conflicting copies and deleted files still appearing

Hi all, 

Thanks for your messages and your feedback. 

1. Dropbox works in such a way that it syncs the latest version of the file picked up by Dropbox. Problems with this would only occur if Dropbox is installed on a server:

It is possible to run Dropbox on a computer running a server OS. However, because Dropbox runs as a user process rather than as a service, the user account has to remain logged in for Dropbox to sync properly.

If you can't stay logged in, you'll need to install Dropbox as a service. Here's one application that can help do this:

http://www.coretechnologies.com/products/AlwaysUp/

However, these methods are not supported by Dropbox, and we cannot provide technical support for them. If you have any trouble, you may want to check out how other users have done this from our forums:

http://www.dropboxforum.com

Additionally, keep in mind that while Dropbox can run on a server OS, we do not recommend locally sharing the Dropbox folder, or any folders inside of the Dropbox folder, over your local network or using it for other server-specific functions due to the way the Dropbox application works with this Dropbox folder.

For information about running Dropbox on a server, and general recommendations, please visit the following Help Center article:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/42

For information on how to migrate the content of a server to Dropbox and suggestions to improve the efficacy of the process, please visit the following Help Center article:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/9116

2. If there are two profiles/ users/ programs accessing the same file at the same time (this could be an anti-virus scanning the files while the file is open on your computer), then Dropbox will detect that there are changes being made at the same time and will created a conflicted copy. 

To see whether this is the issue you are seeing, please try editing the file outside of Dropbox and then placing it in Dropbox again to see whether a conflicted copy is created at this point. 

Do let me know how you get on. Thanks!