Locked and randomly deleted files bug!!!!

[Davey J]

I'm working on some large photoshop files in a DropBox folder.  By large, I mean a few gigabytes in size.  I've worked this way for several years, and I could save the file, do a few changes and save it again, even if the old one hadn't finished syncing.

Not anymore.  It seem a recent update changed this.  Now the file is locked, so after Photoshop saves out the tmp file and tries to overwrite the original file again, it gets an error saying the file is locked and that I should use an administrator acount to access it.  This is an administrator account.

So, I get to resave the file again, under a new name, which can take a few minutes.  Then I run into another problem.  After the original file is synced, it's GONE.  DELETED.  I just had to recover a 1GB file, which I've been waiting to have reappear in my folder for the past several minutes, because DropBox decided to just up and delete it without warning.  This happened a couple times last night as well.

I saved the file.  I did numerous changes.  I saved the file again.
Error - locked file.
I save the file under a new name.
I try to delete the orignal.
Error - the file is locked and needs administrator priviledges - which I have.
I cancel.

Several minutes later, BOTH files are gone; the one I tried to delete and the one with the new file name that I just saved.


This whole file locking thing is dangerous.  I use a lot of linked Smart Objects in Photoshop, which are just other images that a master image document references.  If I change one, it changes that image in any other document that uses it.  Now, because of this file lock, I can't reliably save a change; using a new file name will not update other documents. Also, the random file deletion thing just breaks everything.

It's been 23 minutes now and that file I recovered still hasn't appeared in my local folder.

[Davey J]

I just closed DropBox on my PC.  Immediately another file was deleted.  Luckily, it was an older version.

FIX THIS!

[Daphne]

Hi there @Davey J, I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with this!

What you've described is very strange behaviour. To narrow down the root cause here, can you please close the desktop app completely on your computer and try making changes and saving one of these files again?

You can close the app by clicking the Dropbox icon in your system tray, clicking the initials/profile pic icon in the top right of the window and choosing "Exit Dropbox".

Also, can you let me know if this issue persists in any other location on your computer apart from the Dropbox folder?

Let me know and we can go from there!