All files missing in one folder and they don't appear in the Deleted files page

[stalwart_sidekick]

Hi all,

I have a single dropbox account installed on two systems.  This morning I went into my meme collection folder to discover it was empty.  All other folders are intact, as best I can tell.  

I went to the web view and the folder is empty there, so it makes sense that my desktop clients are also showing no files.  However, the 'recover deleted files' tool shows zero files have been deleted, which aligns to my never actually deleting files.  It's as though they disappeared on physical storage somewhere in the hosted system.

Any suggestions?

[Nancy]

Hi @stalwart_sidekick, and thanks for posting this on our forum!

Have you checked your Events page, as well?

When was the last time you accessed those files on www.dropbox.com? 

Finally, can you clarify your current Dropbox plan? I’d like to check what’s your file recovery window and go from there.

Let me know what you find.

[stalwart_sidekick]

Hi Nancy!

I'm on the free plan.  I haven't accessed the files specifically on the website recently, but I do use them locally on my two devices.  

I looked in the events page (thanks for the link) and found no activity in that folder for the entirety of the log.  I don't add much to it on the regular, so it's not surprising that I don't find "added this file" to the folder in the log.

It's almost as though I've entered a reality where that folder never had anything in it..:). Fortunately I have the folder backed up on a separate drive, so I know I'm not crazy.

I appreciate your help / advice.

Jeff

[Megan]

Hi @stalwart_sidekick, is it possible that you only used these files locally? 

I'm asking, because if you've never seen them online, and if they didn't appear in your events page then my best guess is that the content was never synced to your Dropbox account.

How you might ask?

Well, if the app wasn't running, or syncing content and then it decided to sync again, then there are some cases where instead of the changes syncing from the device to the web -which is what's expected- the sync works the other way around.

Could this be the case there? 

[stalwart_sidekick]

Ohhh, interesting theory!  It does explain the lack of any evidence of changes.  However, all the files existed on two machines (1 Mac, 1 PC), so at some point they had to have synced to the server.  

I'll chalk it up to some weird sync from somewhere.  I have the files backed up, so no real harm was done.