Apple Silicon beta installation disaster; new Dropbox folder location; Finder smartsync icons

[jlaguna]

So I had been running a beta for Apple Silicon that I'd installed myself from the beta site and it was working just fine but I also then opted in for early releases. Consequently, I was informed within the app of the availability of a new beta, and I opted for the upgrade. The result was a disaster. I won't go into a lot of detail but among a number of issues was that the new version moved my Dropbox directory from ~/Documents to ~/Library/CloudStorage with absolutely no notice and no choice to override it and this apparently caused the sync to hang completely, stuck at 1254 files unsync'd. I finally fixed it by removing all traces of Dropbox (via App Cleaner and Uninstaller), renaming the old Dropbox dir to Dropbox.OLD (I can't seem to delete it, though I reckon I'll be able to with the right admin voodoo) and reinstalling the latest beta manually and downloading all my files anew — FTR, once again Dropbox insisted on using ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox without giving me an option. No big deal, I symlink to various Dropbox folders so it doesn't matter where the actual directory is, but still, wow — why the change and why is it forced on users with no warning?

Anyhoo, Dropbox seems to be pretty happy now, but there is only one Dropbox smart sync icon in the Finder — a cloud outline with a down arrow, which appears to mean that the file/folder is being stored in the cloud only, not locally.  (EDIT: I just noticed the down arrow disappears as the file is downloading.) And, unfortunately, the nice green checkmark that used to indicate locally stored files appears to be gone; if you click on the cloud icon to store a file locally, it just disappears once the file is downloaded. I miss the green checkmarks!

A further issue is that clicking on that icon when it is next to a directory to get its contents to be stored locally yields mixed results. In THIS SCREENSHOT you can see the contents of two subdirectories of a local MathJax installation. I clicked on the cloud icon for the MathJax folder but not all subdirectories were downloaded locally — as you can see in the screenshot, the PNG files in folder 168 were downloaded but those in 141 were not. I subsequently clicked on the icon for 141 and the files therein were then downloaded and the icon disappeared, along with the icons for the files within it.

I guess this is more of a report than a complaint or request for assistance here, since sync is more-or-less working in the sense that Dropbox finishes syncing and stuff in the cloud is available (even if not stored locally when that is intended), but it seems that it's not behaving as expected — and I guess that is expected in a beta. I would like the nice green checkmark icon back! Anyone know if there are plans to resurrect it in future betas?

[Walter]

Hey @jlaguna, thanks for letting us know about this.

Would it be OK if I send you an email to have a further look internally?

Let me know and I'll use the email address that's linked to your profile here, on our Community.

Thanks!

[jlaguna]

@Walter, sure, an email would be welcome.

[beenakker]

I had a very similar experience today, but on an older non-silicon Mac. After the beta installation and the move to ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox the syncing became unreliable (the sync would hang, some files would not sync at all, lots of "conflicted" versions, also files which would not show up in the Finder, although they were actually there). Syncing has always been totally reliable, so I attributed the problems to the beta upgrade. I chose to reinstall the previous Dropbox version, which failed with a "permissions" problem. I then deleted the ~/.dropbox directory (which stores preferences) to start a clean install. This worked well, within an hour or so the ~/Dropbox directory was restored from the cloud. (Finder icons are also OK.) I could remove the contents of the obsolete  ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox directory, but the directory itself can only be removed with superuser privileges.

So I am back to a functioning Dropbox, wasted half an afternoon, and will try to avoid beta upgrades.

[jlaguna]

@beenakker Yeah, that sounds a lot like my experience. Weirder still, on the little M1 Mac Air I have in my office, I had originally installed the Intel version of Dropbox and it has subsequently been updated to an Apple Silicon version and seems to be working flawlessly. And on that machine I have the option to change the location of the Dropbox folder. But I still can't do so on my MacBook Pro (with an M1 Pro chip). Sorely tempted to trash the whole installation and start over from scratch with the Intel version (which was actually working fine, heavy RAM usage notwithstanding) and let it upgrade when the production version comes out. I've stuck with Dropbox because it has offered hassle-free, bulletproof syncing for years, but this episode has completely shaken my faith in the product.

[Walter]

Thanks for the cooperation @jlaguna - I've just sent you an email to investigate further, so please take a look at your inbox and we'll take it from there.

Also, thanks for your contribution to the topic here @beenakker - I'm glad to hear that downgrading back to the stable version of our desktop app helped with the issues you were having. 

[jlaguna]

@Walter When I came into my office this morning Dropbox was hung on my Mac Air and I had to force quit. I had been upgraded at some point an an Apple Silicon version but when I restarted Dropbox, lo and behold I was downgraded to the latest stable Intel build. Can you explain this? Thanks.

[Walter]

Thanks for the nudge @jlaguna 

I can't be sure how this might have happened, but I'll be happy to help look into this further via email.

While at it, I just replied back to your ticket so please have a look at your inbox for my message.