Syncing is stuck on my Windows 10 computer. Can you help?

[Carl_in_MI]

I am running dropbox in Win10. I started having issues the last couple days with syncing. The icon would show syncing but the sync was not resolving.

I needed to make some space anyway so I moved about 2 GB of files to trash on the web interface and also deleted them from my local Win10 drive (in retrospect I should have maybe done only one or the other).

I figured I needed to reinitialize my Win10 machine since everything was on the cloud. So I

1) made a copy of my local Dropbox folder

2) Broke the link from my web interface

3) Uninstalled Dropbox

4) Deleted the AppData/Local/Dropbox folder after making a backup copy of that

5) Downloaded new version of Dropbox and installed, trying to skip backup of documents, desktop (and more).

6) Dropbox has been running now for hours and no online files are displaying and the one file that I transferred to my local folder is also not uploading. Dropbox reports 'Syncing' but there is almost no Dropbox network activity in the windows task manager (0.1 Mbps every minute or so).

7) When I try to access settings to check my settings to make sure it is not trying to sync my documents, desktop, etc., I can't access those settings. I don't see the 'import' tab mentioned elsewhere in the forums. I have a 'backup' button, and the dialog reports 'This PC: Automatically back up your Desktop, Documents, and more' but there is no checkbox to turn it off. But I don't see changes online or where to find if it trying to backup these items. But it has been running a long time and I don't see any progress.

I appreciate suggestions to reinitialize my local computer! I am baffled that the reinstall did not fix it and breaking and restoring the link. I have been nervous to make changes on my other two devices.

Additonal info: after looking at https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/files-update-issues, I find nothing in my Symantec quarantine. My hard drive has about 250GB free. The subfolders under .dropbox.cache are empty.

I am on a managed computer, so I am unable to turn off the firewall, but Dropbox is enabled through the firewall when I look at the entries.

I turned off my Symantec Endpoint protection, but that did not help.

When I sign out and relink, selecting Advanced, and then Selective sync. Dropbox cannot get a list of folders and after a short delay reports 'Unable to connect'.

[Carl_in_MI]

https://www.nartac.com/Products/IISCrypto/

[jtl71]

Thanks - it seems to have worked. I'm a little cautious of celebrating too hard too early, as I've had these sync issues a few times now, and every time the solution seems to become a little more difficult!

[jtl71]

Aaaaand... surprise surprise, three weeks later here we are again, with Dropbox endlessly trying to sync a temporarily created system file that no longer exists. Might be time to move to another service.

[jtl71]

Even the Dropbox uninstall is stuck now.

[Walter]

Hey there @jtl71; are you still having issues with this?