Couldn't Start Dropbox - Permissions Issue

[DAVID M.1]

First off, I sent a support request for this issue on 1st April, to which "Wilson" said I'd get a response ASAP. It's been a week and no response, so I'm posting on here.

I just got a new MacBook Pro (High Sierra) and have successfully setup my work Dropbox account on one user. All working fine. Then I created another admin user, and tried to boot Dropbox so I could log into my personal Dropbox. On all my other Mac devices, I’ve had multiple Dropbox accounts running on different users. Always worked seamlessly.

When I tried to boot Dropbox from the personal user, it comes up with a “Couldn’t Start Dropbox” error (please see the error below).

I have followed the various forum responses (changing the permissions in the home directory etc), with no luck. I tried to reinstall Dropbox on the personal user, and it worked fine! Then when I logged out and back into my work user, the work user was giving that very same error. It seems as though Dropbox will only work on one user, which is frustrating, as this was never a problem before.

Please can you advise - I am absolutely tearing my hair out trying to fix this.

David

[Lusil]

Sorry to hear that, David.

Initially, thanks for trying out different troubleshooting steps, awesome work! I understand that you’ve been dealing with this for some time, however, in order to investigate accordingly beyond this point, we’d have to continue via email due to account-specific info that’ll be required. 

I was able to locate your ongoing communication with a specialized member of my team and can see that they’ve replied to you. I’ve made sure to pass your comments along to them in the meantime, so if you have any further queries regarding this, please don’t hesitate to let them know - they’ll be able to have a better and more efficient look into this with our internal tools.

Thanks in advance for your patience and cooperation!

[KendalB]

I am having the exact same problem. I just performed a clean OSX Mojave install on a Mac, and added our family Apple accounts. When I install the Dropbox app via one Admin account, the other admin account gets this "Couldn't start Dropbox." message. Did you get any answers from Support?

[Lusil]

Hi @KendalB, thanks for posting you query on the Community.

Could you please provide a bit more info as to what the error you’re seeing is? Are you able to copy-paste it here or send me a screenshot of it using one of the options below:

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

[KendalB]

[Lusil]

Thanks for the screenshot, @KendalB. 

When you click on the hyperlink that’s shown on the error message, what do you see?

[KendalB]

bn.BUILD_KEY: Dropbox

bn.VERSION: 70.4.93

bn.DROPBOXEXT_VERSION: failed

bn.is_frozen: True

machine_id: ada659c0-38cf-5179-984a-565b41d0094a

pid: 5155

ppid: 1

uid: 501

user_info: pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='kendal', pw_passwd='********', pw_uid=501, pw_gid=20, pw_gecos='Kendal', pw_dir='/Users/kendal', pw_shell='/bin/bash')

effective_user_info: pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='kendal', pw_passwd='********', pw_uid=501, pw_gid=20, pw_gecos='Kendal', pw_dir='/Users/kendal', pw_shell='/bin/bash')

euid: 501

gid: 20

egid: 20

group_info: grp.struct_group(gr_name='staff', gr_passwd='*', gr_gid=20, gr_mem=['root'])

effective_group_info: grp.struct_group(gr_name='staff', gr_passwd='*', gr_gid=20, gr_mem=['root'])

DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH: None

cwd: '/'

     real_path='/'

            mode=0o40755 uid=0 gid=0

     parent mode=0o40755 uid=0 gid=0

HOME: '/Users/kendal'

appdata: '/Users/kendal/.dropbox/instance1'

         real_path='/Users/kendal/.dropbox/instance1'

                mode=0o40700 uid=501 gid=20

         parent mode=0o40755 uid=501 gid=20

dropbox_path: '/Users/kendal/Dropbox'

              real_path='/Users/kendal/Dropbox'

                    mode=0o40700 uid=501 gid=20

              parent mode=0o40755 uid=501 gid=20

sys_executable: '/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox'

                real_path='/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox'

                      mode=0o100755 uid=502 gid=20

                parent mode=0o40755 uid=502 gid=20

trace.__file__: '/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources/python-resources/python-packages-36.zip/dropbox/client/ui/common/boot_error.pyc'

                real_path='/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources/python-resources/python-packages-36.zip/dropbox/client/ui/common/boot_error.pyc'

                      not found

                parent not found

tempdir: '/var/folders/6y/2dvy1ygj4fd7s19ydfs3qxdc0000gn/T'

         real_path='/private/var/folders/6y/2dvy1ygj4fd7s19ydfs3qxdc0000gn/T'

                mode=0o40700 uid=501 gid=20

         parent mode=0o40755 uid=501 gid=20

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "objc/_lazyimport.pyc", line 39, in _loadBundle

ImportError: Bundle could not be loaded

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 7211, in main_startup

  File "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 3299, in run

  File "ui/common/uikit.pyc", line 958, in create_ui_kit

  File "ui/cocoa/uikit.pyc", line 45, in <module>

  File "Tungsten/__init__.pyc", line 30, in <module>

  File "objc/_lazyimport.pyc", line 84, in __init__

  File "objc/_lazyimport.pyc", line 46, in _loadBundle

ImportError: Bundle could not be loaded

[Lusil]

Thanks for raising this, @KendalB. 

I’ve sent you a ticket to the email address associated with your Community profile so as to further investigate, so please check your inbox for my latest message. 

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

[KendalB]

"Harry" from support emailed me and gave me instructions on how to delete and re-install the App. Unfortunately, he clearly did not try to understand the issue, as I've completely formatted the iMac and re-installed both the OS (Mojave) and Dropbox App (3 times!) to no avail. The problem just keeps showing up on whichever Mac Admin user does not initially install the App. Re-installing the App changes nothing, but moves the problem to the other user. At this point I cannot have multiple users on a single iMac using their own Dropbox accounts, so I will proceed to migrate out of Dropbox to a cloud storage option that actually works.

[Lusil]

Sorry to hear this didn’t work for you, @KendalB. 

Since our specialized agent has access to account information, something which is not available to us here as this is a public platform, I’d suggest continuing troubleshooting this with them via email. 

Please note that I’ve made them aware of your comments here, and they’ll get back to you with additional steps as soon as possible via email. Rest assured, they’re doing their best to assist you with this.