I need to disable syncing in order to save changes in Photoshop.

[Mattias3]

There seems to be a change in the behavour in file sync. Now Dropbox interupt the saving process of an application (Planimate from InterDynamics). When the software saves it's file, I understand it does this to a temp file with ending .$$$. When the save process is done, and the file is verified, it replaces the orginal file with the new one and change the file ending the the appropriate. This has worked fine with Dropbox for many years. But lately Dropbox interrupt this and "lock" the temp file, making the software fail to save its files. Not very nice. I have to turn off Dropbox every time I do development nowadays. Please revert to a sync method less intrusive. 

[dowdpro]

@Lusil

im sorry but that is an abysmal answer and you have obviously not read the thread,

I am getting the same problems with after effects and cinema 4d- I used to be able to save a project anytime I wanted, 

but now I cant save a file, make a change and then save again- I have to pause the sync to do it. when you're working on large files- this becomes pointless to have dropbox, and just might aswell use the free wetransfer to send myself the file at the end of the day.

what has happened to dropox?

[studiotan]

Sorry @Lusil Lusil but I can't save and exit every other minute just because drobox stopped working like it used to for years.

I struck a cmd+S every time I make a step forward in my work (mixing audio) wich can be every 30 seconds or every minute. Your proposed solution is not a solution at all.

Almost every time I save the Protools session I get a message like this

Could not save "" because The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. (32) d:\Dropbox\XXXXXX\YYYYYY\bsbyQTVQyvbpZSBB\.

I have to hit ok and cmd+s again to have the session saved.

Then in the session folder most of the times I'll find an ampty folder named bsbyQTVQyvbpZSBB

[lllama]

I don't know why, but my post was deleted, I believe by accident.

My questions:

- is partial sync feature still part of a Dropbox offering? (it may be for example .psd file format specification change)

- is file locking expected Dropbox behavior?

- is removing file from drive during sync and restoring it once the sync is finished expected Dropbox behavior?

Thanks!

[Daphne]

Hey @lllama, most likely it got caught up in our spam filter by mistake, apologies for that!

I'm curious what you might be referring to in terms of partial sync, would you mind clarifying that for me a little? Are you referring to only the changes of the file being synced rather than the whole file perhaps?

If that case, this is still how files are synced, where only the edited parts of the files are synced.

For your second question, I can suggest having a look at a previous post of mine here and that thread in general. It seems to be that this issue occurs only when editing within certain apps like Photoshop due to the way the files are saving.

When editing in these apps, you can pause the syncing of the app while the file is open within the app and then resume once you're finished editing.

For your last question, many apps create temp files when editing. Usually this is to help with freeing up memory for other processes on the device. 

If an app creates a temp file during editing, once the file is saved and closed, the app would remove this temporary file and then save these changes to the actual file.

Rather than it being Dropbox, it should be the app you're using that's replacing the file with a temp file, and then deleting the temp file and saving the changes back to the original file once you've finished working on it.

I hope this info helps, let me know if you have any further questions on this!

[John M.233]

Daphne, you're missing the point: this behaviour was not occurring earlier. Something was changed around 6 months ago and now it's broken. I know it's your job to shield the engineering team from all the public noise but this is a real bug with real consequences. Namely, the loss of customers like me. We just want someone to fix it, not create excuses for it.

[Daphne]

Hey there @John M.233!

If you have the chance, please take a look at my post here (the one I linked above) which has some more info on this which should address this for you.

Cheers!

[dowdpro]

All I am seeing in that link is that you found it hard to change your sync engine- and when you eventually did it, you changed a core functionality of editing files inbetween saving by locking the file until it has uploaded- making it unusable for a 3d artist like myself-

[John M.233]

After reading that thread, the blog post, and Joels blog post, there are only three possible scenarios.

1. It's a bug but nobody knows how to fix it.

2. It's a bug and everybody is stalling while trying to get it fixed (going on eight months now).

3. It's not a bug at all but a limitation of how the new sync engine works.

All three scenarios have the same outcome: leaving Dropbox for a competitor that doesn't have this problem. Reliability was the only thing keeping me on a paid plan. Now that it's gone, I have no reason to stay. Maybe one day it will be fixed but that's clearly not today.

[Mattias3]

Eventually you will take this more seriously. I have now left you, after being a paying customer for many years, due to this issue alone. It was a show stopper for me. (This is not only an issue with large files, but also if temporary files are used with fast changes). Dropbox is intruding in local activity on the hard drive.

[paf22]

Same issue with CATIA V5R26 CAD software here. Very annoying!

(July 2020 , dropbox Windows Desktop Client v102.4.431, Windows 10 build 2004)