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Desktop app is stuck 'Starting' when it loads up and doesn't sync

Desktop app is stuck 'Starting' when it loads up and doesn't sync

Bert M.
New member | Level 1
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I am a paying customer and very frustrated with Dropbox. I am ready to drop DropBox and look for other alternatives.

Since Friday of last week it has been trying to sync 100Gb in files and it is taking an eternity. Now is stuck in "Starting."
I have rebooted the Mac (10.6.8). I am using Dropbox 3.0.3. I have tried going to Preferences, holding the option key and "Fixing Permission." I also read in the Internet about deleting the hidden cache folder but I have not done it yet since I don't know what to expect.

Any assistance is appreciated.

96 Replies 96

omrani
New member | Level 2
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Thank you @Jane .

I didn't have this issue with Windows 7. Perhaps Windows 10 has stricter securtiy rules that caused this issue.

I think it would be nice if the setup/installer of dropbox desktop could check whether current OS is Windows 10 while installing dropbox and if so, configures the application to start with appropriate permissions in Windows Startup routine.

Jane
Dropbox Staff
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Thanks for circling back to me @omrani! While I wouldn’t rule out the OS permissions being the culprit either, I understand that you’re probably interested in a pro-active message detailing whether everything is still correctly configured & I’d happily pass this feedback on to our team specialists for future iterations.

Thanks again for posting us your thoughts; I’m wishing you a fruitful week ahead!

 


Jane
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support

 

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Questions asked in the community will likely receive an answer within 4 hours!)

Bissquitt
New member | Level 2
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FYI just spent about 4 hours troubleshooting this with none of these solutions working. It ended up being the windows file indexing that was corrupt and crashing. Go into control panel -> indexing options -> rebuild index. It instantly started working perfectly.

Hope this helps someone.

spike1968
Helpful | Level 6
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HI All,

Thanks for all the help, I gave up on Dropbox a good 6 months or so ago, started using Google Drive. Over half the price for 2TB and absolutely no issues with syncing, a number of my clients have switched to and report better performance all round.

Shame, as dropbox used to be good and no matter what the problem, whether corrupt file or other issue you would expect that the Dropbox team would have a clear solution for the problem. 

Unfortunately they didn't and the fact that so many months on it is still an issue seems to indicate an issue with their debug and error analysis. I spent ages on support calls, dropbox don't even know what the issue is!!!!

But thanks to all who tried to help.

kurosa
Helpful | Level 5
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This is what is happening to my dropbox

  • Found out my files are not being sync even though its all in dropbox folders - there is no indication there are errors or it's uploading/downloading, I have to find out via dropbox site and see that the online files are lacking 
  • Thinking it may be an error I relinked my account that is holding majority of my file, it started indexing, uploading ALOT OF FILES. Again, there was no indication of the files that it's being uploaded just a regular dropbox icon
  • Turned off the pc even though it's still doing dropbox activities, thinking I can continue tomorrow - please note it's 300k files not in the cloud, what if I deleted the files locally thinking it was safe in dropbox right? 
  • I returned and opened my laptop, STARTING IS FOREVER NOW. Already half the day still starting up
  • Thinking I should reinstall I did, and it's starting to create conflict in my local files and reuploading again.
  • Maybe it's just sorting itself, I turned the pc off again and planned to continue tomorrow
  • The next day STUCK AGAIN IN STARTING
  • Did the symlinks command prompt, saw the list and apparently it's a cache
  • deleted it
  • started Dropbox agian STILL STARTING
  • DELETED THE WHOLE CACHE
  • STILL STARTING
  • USED ADMIN OPTION
  • STILL STARTING.[

TL:DR - all of the solutions are not working. 

What else would you like me to do, because this is really screwing all my files and putting my files at risk that I don't know if it's possible the application can delete it. If it cannot show that my files are actually not properly uploaded in the online version I wouldn't be surprised really if it sneakily deletes it.

Smart sync also confuses of which one I can use immediately or need uploading. I know this is a seperate issue but it would be great to have some sort of identification 

spike1968
Helpful | Level 6
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Hi Kurosa,

This problem has existed now for over 2 years, dropbox team seem unable to fix the issue without the need for custom interactions by the user on their local machine and that does not always work.

I have had a number of clients experiencing the same issue and this is on vanilla windows 10 installs, in some cases, with some really high level hardware machines. 

What's worse is that I was an upgrade customer so paid for higher level of data storage and the notifications to say there was a problem was obvious so sync could be out days if I didn't keep an eye on it.

I moved to Google Drive, no issues with sync at all. Notifications are really good and it ended up being cheaper for more space, extra bonus.

Jane
Dropbox Staff
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Hey @kurosa, as it seems that you’ve already tried working on that on your end without success & just so as to expedite resolution, let me have a closer look to your account specifics on my tools. To get going with that, I’ve sent you a brief message on the email address connected to your Community profile. 
 
Whenever you have some spare time, please have a look at your inbox for my message & I’ll make sure to promptly follow-up with you asap. Thanks & I’ll be awaiting your next reply!

 


Jane
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support

 

Heart Did this post help you? If so please give it a Like below. 
:white_check_mark: Did this post fix your issue/answer your question? If so please press the 'Accept as Best Answer' button to help others find it.
:arrows_counterclockwise: Still stuck? Ask me a question! (
Questions asked in the community will likely receive an answer within 4 hours!)

kurosa
Helpful | Level 5
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Hello 

Thank you for the concern, I have Google Drive and P Drive 2tb, but Dropbox holds crucial files and right now they are at risk of the application not doing what's it being paid to do. It's really disappointing when I thought that DB has uploaded my files in the cloud and I can safely unlink only to find out that it's not. Will they recover crucial files, hopefully the rewind can do it but when simply uploading files won't work which is the main job of the application this is very troubling. I may have maxed out the 1TB size and I was ok and I was glad of the increase.  Again files that I have and can harm my business by simply missing is what making this a big issue. 

kurosa
Helpful | Level 5
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Email sent, please respond via email.

kurosa
Helpful | Level 5
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An update and I hope this helps because no one responded to my email (disclaimer, sent a response an hour after Jane sent hers so we're not expecting quick response here)

I have reinstalled dropbox and made another round of uploading files in a fresh new folder. I'm really close to abandoning dropbox as it wasted my time now. No work was done because files are needed to be in check before we do anything else. I uploaded PER FOLDER and like I said I have 300k+ files around this application and this will be a grueling task but I want to make sure every folders are sorted and there and to eliminate the issue that it's syncing/down/uploadign a lot of files. Syncing is there it's not stopping but I'm seeing the files complete there so I continued on until it's starting to sync 5 files when it should be just 3. What the F is dropbox syncing.  Dropbox kept saying symlinks doesn't exist but when I checked it's picking every file I uploaded even the simplest one and cached versions. 

Then when I noticed that this new Smart sync version is on and in ONLINE ONLY and it's the only new DB has. I turned off and set it to LOCAL. It stopped syncing and went back to UP TO DATE

Yes, Smart Sync wasted my time. Good job. I really apologized that my post is like this, annoying and irritated but what can you do? Here I was thinking it maybe  my equipment or my file naming or something but a feature you introduced put me in this situation. I do hope this will help others. 

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