Can't connect to Dropbox at all in Pop!_OS 20.04 LTS

[G_W_H]

Dropbox suddenly can't connect in Pop!_OS 20.04, I can't even login on the website (and strangely, sometimes it takes forever to load). I've already tried an advanced reinstallation, giving access to the specifics ports in the firewall,  and nothing worked.

But the thing is, I am running a dual-boot, and on Windows it works perfectly, loads the website just fine, I can login, the app runs smooth, everything. And even more weird is the fact that Dropbox was working just as perfectly on my Pop!_OS setup until days ago. One day it was working, and the next time I booted it up it was like I described in the beginnig. Very weird this sudden problem.

[Hannah]

Hey @G_W_H, thanks for reaching out!

Can you please check if you have the minimum requirements for running the Dropbox app on your Linux computer?

Keep me posted!

[G_W_H]

I don't use Ubuntu, but Pop!_OS is Ubuntu based, I guess it should work. For the rest of the requirements, I may be wrong, but I believe it all checks.

[G_W_H]

I know this problem probably doesn't have a exact solution, but still I would like to read some inputs that could be helpful, if not to solve the issue, to help understand it.

My guess is that it has something to do with the system, something that is blocking this connection, but I am not knowledgeable enough in Linux to figure out this type of stuff myself.

[Jay · Accepted solution]

Hi @G_W_H, currently, we can only officially support Ubuntu and Fedora installations of the Dropbox desktop application. Even though your OS is Ubuntu-based, we wouldn't be able to support it directly. 

In relation to your issue, there is a possibility that a proxy, VPN, security software, or even ISP/router issues could be restricting traffic to the following Dropbox domains.

Given that the Windows installation works fine, there must be something specific to the Linux installation which could be causing the issue.

[G_W_H]

Alright, got it! I will look into that. Thank you for your time and assistance @Jay and @Hannah 

[Jay]

No worries, @G_W_H, if you have any further queries in future, please let us know!

[metahead]

Hi, I know this is a very late addition but I was just installing Dropbox in Pop OS 21.04, having used it fine in 20.04 for a long time, and encountered a problem connecting to the download servers to fetch the daemon as well.

After trying the fetch manually I noticed it was connecting to the IPv6 address for the hostname, so I temporarily disabled IPv6 and the connection worked perfectly after that.

I would guess that your Windows installation already has IPv6 disabled, and that there must be something wrong with the routing or traffic filtering at Dropbox's (or a content provider in between) end... an easy fix anyway!

To temporarily (until next restart) disable IPv6 on Linux you can do this:

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6=1

You can Google for some permanent solutions if this works and you need to keep it going. (I haven't yet tested whether IPv6 is broken for syncing as well, or just for fetching the initial daemon)

Hope this helps!