Error message when deleting folders

[Danette5]

I have used Dropbox for years and have never had this problem. I'm cleaning up my files and when I try to delete a folder I get this message:

There are too many files in one request. Please retry with fewer files.

What has changed? How do I go about deleting my folders?

[pmjboyle]

This remains an issue for my account. Is there an actual fix forthcoming or can individual users reach out to request deletion of specific directories?

This is particularly odious given the recent policy change regarding accounts that previously had "unlimited storage". I am scrambling like crazy to get my team's accounts under 15 TB each and now we're dealing with outages like this. 

[BenDBX]

Hi @pmjboyle,

Are you still unable to delete multiple files? File deletion functionality related to the outage should be fully restored. I can certainly have our team look into it if you are still unable to bulk delete.

If anyone else is still experiencing this, please let me know.

Thanks,

Ben

[ricodude]

Hi Ben

I am getting this issue. I have been re-arranging my folders on Dropbox (and at each step waiting for Dropbox to complete the sync before moving to next step), but there are some folders I cannot copy, move or delete. For some folders I get the message "Too many files ..." and for others I simply get "Couldn't delete ...". Just now I tried this again for a single .gitignore file (all of 6 bytes) and got "Couldn't delete 1 item".

This is all via the Dropbox website. **Extremely** frustrating and makes me seriously doubt the underlying integrity of Dropbox.

Any help appreciated. Ideally with an explanation as to why this is happening (which will hopefully allay my doubts).

Thanks

Richard

[Jay]

HI @ricodude, could you try switching browsers to see if this helps?

Otherwise, you can try using incognito/private browsing mode without any extensions running?

[ricodude]

Hi Jay

I tried deleting one of the folders on both Chrome & Safari and in each case using normal & incognito windows. Same result each time: "Too many files ..."

R.

[Megan]

Hi @ricodude, sorry to jump in here! 

Does this happen with all of your files/folders or just with some specific ones?

If you could send me a screenshot of the error message you get on your end, that'd be amazing.

[ricodude]

Hi Megan - It has been for some specific ones. I couldn't see any obvious pattern; it's not related to size, no. of files or special characters, so far as I can tell.

This was the case for three specific folders and their contents for last few days up to some minutes ago, however I just tried deleting them again as an example to show you and they deleted fine - so inconsistent.

However their parent folder - which is now empty - still cannot be deleted. Screenshot attached.

[Megan]

Thanks for the speedy response and for the screenshots too @ricodude!

Have you tried clearing the cache on your browser? 

It'd also help if you could disable any plug-ins, just to rule that one out too, and make sure they don't interfere. 

[ricodude]

Hi Megan

You'll note from my previous replies that I tried using incognito windows in both Chrome & Safari, which would not have had any plugins enabled. I just tried using Firefox with an empty cache & no plugins and this did actually work - i.e. I could delete the empty folder. However I think this is just inconsistent behaviour rather than a causal link.

I'm back to trying to re-organize the folders and there are a whole series of folders that I cannot move within Dropbox - whatever the browser, cache, plugin set up. First Dropbox warns "Moving this folder might take a while" because it has a large number of files. Then it tries moving it and comes back with "Couldn't move 1 item ...".

At this point I am giving up. I cannot use a file system that has inconsistent behaviour and that does not work for some files / folders.

[Nancy]

Hey @ricodude, I’m sorry to hear this. 

Please feel free to share the OS version of your computer, as well as the version of the default browser you’re using, and we’ll check this further.