Desktop app notification: Move dropbox location dropbox stops synchronizing in November

[TonyMcConnell]

Doubtful. Dropbox are behaving in a really peculiar way at the moment.

[Palanthis]

I run an MSP. I have already canceled my personal and business accounts. I will also be steering 32 contract clients away from Dropbox, as well as any future customers or contract clients. I will however keep my eyes open for Dropbox's old servers on eBay in the coming months. 😉 

[gregkwaste]

I'm trying to find info related to my case but I can't find anything so I thought of asking here directly.

I'm dual booting windows and linux and because windows file system support is a pain in the ass, I have placed my dropbox folder on the NTFS windows drive. Now for linux, I've symlinked the NTFS folder on my ext4 home drive, and dropbox works like a charm.

However I'm completely confused with the announcement which clearly states that for windows ONLY NTFS is supported and for linux ONLY ext4 is supported. Does this mean that the linux dropbox client won't recognize the NTFS filesystem? Should I retain two copies of dropbox in both systems, or am I good with my current setup?

Thanks in advance

[TessaN]

This feels like a management decisions rather than a technical one, given dropbox could easily check for xattr support and just warn you if you're using some weird fs which doesn't have it.

Personally, I'm not using anything other than ZFS on real hardware and XFS in VMs, and that's been the case for a long time now. I'll just stop using Dropbox rather than try to deal with this ridiculous requirement. Data integrity and performance is far more important to me than having Dropbox on my systems, especially when Google Drive doesn't have this restriction.

[Jane]

I moved your post under the relevant thread, which is closely monitored at the moment @gregkwaste. I can confirm that the supported file systems are NTFS for Windows, HFS+ or APFS for Mac, and Ext4 for Linux. Please note that the application will only be able to sync the Dropbox folder to a drive that matches up with the operating system per the requirements. I hope this answers your question! 

[Здравко]

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@Jane wrote:

... I hope this answers your question! 

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Actually NO! True question is WHY??? There is no actual technical (and not only) reason. The reason provided (xattr) is actually false! Using modern technologies - also!

So, what is the actual reason? Please, give us consistent answer.

[Dan M.36]

The actual answer is they're in financial trouble, check their stock for the last year. Somehow this move is seen as "saving money" instead of hemmoraging users and revenue.

[Здравко]

Hi @Dan M.36,

I don't usually relay on speculations, but if You follow the trend - lowering start rougly around the moment when Dropbox introduce ther decision for in fact reducing the functionality - late summer. Before that the price was relatively stable. So, may be truth is in opposite direction - decision is the reason for the price trend. Of course this is only speculation.

[ewfwef]

I had a consistent experience concerning syncing, but now I am not able to have a single  exFAT formatted external drive for Windows and Mac, and having a syncing dropbox in the drive.

I need that drive for common use of Win AND Mac, so I have to give up dropbox instead.

[gregkwaste]

So what you're saying is that I won't be able to sync in one place. Its definitely not right if you ask me but we have to accept that decision. What I can't understand is the limitation one system per OS on already supported systems. Since NTFS is supported, why on earth should I not be able to sync on NTFS from linux???