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Re: Dropbox wonky after 88.4.172 upgrade

Dropbox is stuck syncing after an update, what can I do?

Shawn B.14
Helpful | Level 6

I have the "Dropbox Plus" subscription and I run the client on 4 computers.

 

Yesterday (Monday, 13-Jan-2020) I signed onto my desktop (which is always on) and has a full local sync of my dropbox that a number of new files added Saturday had big red Xs on them -- JPEGs I had scanned Saturday and which were in sync to my laptop on Sunday morning.

I checked my other workstation (also always on) and Dropbox wasn't even running.  I launched it, and it pretty immediately ran a "one time update".   Once this completed, it appeared to go into a full-on sync mode, indexing thousands of files and downloading thousands more (my total dropbox footprint is ~17k files, 600 GB of data).  This has been running for 24 hours without making any apparent progress, despite the drive being materially in sync with my first workstation (using BeyondCompare to check).  Plus not enough system activity to indicate any actual indexing or download was taking place.

I paused workstation 2, uninstalled dropbox on workstation 1 and reinstalled it.  Just prior to this, workstation 1 was "stuck" uploading 2 files and downloading 7 files, which it had been on since last night.

Workstation 1 now shows "indexing" for around 8k files and "downloading" for 9k files.  Trouble is, Resource Monitor doesn't show disk activity or network activity for that kind of activity.

What's going on?  I was perfectly in sync as of Saturday morning and over the last 24 hours it's gotten bad.

Oddly, my laptop ("laptop 1") is apparently fine, showing more or less normal sync status as far as I can tell (and is on build 88.4.172).

165 Replies 165

Daphne
Dropbox Staff

Hello again everyone!

Thanks for joining us here @user2891. To see those "fix" options, you'll need to keep the space bar key pressed while in the "Account" tab of the app preferences.

If this doesn't do the trick, can you check the steps I mentioned here to see if you have any symlinks within your Dropbox folder?

At the moment, this is a change that's being rolled out to everyone @Matt F.16, so it may be that some of you haven't received this change yet while others have. I just want to make sure that we go over all the important troubleshooting so we don't miss anything.

Windows currently supports the use of symbolic links on 10, 8, 7 and Vista which is why I asked if everyone could check this.

I didn't want to rule out reinstalling another version of the app @DarseZ if you wanted to try it. I just wanted to add to it since some of you were wondering if and how this is possible. 

So we can look into this with the device info, I've reached out to the email linked with your profile @Matt F.16. Please check your inbox when you have the chance and we can go from there.

@gformenti, I was able to locate your communication with my colleague via email. I've passed along your comments here to keep them in the loop. 

They might be able to assist you with the sync speeds since they can have a look into the device specifics with you. If you'd like to, I'd suggest replying back to their last email to let them know.

As always, I'm just a post away!


Daphne
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support


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Matt F.16
Collaborator | Level 9

Thanks @Daphne ! I responded to the email.

The frustrating part here is that fundamentally you have a group of people who have made no changes on their side, and the update has broken their sync, but Dropbox has not acknowledged that they have a problem. Symlinks or no symlinks, Dropbox' official stance is that Symlinks CAN BE THERE (they will just be copied as files). 

Shawn B.14
Helpful | Level 6

I'm really frustrated and disappointed. 

I worked patiently with Daphne via email to troubleshoot and she passed my information on to a second level tech support person.  I finally got an email for them and his response was basically "I can't help you, you're using Server 2012r2 and we don't support it."

I've been a paying customer for several years, and I have run Dropbox successfully for that entire time running Dropbox on Windows 2012r2 (my primary workstation desktop computer) the entire time.  Win2012r2 is just Windows 8.1 with the server tools, and 8.1 is supported.  I'm not doing anything exotic, it only runs under one user account as if it was any desktop.

This software worked well for me for years, Dropbox updated it and now it doesn't work for me (or others) and no explanation or effort is being put in to find what are obvous bugs in the software that hamper sync for some people.  And now I'm being told "sorry, we don't support you anymore".

 

user2891
Helpful | Level 6

From what I've read in this thread, it seems the Dropbox update has caused widespread syncing problems.

My guess is that Dropbox does not have adequate server capacity to handle all of the re-syncing that is being requested, and that explains the low download rates users are experiencing.

Unfortunately, it's unlikely Dropbox will acknowledge this, because it would imply they need to offer some form of compensation to users for not providing the service level paid for.

So instead, Dropbox appears to be running a disinformation campaign portraying the issue as caused by users, such as the symlink problem that keeps coming up in support messages.

Ironically, Dropbox's advice that users keep trying to re-sync simply maintains the overload of server requests, perpetuating the problem.

But Dropbox makes millions from many users, so the delay is not much to them. However, individual users who cannot access files are losing productivity and reputation in their own work, which matters a lot. Dropbox needs to understand that.

marianemes
Helpful | Level 6
@user2891 Exactly. I'm looking for other providers

Shawn B.14
Helpful | Level 6

@user2891 wrote:

From what I've read in this thread, it seems the Dropbox update has caused widespread syncing problems.

My guess is that Dropbox does not have adequate server capacity to handle all of the re-syncing that is being requested, and that explains the low download rates users are experiencing.

 


I'm torn between two theories, one of which touches on yours:

1) The explicit drop in symlink support is tied to some new, very low level file syncing/reading change which is attempting to use undocumented APIs or very low level file system access, and this code is problematic on a lot of systems.

2) The problem is *not* related to the desktop specifically, but to some backend sync database changes (which may or may not have been primary drivers of the symlink change).  Systems with problems have some glitch with their sync status on the Dropbox side.  This causes the desktop client to have some kind of meta-sync issue, with the desktop client unable to reconcile data from Dropbox against the local file store.

The only way to test either of this as far as I can tell is to remove dropbox from a system having a problem and totally de-link this system from the dropbox account and then attempt to re-sync it as a "new" install.   It may also be necessary on the system being "re-linked" to target a new local Dropbox folder on an entirely different local storage device, so as to avoid any specific issues tied to the original local file system.

Trouble is, with hundreds of gigabytes of data, such a solution creates syncing chaos, workflow problems and potentially days of waiting to see if it even helps.

s4ndman
Helpful | Level 7

@user2891 perfect guess! I totally agree.

@marianemes how is your search? 

DarseZ
Collaborator | Level 9

@s4ndman I'm running Backup & Sync & paid for space, unfortunately it's more seemingly endless updating.  But will see how it goes once it's settled down.  I'll move over and close my DB paid account if it works.

 

s4ndman
Helpful | Level 7

@DarseZI'll look this cloud provider.

Curiosity: any thoughts about Onedrive?

DarseZ
Collaborator | Level 9

Hi @s4ndman I haven't really tried Onedrive, although of course it's a possibility .  I'm tied into the google biz suite so it seemed like a good way to go.  As long as it's simple and doesn't distract...and when there is a problem they say it...then I'm happy.

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