uploading files "Something went wrong"

[George J.1]

"upload error" "something went wrong while uploading this file"

I keep getting above messages while uploading photo files from the sd card on my android (samsung s7 with oreo). I have the phone attached to my computer via usb. Previously I had started a wireless upload from my phone but it was going too slowly so I went in cancelled all the uploads then connected my phone to the computer. I then started the upload process from within Dropbox online. A couple of files were uploaded and then I received the messages above. I have unconnected my phone and reconnected several times. I also checked to make sure I have the space on Dropbox and I much more than I need as I have only used 236GB of 1TB. The total of all files I am attempting to upload is only 8GB. Can someone offer any suggestions?

[Pikamander2]

Hi George, have you tried the Dropbox desktop application for Windows or Mac yet? Does it produce a similar issue?

Can you also please try uploading them one at a time to see if it changes anything?

[George J.1]

I did try uploading them one at a time I was continuing to get the same error message so I finally just took the SD card out of my phone which by the way is a 256 GB Samsung SD card and put it directly into the computer and I was able to upload my files that way but everytime I try to do it with the card in the phone I would get the error message that I indicated in my previous message thank you.

[George J.1]

Oh and I forgot to say yes I was actually using the Dropbox desktop application to do the upload. Funny thing when I was doing the upload via Wireless directly from the phone the upload was working however due to the amount of time it was taking I had to stop the upload from the phone using wireless and restart from the computer.

[Jay]

Hi George, since this issue was only occurring when the SD card was inside your phone, it seems to be related to the connection between the card and the phone, or the phone and your computer.

Once the card was plugged directly into the desktop machine, there were no issues and both the card and Dropbox worked as expected, since the phone wasn’t used as a middleman.

Perhaps check if a using different cable or USB port helps out?

[George J.1]

Just spit balling here but I thought it might have something to do with the fact I stopped wifi upload from the phone. Is it possible some switch had been set in Dropbox or phone that recognized file names preventing upload when phone attached to computer?

[Jay · Accepted solution]

No, that shouldn’t have been the cause. 

Automatic camera uploads on the mobile use WiFi or cellular only. Disabling the WiFi would have only enabled the files to be uploaded using cellular data, unless that option was disabled.

When connecting to the computer using a cable, this is the desktop app now using automatic camera uploads, and it completely separate from the mobile app. It doesn’t mind if the phone has (or had) WiFi or cellular data enabled, since the desktop app only uses the normal internet connection available on the computer.

However, to get the files into the Dropbox folder (which is then uploaded to the site as normal), the transfer via the cable is needed, so this is where I believe the issue lies.

[George J.1 · Accepted solution]

I just thought maybe as long as SD card in phone and there had been an attempt to transfer files via wifi that those files might have been locked by the phone. But, by removing the SD card from phone the lock would not been applicable. Similar to what the Goodsync application does when backing up files from my internal HD or external USB connected HD. Again just spit balling trying to understand. Probably need to ask Samsung engineers.
Anyway, thanks greatly for responding to my question.
Regards,
George

[Jay]

No worries, let me know if you have any updates on this in future!