Couln't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename

[Dimples]

Recently all of my computer with Dropbox have started showing a sync error "Couln't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename. e.g. emojis, /\"<>:|?*"

The problem filename isn't shown, the "Go to File" link just takes me to the root directory of my drive, and I obviously can't search for those bad characters.  How do I find this file to solve the sync issue?

[Dimples]

@Meghan, I don't have an "applications" folder.  Not sure what to search for.

[Megan]

Can you try uninstalling the app, and then re-installing to see if the results in regards to the syncing status remain the same, @Dimples? 

[Dimples]

@Megan I believe I've found the problem.  When I open a Word document in my dropbox folder, it creates a TMP file with a ~ in the name.  IF dropbox tries to sync while that file is open, would it cause this error.  Then if I close that file the TMP file disappears and thus DB cannot show it to me.  Going to test today to see if I can duplicate the error.

[Megan]

Great troubleshooting on your end, @Dimples!

Yes, this sounds highly plausible indeed. Let me know what you notice when you try to recreate it.

Cheers! 

[jbales]

I just checked and the files were uploaded in spite of the error message. Which is good! But I don't want to get stray error messages and have to check if things really did upload

[Megan]

Thanks for checking, @jbales!

If the culprit was indeed related to Microsoft and how it handles files, I have a suggestion to make: You can try pausing the app when you're working on a Word file, and open it back up when you finish working on it. 

[nomadism]

 

So, I'm back with the same problem. Initially, as you can see in my previous reply to this thread (as well as other posts here), the error message was due to some apps making temporary files that included the so-called incompatible characters. However, in this case, there are none such characters.

As you can see, the dropbox app spits out the same error message, but the file itself is fine (as you can see in the file in the finder), and the file is also uploaded an available in dropbox.com (see the browser).

So in the end, what I see here is that

1) the dropbox app is spitting out error messages when there is actually no error at all.

2) It doesn't seem to be related to a specific app (the files belong to a storage folder of juris-M [a bibliographical software] or obsidian vault file)

3) One common thing among the error files are that they are all written in Korea. But even then, other Korean files don't seem to have a problem.

4) I can't remember when, but it seems to have been tied to some update along the way. Maybe a dropbox update, maybe a MacOS update. 

Dropbox v149.4.4568

MacOS Monterey v 12.4

Glad to offer more help. 

[Megan]

Hi @nomadism, would it be okay for me to reach out via email in order to have a closer look? 

Let me know!

[nomadism]

@Megan Sure! I assume you can access my email address but if not let me know how to sort this out. 

[Jay]

Hi @nomadism, I've sent you an email, please could you reply to it as soon as you get a chance!