Dropbox Unlinks on Restart

[JeremyStacey]

Hi I have 2 separate drob box acounts both on external drive

On most computer restarts one account unlinks, and I get the notification drop box folder missing and we have to re link, and everytime things have to resync all files.

iMac Pro 2017 3GHZ Intel Zezon W

Extrernal HD is Mecurty Elite Pro

[Walter · Accepted solution]

Hey there @JeremyStacey - sorry to hear that!

First of all, note that Dropbox can be used with an external hard drive as long as you can ensure the drive is always connected to your computer while Dropbox is running. If the drive is ever disconnected from the computer while Dropbox is running there is a small chance that the Dropbox software will start deleting files before realizing that the entire drive has been removed.

Additionally, you should ensure that the file system of the external drive meets the file system requirements. Those can be found in the following Help Center article: 

https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/system-requirements

To move your Dropbox folder to an external drive use the steps in the following Help Center article: https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/move-dropbox-folder

NOTE: The location you select is the folder the Dropbox folder will be moved to, rather than the folder your Dropbox files will be stored in while a good alternative to moving Dropbox to an external drive is to take a look at our Selective Sync feature; a feature that allows you to choose which folders to sync to a particular computer. It's a great option if you'd like to free up disk space without moving Dropbox to an external drive.

I hope this helps to some extent and please let me know if you have any further inquiries Jeremy. 

[JeremyStacey]

Thank you so much for the advice. Yes the external drive is always connected. The main OS Drive is formatted APFS, but the external drive where dropbox is located is formatted Mac OS Extented Journaled aka HFS+ and extended attributes have not been disabled.

Any other ideas why this keeps happening?

Thank you

[Walter]

No, nothing I can add at this point @JeremyStacey - just make sure to log a ticket with our team the next time you see this happen providing as much information as possible so we can have a more in-depth look into this for you.

If you'd like me to reach out instead, please let me know. 

[sarnaud]

Hi,

I have this problem on Ubuntu 18, on a PC with several hardrive, all connected permanently.

I initially installed on the main hardrive but had to move it because I was lacking space. I think the problems stems from the fact this hardrive although permanent is considered as external Thus on each reboot it asks me to relink Dropbox and starts to all sync again. I checked and this hardrive is well is ext4 formatted, as required.

My Dropbox version is:

$ dropbox version
Dropbox daemon version: 107.4.443

Thanks for your help!
Dropbox command-line interface version: 2020.03.04

[Здравко]

Hi @sarnaud,

It's important file system type as well as how particular partition gets mounted. Is it mounted at system boot up or at first query? May be more details could be get from following command set result:

db_path=`jq -r '.personal.path' ~/.dropbox/info.json`; df --output $db_path; grep `df --output=target $db_path | tail -n 1` /etc/fstab; if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then echo "The '$db_path' isn't available at boot up time!"; fi

Copy the above to a terminal window and execute it at once, as is.

Let's hope the result will gives some directions, what could it be.

[sarnaud]

Thanks for your help. The harddrive where dropbox is installed is sda1.

Any clue what I could do so dropbox does not forget where it belongs on each restart and resync, eating basically all the internet flux (and heating the planet) in vane?

Thanks!

