Dropbox headless install, Fedora 33, error: NUCLEUS PANICKING -- "Subtracting durations failed" at "

[peterwood]

Clean Fedora Server 33 install. Fully updated.

Installed https://www.dropbox.com/download?dl=packages/fedora/nautilus-dropbox-2020.03.04-1.fedora.x86_64.rpm with all dependancies.

Installed mesa-libglapi glibc libXext libXdamage libxshmfence libXxf86vm because it cries if these are not installed. I'd prefer these to be dependencies on the fedora rpm package but whatever.

Ran: 'dropbox start -i' to download the daemon.

Ran: 'dropbox start'

After linking the account dropbox seems to start working but I have big directories with a lot of files. As soon as I see the Dropbox directory created I start excluding directories:

dropbox exclude add dir1

dropbox exclude add dir2

...

It may accept the first command but after that the errors and crashes start:

[root@dbvm Dropbox]# dropbox exclude list
Couldn't get ignore set: Unknown Error
[root@dbvm Dropbox]#

[root@dbvm Dropbox]# dropbox exclude add Books
Couldn't get ignore set: Unknown Error
[root@dbvm Dropbox]#

And about ever 1-2 minutes the console gets filled with these messages:

NUCLEUS PANICKING -- "Subtracting durations failed" at "rust/dropbox/timer/src/monotonic_time.rs":85
dropbox: locating interpreter
dropbox: logging to /tmp/dropbox-antifreeze-5DOzAq
dropbox: initializing
dropbox: initializing python 3.7.9
dropbox: setting program path '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/dropbox'
dropbox: setting python path '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507:/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/python-packages.zip'
dropbox: python initialized
dropbox: running dropbox
dropbox: setting args
dropbox: enabling allocator metrics
dropbox: applying overrides
dropbox: running main script
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._constant_time.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._openssl.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._padding.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/psutil._psutil_linux.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/psutil._psutil_posix.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/apex._apex.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/tornado.speedups.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/wrapt._wrappers.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/PyQt5.QtWidgets.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/PyQt5.QtCore.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-113.4.507/PyQt5.QtGui.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'

It seems that this indicates restart of the dropbox process.

I did multiple reinstalls, I tried Ubuntu and CentOS-8 and CentOS-Stream-8, and everywhere the result is pretty much the same.

Any ideas?

Thank you,

-- Peter

[Здравко]

Hi @peterwood,

Would be more useful if you can represent steps representing the issue in a stable and repeatable way. I weren't able to reproduce your state.

---

@peterwood wrote:
...

Ran: 'dropbox start -i' to download the daemon.

Ran: 'dropbox start'

...

---

Running "dropbox start" with or without "-i" start the daemon (installed in advance - when using "-i" when the daemon is missing). Second launching should be avoided! Even though it shouldn't be a problem, seems Dropbox startup is unstable and has lot of complaints. Algorithm enforcing the work as a singleton application has lot of errors, unfortunately. Does your second try launch detect that the application already runs or not? 🧐 Just bugs! 🤷

I noticed something else. You are running (or trying at least) your application in root content. Running a buggy application (like Dropbox) in expanded permissions could be dangerous for the entire system! Better run such applications in regular user context. Create such if needed.

---

@peterwood wrote:

...

I did multiple reinstalls, I tried Ubuntu and CentOS-8 and CentOS-Stream-8, and everywhere the result is pretty much the same.

...

---

Can you clarify how exactly (step by step) you are getting to a result which is "pretty much the same"? 🤔

[peterwood · Accepted solution]

I was doing this on a VM with 2GB of RAM. I forgot how memory hungry is dropbox.

After giving 8GB to the VM, dropbox is happy and the error is gone.

Thank you,

-- Peter