how they were ever created on any computer with invalid characters.

Majority of them had a : in the file name.

I have worked with computer a long time and this character has never been allowed by PC or Mac.

The only thing done differently this last fortnight is I upgraded to Windows 11 and then changed my mind when things stopped working. I have since gone back to Windows 10.

Next idea please.

Same here, some of these files go back 10+ years and all of a sudden it's an issue? I know Dropbox hires some of the most talented programmers on the planet.  The interface that is presented to us is clumsy to even begin attempting to change hundreds of files. "Go to file" for each and every file is extremely unrealistic.  It actually opens each file in a new browser window ... yes we're inside the file. We don't need to be inside the file in order to rename the file. Who designed that interface should spend a week using his/her creation and see how painful it is to use. DropBox should present an interface of all offending files like in an explorer/finder window that would allow us to multi-select and run a REGEX-based script to remove the offending characters. /\."<>:|?*   C'mon DropBox, you can do better than this! 

So I uninstalled and reinstalled Dropbox and it seems to have worked.....I still have no idea why that was happening. 

To clarify, the old files in question are still not syncing.....but the good news is it's not preventing new files from syncing properly. Which was the main issue. 

-Giancarlo

We cannot rename or delete hundreds upon hundreds of files!  That is ridiculous.

The files that cannot sync are all files that DROPBOX created, because they end in .dropbox.attributes.  So at some point dropbox created these files - from image files - and now it decides they have incompatible characters and will not sync them.  

Our image files have a half dozen or so users across multiple families and locations, and there is NO WAY for us to clean up the mess that these attribute files have created.

Come on Dropbox, FIX the mess you made!

Sorry Megan, but no this link you supplied didn't clarify anything.

These files have appeared out of nowhere with a full colon inserted.

This is not our practice to create files in this manner.

Please, can someone please give us a better solution than "you will have to rename them yourself" or it is our "OS on our device".

I am sorry, but both of these sound like a cop out.

Just started getting this on Windows 10 today, with files that were previously synced perfectly for many years. The characters it claims are illegal actually aren't in W10. Has there been a silent app update that has changed some stuff?

For a while this problem disappeared for me, and now the inability to sync are back yesterday. Hundreds upon hundreds of old files that have synced for years suddenly do not sync. What is going on????

OMG, yes, this!

Dumb interface for figuring out what's wrong with hundreds of my files that synced just fine (some for years) but suddenly today are a problem fror DropBox. And, the few "problem" files that I looked at have nothing but the letters a-z and a few spaces.

Mike B.53 

is the space at the end of the name of the file (e.g. "Mark .pdf" rather than "Mark.pdf")? If so that is an often incompatible with other OSs

Hi Mark,

Thank you for trying to help me!

No, of today's 138 errors, any that I see do not have a space before the .pdf (or jpeg, indd, png, tiff, etc). In fact, many files have no spaces at all such as "CGI.jpg". A couple of screen caps attached. And these files are both old and weren't previously a problem. Thanks, Mike

Hi Megan,

Every few days I get an error message from Dropbox saying it cannot sync several hundred files of images taken in 2014.  These images have been in Dropbox for all those 8 years.  The problem seemed to clear up a while back and I stopped getting the error messages for a while. But alas, the message is back.  I assume that old files from 2014 have synced from another person who shares the files - but I don't know.  In any case, cleaning them up on my computer is not sufficient, they need to be cleaned up on hte computers of other shared users.

This is NOT an issue of cleaning up the files, it is an issue of Dropbox suddenly refusing to accept file names that have been acceptable for years. Someone at Dropbox has to figure out exactly what is happening and FIX IT!

Hi Megan,

I'll try to do this test and get back to you. Very busy week…

Thanks!

I think this has to do with symlinked files, at least that is what it looks like for my 108 files that suddenly stopped syncing a couple of weeks ago between my Mac and windows systems.

I should add that they sync fine on the Mac, only windows has the problem. I haven't found a way to correct it and they worked fine for many many years...

It has started to happen on my iMac. Luckily it still syncs new files but there is a notification on the Dropbox icon that says the old files won't sync....so perhaps this is more of a Dropbox problem as opposed to a Windows/Mac OS problem...

We have been experiencing this same issue as well on our Dropbox Business account. Some of our computers have even gotten stuck in syncing, whether due to this issue or not. I had to delete the Dropbox app from those computers, reinstall and resync, which took over 2 days. That didn't solve the original issue of mis-named files not syncing - that is still present. 

DROPBOX NEEDS TO PROVIDE A SOLUTION TO THIS. 

Hi, I am also receiving the incompatible characters message.  However, for me, it is on recent files - but none of them have strange characters or spaces (or at least none that I can spot).  They are files created on my Mac but which won't synch onto my PC. 

Since I cannot see where the problem is (no illegal characters) I cannot fix the issue.  And as others have said before me, it is really not feasible in any case to change the names of so many files.  Please help!

Hi cathstoneman, do you have an example of a file or folder name that isn't syncing from your Mac to your PC to confirm what characters are being used?

For example NA22-CBC-005-ES_merged.pdf

This file should sync normally, could you attach a screenshot showing the error message you're getting specifically?