Sophie

Sys. de fichiers Type Inœuds IUtil. ILibre IUti% blocs de 1K Utilisé Dispo Uti% Fichier Monté sur
udev devtmpfs 16487074 615 16486459 1% 65948296 0 65948296 0% - /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 16493058 1415 16491643 1% 13194448 3268 13191180 1% - /run
/dev/sdb1 ext4 31260672 766826 30493846 3% 491207576 77422364 388763516 17% - /
tmpfs tmpfs 16493058 79 16492979 1% 65972232 23668 65948564 1% - /dev/shm
tmpfs tmpfs 16493058 5 16493053 1% 5120 4 5116 1% - /run/lock
tmpfs tmpfs 16493058 18 16493040 1% 65972232 0 65972232 0% - /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop1 squashfs 24339 24339 0 100% 261760 261760 0 100% - /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/36
/dev/loop2 squashfs 230 230 0 100% 384 384 0 100% - /snap/gnome-characters/550
/dev/loop0 squashfs 10756 10756 0 100% 56320 56320 0 100% - /snap/core18/1880
/dev/loop3 squashfs 1384 1384 0 100% 2560 2560 0 100% - /snap/gnome-calculator/826
/dev/loop6 squashfs 230 230 0 100% 384 384 0 100% - /snap/gnome-characters/570
/dev/loop5 squashfs 355 355 0 100% 1024 1024 0 100% - /snap/gnome-logs/100
/dev/loop9 squashfs 27807 27807 0 100% 166784 166784 0 100% - /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/145
/dev/loop7 squashfs 18513 18513 0 100% 223232 223232 0 100% - /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/60
/dev/loop8 squashfs 10775 10775 0 100% 56704 56704 0 100% - /snap/core18/1885
/dev/loop4 squashfs 12804 12804 0 100% 99456 99456 0 100% - /snap/core/9993
/dev/loop11 squashfs 27463 27463 0 100% 240512 240512 0 100% - /snap/atom/263
/dev/loop10 squashfs 26975 26975 0 100% 239104 239104 0 100% - /snap/atom/260
/dev/loop12 squashfs 784 784 0 100% 2304 2304 0 100% - /snap/gnome-system-monitor/145
/dev/loop13 squashfs 62342 62342 0 100% 63616 63616 0 100% - /snap/gtk-common-themes/1506
/dev/loop14 squashfs 47984 47984 0 100% 56192 56192 0 100% - /snap/gtk-common-themes/1502
/dev/loop15 squashfs 27798 27798 0 100% 165376 165376 0 100% - /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/128
/dev/loop16 squashfs 4103 4103 0 100% 364032 364032 0 100% - /snap/pycharm-community/214
/dev/loop17 squashfs 353 353 0 100% 1024 1024 0 100% - /snap/gnome-logs/93
/dev/loop18 squashfs 4103 4103 0 100% 363136 363136 0 100% - /snap/pycharm-community/211
/dev/loop19 squashfs 12815 12815 0 100% 100096 100096 0 100% - /snap/core/10126
/dev/loop20 squashfs 784 784 0 100% 2304 2304 0 100% - /snap/gnome-system-monitor/148
/dev/loop21 squashfs 1351 1351 0 100% 2560 2560 0 100% - /snap/gnome-calculator/748
tmpfs tmpfs 16493058 25 16493033 1% 13194444 16 13194428 1% - /run/user/121
tmpfs tmpfs 16493058 39 16493019 1% 13194444 48 13194396 1% - /run/user/1000
/dev/sda1 ext4 274661376 7880630 266780746 3% 8719680468 6028035896 2252175108 73% - /media/sophie/3adfe0cd-3f16-425b-9e7b-e51996deef8d
/dev/sda2 fuseblk 1029745012 1290353 1028454659 1% 2929821692 1901387400 1028434292 65% - /media/sophie/4770FD752B052ED1

[Здравко]

Hi @sarnaud,

From that what you post can be only concluded that the pointed partition (sda1) is formatted in a way matching Dropbox requirements (filesystem ext4), but nothing more. If you have some problems executing my command above or parsing the result, post the result as is (together with the command as appear in terminal, even resulting in error), preferably in a code block (button marked as </> ).

[sarnaud]

Thanks  Здравко,

I tried again, might have foprgotten thelats line last time, will it help any more like this?

sophie@AbyssTOUR:~$ db_path=`jq -r '.personal.path' ~/.dropbox/info.json`; df --output $db_path; grep `df --output=target $db_path | tail -n 1` /etc/fstab; if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then echo "The '$db_path' isn't available at boot up time!"; fi

La commande « jq » n'a pas été trouvée, mais peut être installée avec :

sudo snap install jq  # version 1.5+dfsg-1, or
sudo apt  install jq

Voir « snap info jq » pour des versions additionelles.

