Dropbox desktop app not syncing

[mloumioti]

Hi, I have troubles syncing the folders in my desktop app to dropbox website, and vice versa. To give an example, if I save a file in dropbox app, this does not show on my dropbox website. If I upload a file on dropbox website, this does not show on desktop app folder. I have tried almost all fixes suggested on the community: 1) pause restarted sync; 2) restarted my computer; 3) checked my hard drive and have 160GB free memory; 4) uninstalled and re-installed the app; 5) paused my antivirus programs; 6) press sync now to see whether it works; 7) no files with special character names; 😎 no errors showing up for sync; 9) clear the dropbox.exe cache. I did contact Dropbox support but were not very helpful. 

Any idea what maybe going on? I have this issue since June 2020, so I am puzzled whether it is fixable. 

Thanks in advance for your help/comments.

Maria

[Здравко]

Hi @mloumioti,

There is something missing in your troubleshooting steps performed. Did you make sure account your application is linked to is the same as the account you are logged in your web browser while you "upload a file on dropbox website"? Take a look on "Account" tab in "Dropbox Preferences". There is the account (email) associated to the application. After, take a look on your general settings and find out your account id (email) there. Are both email the same (I mean literally the same, not just same post box - even a single dot, ignored by some providers, could be the reason)? Other missing thing is current status of the application. Is it "Up to date" or not?

Let's hope the above give some directions.

[mloumioti]

I checked the account email in the app, it perfectly matches the one I use for the dropbox website. About the app status, I am not sure: i just see the arrow of sync. I just downloaded the app today again, so I should have the most recent version. Not sure if my responses help. Btw, in the dropbox preferences>sync, I try to see whether I can choose selective sync. When I click on this, folders do not load, which further suggests to me that the link between app and dropbox website is not working even if I use the right account.

[Здравко]

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@mloumioti wrote:

... About the app status, I am not sure: i just see the arrow of sync. ...

---

The icon shows that your application status is not "Up to date" yet. I mean sync status, not application version as seems you assume. Maybe you have to wait some more. Take a look here for what the icon could mean. By the way, did you mean beta version as "the most recent version"? I hope no, but you haven't mentioned the of actual version number in use by you now! If you have enabled beta versions turn "Early releases" to off here and after that reinstall your application (use the latest stable version). The Dropbox version number has 3 parts and the second is either "3" or "4". Here "3" means beta release and "4" means stable release. Check for this!

[mloumioti]

Thanks for your suggestions. I am using Dropbox v116.4.368, which is supposed to be the latest version. I do not think it is a matter of waiting, because updating one pdf doc should not take days. Plus, this is a problem that persists since June 24 2020. Following up on the Dropbox analysts' feedback and what I read in this community, I have uninstall all dropbox folders/app and reinstall again. It does not seem to be an installation issue, it is just that the server does not seem to connect to my app. Interestingly, the last file in dropbox was updated 3 days after I renewed my Dropbox Plus subscription successfully. There is no error message about sync or space limits, so I continue to be puzzled why the problem persists and what the problem actually is.  

[Daphne]

Hey @mloumioti!

Could you send a screenshot of the exact sync status that you see when you click the Dropbox icon in your menu bar/system tray?

Also, have you tried out these steps, here for Windows and here for Mac? This will help with any incorrect file permissions that could be causing the sync to be stuck.

[mloumioti]

[mloumioti]

Thanks Daphne! I followed the steps you suggest above and again the problem persists. I get a message that the permissions etc are correctly fixed but nothing changes. I cannot take a screenshot of the folder. but it says "sync..." and this is how it appears on my toolbar.

I have been going in circles: is there any senior analyst at Dropbox that can deal with this issue? perhaps there is a glitch in the server from your side. I am attaching the photos above.

[mloumioti]

here is a screenshot of what appears when I click on preferences>selective sync 

[mloumioti]

I would like to give an update: I unistalled dropbox, created another account, and when downloading again the dropbox installer, I link dropbox to this account. I saved one excel file (8KB) in the dropbox folder. Again, sync does not work. So it is not a problem with my account per se as I have the same issue with two different accounts. There seems to be a problem with the desktop app. 

Yesterday, I followed these steps sent by a Dropbox Analyst, again they did not work. Sync remains stuck:

1) Quit Dropbox:

• Click the Dropbox icon in the system tray at the bottom of your screen.
• Click on your profile picture or initials to the right of the search bar, and select "Quit Dropbox".

2) Uninstall Dropbox:

• Click on the Start button in the bottom left of your screen, and select Control Panel (7), or type Control Panel at the Start screen or start menu, and click on it (10, 8).
• Click "Uninstall a Program".
• Select Dropbox from the list of programs and click "Uninstall".

Or follow the steps outlined in our Help Center article:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/41

3) When the uninstall finishes, please restart your computer to ensure that the uninstall is complete.

4) After this, please proceed to delete remaining registry entries:

a) Click the Start button. Type REGEDIT in the search box and press Enter.
b) In the Registry Editor, navigate into the following locations until you find the keys for "Dropbox" and "DropboxUpdate", they will be in either or both of the following two locations:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
c) In both or either of these folders, please delete only the "Dropbox" and "DropboxUpdate" folders by right-clicking on the individual folders and selecting "Delete".

5) Then, please delete the Dropbox remaining folders:

a) Open a Windows File Explorer (not Internet Explorer).
b) Type %LOCALAPPDATA% into the address bar (include the % percent signs) and press enter.
c) Delete the folder "Dropbox" from the resulting window.
d) Please repeat these steps with the following folders as well (it's OK if you don't find a Dropbox folder in any of those locations):
%APPDATA%
%PROGRAMFILES%
%PROGRAMFILES(x86)%
e) Then restart your system.

Please note that deleting any of these folders will not delete the files in your Dropbox folder.

6) Download the newest version of Dropbox from the following website:

https://www.dropbox.com/downloading

7) Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the installation file and double click on it.

😎 During the initial setup and sign in process apply any Selective Sync settings you may have had prior to the reinstall and select the Dropbox folder location (if not in the default location).

IMPORTANT NOTE: Because this process removes the previous settings and configuration, if you wish to avoid re-downloading your Dropbox content you will need to manually choose the location for Dropbox to sync to, otherwise you will create a new Dropbox folder and start to download your content again.

To select your already established folder on your drive, after signing in and choosing which folders to sync, and before you click on "Open my Dropbox folder", you should see an "Advanced Settings" link, click on this.

Then you can choose the parent folder of the already established Dropbox folder, for example, if you have your Dropbox folder in the path "D:\OtherDrive\Folder\Dropbox (Team)" you'll want to select the folder "D:\OtherDrive\Folder".

At the end of this process, after clicking "Open my Dropbox folder", it might take some time to re-index the files and sync any pending changes.

Please note that any changes made to the files in the Dropbox folder, the web interface or other linked devices while the folder was "off-line", will generate conflicted copies:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/36

Finally, this process only works when linking to the exact same account that was previously linked to this computer. If you'd like to merge accounts, please refer to the following Help Center article:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/9104