Dropbox has lost all new versions of one of my documents!

[wiza]

Hi,

My document unexpectedly reverted to 9 month old version. And the versions that I've been working with for the last month simply not exists. Document history is empty. 😞 So, I have lost lot of my job 😞

I'm furious ! @#%#@$^*^$@@

[Hannah]

Hey @wiza, thanks for lettings us know about this and I'm sorry to see you've lost updates of your file.

If you checked the version history for the file, and haven't found your most recent versions, it seems that your updates never actually synced to your account.

Were you ever able to access your updated file through our website? Or were you accessing only from your computer?

And what's the sync status of the Dropbox application? You can see that by hovering your mouse over the Dropbox icon in your system tray/menu bar.

Let me know what you find.

[wiza]

I always edited my *.xlsx file on my PC and until last week everything was ok. The sync status of the Dropbox application is - Up to date. In Actyvity tab I see all my doc's and the Sync history tab also is not empty. Only my *.xlsx is missing there, despite it was edited almost every day. I can't say whether Sync history of this file was alive before the jump to the past, because I never need to open it. At this time history of the others doc's is alive.

For fun I tried to edit my *.xlsx today and what do you think? Its Sync history is live again! However only 2 files with the lost data are there 😞

9 month of job is GONE!    #@#@$%$%%#&%^^%*

Who and how can compensate it? I am crying ;( 

[Jay]

Hi @wiza, if you're not seeing any version history, then it means that the file was recently created, and a previous version of the file was deleted from the site entirely.

Do you see any history of the file being edited in the events page?

[wiza]

I put this file to dropbox 3 years ago and never delete it. It was edited about 3 times a week and never lost updates. Suddenly, not simply last update is gone, but all of my job for the 9 month.

In the event page there is only one record of this file, which I made yesterday to try what will happen now. So it is evident, that nobody delete all my new versions, simply dropbox did not save or lost them.

[Jay]

If you're not seeing the previous version of the files on the events page, then there's a few possibilities as to why this might be the case:
 

• The file was on another Dropbox account
• It was on a shared folder you don't have access to any more
• The file was deleted outside of the 30 day period
• The file was permanently deleted

I'd recommend checking the first two options to see if this could be the case.

[wiza]

Please explain the second option to me. I don't remember if I shared the entire folder, but I certainly did share the document I mentioned. Other documents in this folder still keeping theirs old versions. Only thing I done, I created new subfolder, however *.xlsx remains in the same place. Other 3 options are not real.

What to do in this case?

P.S. My free account keeps old versions only for one month, right? If the file was deleted, then where did the old version of 9 months ago come from, which is exists neither in the file history nor in the logs? 

[Jay]

Could you let me know how you shared the file?

Was it inside a shared folder which you then shared? Did you instead share the file directly to someone else's Dropbox account?

Lastly, did you create a shared link for people to view it on the Dropbox site?

If the previous version from 9  months ago turned up, then it means that was the last version on the site. 

Have you tried recovering the file via Excel itself using its built-in tool?

[wiza]

I created a shared link directly to excel file.

Excel recovery built-in tool find nothing.

> If the previous version from 9 months ago turned up, then it means that was the last version on the site.

How can it stay longer than 1 months? And why then File History and Logs has no record about it?

[Andrew_Forge]

Same thing has happened to me.  Excel spreadsheet updated and saved daily for two weeks.  Now it has reverted to the original file.  No question of conflicted copy, different account, different users etc etc.  

It has cast a huge shadow on Dropbox for me.  I have used DropBox since the very beginning and it has been great but this situation makes in unusable.  Fortunately I can recreate the data I had but it is weeks of work.  It could have been non recoverable.

It has been escalated with DropBox Support.