cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Announcements
Want to learn some quick and useful tips to make your day easier? Check out how Calvin uses Replay to get feedback from other teams at Dropbox here.

Apps and Installations

Have a question about a Dropbox app or installation? Reach out to the Dropbox Community and get solutions, help, and advice from members.

cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Re: Dropbox Finder Extension on Mac Resource Consumption

Dropbox Finder Extension on Mac Resource Consumption

dropitoverthere
Explorer | Level 4

Since upgrading to Big Sur, I have started noticing Dropbox Finder Extension occasionally spawning multiple instances and consuming tons of resources.  This ends up causing my mac to become unresponsive.  It seems like this is a bug, and I would love to know the best path to submit a bug report.

28 Replies 28

chefrogi
New member | Level 2

I have the same issue with Google Drive's "backup & sync" and OneNote Finder Integration. 

 

It's not clear to me that these are the process causing me issues. The issue I'm trying to solve is my Mac gets really laggy when trying to change volume/brightness. The increase/decrease animations for both lag far behind the button clicks.

 

chefrogi_0-1629207558893.png

chefrogi_1-1629207582193.png

 

Wvp
Helpful | Level 6
I think every finder window or (open/save) window spawns a new Finder extension instance. Maybe these are not always cleaned up automatically?

ncole
Helpful | Level 5

Same here... and it's consistent. Even when I deactivate / pause DropBox.  My thoughts, and it may be farfetched, but could the issue possibly be that Dropbox, as well as similar online storage apps, continually peruses our computers?  I also, continually receive random messages, asking if I want to save a file to Dropbox... And they are files that Dropbox should have no access to. 

Any ideas?

pk_dragon
Helpful | Level 5

Dropbox Finder Extension spawning multiple processes in Activity Monitor is a normal and expected behavior of Finder Sync Extensions in macOS.

 

Nothing to do with Dropbox, really. All Finder Sync Extensions (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Creative Cloud, etc.) will all run multiple copies of the process as directed by Finder and macOS. The app itself can't stop that behavior.

 

Apple documentation:

 

Performance Concerns

 

Finder Sync extensions may have a much longer lifespan than most other extensions. Because of this long lifespan, you must take particular care to avoid any possible performance issues. Ideally, Finder Sync extensions should spend most of their time running but idle. Limit the number of resources the extension consumes. Most important, be sure to avoid leaking any resources. Over time, even a small trickle can grow into a serious problem.

 

The system may also launch additional copies of your extension whenever an Open or Save dialog is displayed. This means that the user may have multiple copies of your extension running at once, and some may be very short lived. Therefore, it’s generally best if the extension focuses on handling the badges, contextual menus, and toolbar buttons. Place in a separate service (a Login Item or Launch Agent) any code that performs the sync, updates state, or communicates with remote data sources. This approach ensures that there is only one syncing service running at a time.

 

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/Finder....



Each Dropbox Finder Extension process should be using minimal resources, and if they are not, that is a performance concern.

 

But multiple Finder Sync Extension processes, using minimal resources, are normal and something that you will see in every single Finder Sync Extension on your Mac.

Wvp
Helpful | Level 6
The Dropbox Finder Extension does use many resources 40-50 MB per instance.

pk_dragon
Helpful | Level 5

The Dropbox Finder Extension process can be disabled entirely by unchecking the extension in System Preferences > Extensions > Finder Extensions.

 

This will stop the duplicate/multiple Dropbox Finder Extension processes, but of course will also disable the Finder icon sync badges, etc.

 

DFE eating too many resources may be a problem; not sure what they are doing or if they have some kind of performance issue. That should be explored independently of the "multiple processes" behavior.

 

Just to reiterate, multiple processes in and of itself isn't a problem. Dropbox can do nothing to prevent those from spawning. That's how macOS extensions are designed to work for security and other reasons.

kbuicker
Helpful | Level 5

I have this same issue. date 2021-10-08 at 9.52.55 AM.jpg

kbuicker
Helpful | Level 5

You sound like me 🙂 . Nicely written. Sometimes, you have to bust some b*lls to get noticed and get something done.

marksc111
Helpful | Level 6

I posted a long response to this post months ago, basically destroying this argument that it's expected behaviour. (I am an AppKit developer myself, so I speak with some authority). It seems that moderators deleted my post! That speaks volumes. 

Need more support?