Sys. de fichiers Type         Inœuds  IUtil.     ILibre IUti% blocs de 1K    Utilisé      Dispo Uti% Fichier Monté sur
udev             devtmpfs   16487074     690   16486384    1%    65948296          0   65948296   0% -       /dev
tmpfs            tmpfs      16493058    1452   16491606    1%    13194448       3304   13191144   1% -       /run
/dev/sdb1        ext4       31260672  804718   30455954    3%   491207576   78016364  388169516  17% -       /
tmpfs            tmpfs      16493058     238   16492820    1%    65972232     645592   65326640   1% -       /dev/shm
tmpfs            tmpfs      16493058       5   16493053    1%        5120          4       5116   1% -       /run/lock
tmpfs            tmpfs      16493058      18   16493040    1%    65972232          0   65972232   0% -       /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop1       squashfs      24339   24339          0  100%      261760     261760          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/36
/dev/loop2       squashfs        230     230          0  100%         384        384          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-characters/550
/dev/loop0       squashfs      10756   10756          0  100%       56320      56320          0 100% -       /snap/core18/1880
/dev/loop3       squashfs       1384    1384          0  100%        2560       2560          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-calculator/826
/dev/loop6       squashfs        230     230          0  100%         384        384          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-characters/570
/dev/loop5       squashfs        355     355          0  100%        1024       1024          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-logs/100
/dev/loop9       squashfs      27807   27807          0  100%      166784     166784          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/145
/dev/loop7       squashfs      18513   18513          0  100%      223232     223232          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/60
/dev/loop8       squashfs      10775   10775          0  100%       56704      56704          0 100% -       /snap/core18/1885
/dev/loop11      squashfs      27463   27463          0  100%      240512     240512          0 100% -       /snap/atom/263
/dev/loop10      squashfs      26975   26975          0  100%      239104     239104          0 100% -       /snap/atom/260
/dev/loop12      squashfs        784     784          0  100%        2304       2304          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-system-monitor/145
/dev/loop13      squashfs      62342   62342          0  100%       63616      63616          0 100% -       /snap/gtk-common-themes/1506
/dev/loop14      squashfs      47984   47984          0  100%       56192      56192          0 100% -       /snap/gtk-common-themes/1502
/dev/loop15      squashfs      27798   27798          0  100%      165376     165376          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/128
/dev/loop16      squashfs       4103    4103          0  100%      364032     364032          0 100% -       /snap/pycharm-community/214
/dev/loop17      squashfs        353     353          0  100%        1024       1024          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-logs/93
/dev/loop18      squashfs       4103    4103          0  100%      363136     363136          0 100% -       /snap/pycharm-community/211
/dev/loop19      squashfs      12815   12815          0  100%      100096     100096          0 100% -       /snap/core/10126
/dev/loop20      squashfs        784     784          0  100%        2304       2304          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-system-monitor/148
/dev/loop21      squashfs       1351    1351          0  100%        2560       2560          0 100% -       /snap/gnome-calculator/748
tmpfs            tmpfs      16493058      25   16493033    1%    13194444         16   13194428   1% -       /run/user/121
tmpfs            tmpfs      16493058      41   16493017    1%    13194444         56   13194388   1% -       /run/user/1000
/dev/sda1        ext4      274661376 7880348  266781028    3%  8719680468 6028012728 2252198276  73% -       /media/sophie/3adfe0cd-3f16-425b-9e7b-e51996deef8d
/dev/sda2        fuseblk  1029745012 1290353 1028454659    1%  2929821692 1901387400 1028434292  65% -       /media/sophie/4770FD752B052ED1
/dev/loop22      squashfs      12826   12826          0  100%      100096     100096          0 100% -       /snap/core/10185
The '' isn't available at boot up time!

[Здравко]

Hi @sarnaud,

You have received error message that JSON parser isn't installed and that's why can't run! On the terminal output is advice (even two) how you can solve this. 🙂 Seems you haven't noticed it. Anyway... Just install it, using following:

sudo apt-get install jq

... or using any other way convenient for you, and retry again. 😉