Syncing forever without actually syncing

[skillbard]

Hello all,

tl;dr The status reads as syncing but it seems extremely slow and there don't seem to be any actually changes to all my files.

I'm running DB on High Sierra.

I recently reached my accounts limit so I removed some files from my DB folder. It seemed I was so over the limit that I couldn't delete(?) so I also deleted these files from DB online. Still nothing was happening, despite restarting DB, restarting my computer etc.

I tried running an advanced reinstal, following instructions on this page:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/advanced-reinstall

but when I try pasting the commands into Terminal, it claims no such folder exists, despite other terminal commands finding the same folder no problem.

I'm pasting the following (my DB folder is on an external HD, which is named Gus):

sudo chown -R "$USER" “/Volumes/Gus/Dropbox”

I tried with and without quotations but get the same: "no such directory exists". But if I type
cd /Volumes/Gus/Dropbox it gets in there no problem.

Any ideas?!

Thaaaaaaaanks

[henrycorps]

Hi, there! Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I'm using the latest version.

[Daphne]

Hi there @henrycorps!

Could you just confirm if you had the chance to try out the steps Lusil linked above?

[henrycorps]

Hi, Daphne.

Yes, I did all the steps. Clicked on the "Fix Hardlinks" button, and after finished, tried to restart Dropbox.

Then I clicked on "Fix Permissions" button, and after finished, restarted the app, and nothing happened again.

Is there any way I can know which are the 5 files Dropbox is trying to sync forever?

[Lusil]

Do any of your folders in your desktop app show a blue syncing icon with white spinning arrows on them?

If you do, then follow the path and see if you're able to find the files in question.

[henrycorps]

Nope, no blue, syncing icon

All the files and folders are either:
- checked green (green circle with white check)

- checked green (white circle with green check)

- cloud icon.

To be fair, under the message "Syncing 5 files", there is a blue progress line, which progress slowly day by day, giving the impression that there is a large download or uploading being made. But after a few days, it gets stucked, around 85%, 90% (it doesn't show the percentage, i'm just assuming, by the lenght of the bar.

Still, no way to find out what files are that, since all the foldes are marked checked or cloud.

Other crazy thing I just noticed today is that these icons (checked, cloud, etc) are constantly disappearing and appearing over and over, when I leave the Windows Explorer opened in the Dropbox folder. Like it's refreshing by itself, over and over. And sometimes it shows differend icons (like the shortcut arrow icon or the shared icon, or an X icon). Very crazy. 😮

[Lusil]

Hmm, could you temporarily close any third party security apps and antivirus to see if that changes anything?

Could you also make sure that you have configured your firewall to work with Dropbox?

[henrycorps]

I don't use any third party security app, just the Windows defaut app. For the sake of it, I closed other file syncing apps like Google Filestream and OneDrive, it's basically just dropbox running now, and still, stuck.

I also checked the Firewall, Dropbox was allowed, and I added DropboxUpdate now.

When I click in the arrow that shows the syncing cue, it shows a drawing of a dog, and it says it's looking for updates, to see if all my files are up to date, but stays in that screen forever.

Here's a printscreen of how dropbox looks (sorry it's in portuguese, but you probably know the equivalent text in English. Otherwise, I'll se if I can change the app language and print it again):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qhtaq5lxcjo8uax/dropbpx.jpg?dl=0

You can notice the blue bar at the bottom almost reaching the end, but it's just stuck there, in the same position, for many days. I didn't turn of my computer this week, just to make sure it's not just a big file.

Cheers!

[Walter]

In that case, you could also try unlinking and relinking your account through the app's preferences as this would force our desktop app to rebuild your whole database anew.

Let us know how it goes @henrycorps!

[henrycorps]

I was confident that would work, because it started to resync all the files, showing the number of files and filesize remaing.
But, after a few hours of resyncing everyting, the app still shows 5 files remaining, no estimate time or filesize... same same.

The only "difference" is the blue bar on the bottom, which seems completely filled now, instead of the "almost filled" it used to show. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/951nkrw7ses1l8a/screenshot.jpg?dl=0

I'm getting out of hope... 😐

[Walter]

In that case, could you check if there are any pending updates for you computer and apply them @henrycorps?

While at it, could any of your files contain an incompatible character in their names?