High CPU usage even when not syncing or indexing

[Barry F.]

I had a BSOD Friday night, and I started Windows 7 Professional 32-bit Saturday night.  Since that time dropbox.exe has been using around 20% CPU.  There is nothing to sync, as I last put something on dropbox three weeks ago.  Process Explorer for the one (of three) dropbox.exe process that is using CPU says "Dropbox.exe+0x9230".  I am running dropbox 68.4.102 .

Why is this happening, and is there an diagnostic information I can gather while dropbox is in this state?  Thanks.

[Jane]

Hey Barry (@Barry F.), while we recommend having a look at the pointers outlined here as a quick initial check, from what I gather from your description it seems that you’ve missed our last update that was released just a few days ago (70.4.93) & that could’ve been the culprit. Having said that, I’d recommend unlinking & relinking your account to your desktop once, as it recreates the local database. If you’re still facing an issue I’d suggest giving our latest Offline installer a try after disabling your Antivirus/ Firewall. 

If that persists for you Barry, I’d appreciate it if you included a screenshot of any Dropbox-related processes you’re seeing in your Task Manager in your next reply here, so as to paint a clearer picture.

Please have a look at my recommendations at your earliest convenience & let me know how you get on with my advice or if I’ve misunderstood your question in any way. Thanks & enjoy the rest of your day until we talk again! 

[Barry F.]

Here is what I did:

21:11 Unlink my Win 7 computer.
          The I/O Read and I/O Write counts were steady, but the I/O Other bytes were increasing.

21:16 Then I looked for the way to re-link, and a "Setup Dropbox" pop-up window appeared.  I then logged-in to my account, and the syncing process began.   A new dopbox.exe process replaced the one that was using lots of CPU (I did not write down the PIDs).  So. unlinking caused the CPU loop to end, but it also lost all diagnostic evidence as to what was happening.

Now when I look at the Dropbox icon in the system tray (hidden icons), it says "Dropbox 70.4.92 up-to-date".  To my knowledge, I did not update Dropbox.  When I look at the Dropbox executable in Windows Explorer, I see a file with timestamp 4/3/2019 4:00PM, but a "mouse-over" that line in Explorer shows "File Version 70.4.93.0 created 4/5/2019 3:45PM".   How can a file have an internal creation date AFTER the date in the file directory?  Was the executable created on a system that had a clock set in the future?  And here are the timstamps on the directories in Program Files:

    04/05/2019 03:56 PM <DIR> Dropbox
         04/05/2019 03:50 PM <DIR> Client
         03/19/2019 02:27 PM <DIR> CrashReports
         04/05/2019 03:50 PM <DIR> OldBinaries
         04/08/2019 06:32 PM <DIR> Update

Only one subdirectory, Update, has today's timestamp, and that timestamp is abour three hours EARLIER than when I ran my unlink test.

In any case, I was not prepared to upgrade to the new Dropbox to fix this problem EXCEPT if there were a known bug in this area that was fixed in the new release.  Normally I, as a retired IT administrator, do not trust "install the new version, it MAY fix your problem".  One important reason is this - installing a new version will restart the application, and in doing so will lose all diagnostic information as to what was happening.  And one will never know if the new version or the application restart corrected the problem.

[Jane]

Thanks for keeping in touch & for all the time you’ve devoted to send me this detailed description Barry (@Barry F.); pleased to hear that this has been fixed for you now!

Now, as you’ve mentioned that you received the blue screen on Friday, it’s possible that the executable you found in your Windows Explorer was meant to update our application, though this wasn’t carried as it seems. While I understand that you’d like to narrow down the possible causes & diagnose how this is going to affect you moving forward, it appears that Dropbox  is working as expected at the moment. When it comes to the incorrect timestamps you’ve noticed Barry, it would be worth cross-checking with the system crash & see if there’s a correlation between the two events. 

Hopefully my post addresses your follow-up concerns & I’m always at your disposal if you have any additional questions!

[Barry F.]

The BSOD was a long-standing bug (I believe) in the ntfs.sys driver.  I, as a regular user of WIndows 7, have no way of reporting bugs to anyone in Microsoft who 1) has access to the source code, and 2) can do anything about my problem report.  So as not to bore you with details here, see these two of my threads on MS fora, both of which were never resolved because the (misnamed) MVP personnel do not have access to the source code and have no knowledge (or incentive)  to look at any of my numerous NTFS BSOD dumps to deterrmine what had happened.  When I was an IBM mainframe systems programmer, it was my job to look at ALL of the system dumps and determine (with the aid of IBM personnel) what had happened.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/ntfs-bsod-24-windows-7-32-bi...

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/windows-7-32-bit-ntfs-bsod-2...

Dropbox was NOT involved in this BSOD.  Control Panel - Programs and Features - shows Dropbox installed 4/5/2019.  My manual software log shows that I un-installed and re-installed 68.4.102 on 03/19/2019.  I did this because Mozilla support thought that Dropbox might have been causing problems (crashes) in the Firefox browser (and I do not believe this).  The c"\Program Files\Dropbox directory has the 4/5/2019 timestamp.  In the Dropbox directory, I did a "dir /s", and here are the lines that have "04/05/2019" or "DIrectory":

Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox
04/05/2019 03:56 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:56 PM <DIR> ..
04/05/2019 03:50 PM <DIR> Client
04/05/2019 03:50 PM <DIR> OldBinaries
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client
04/05/2019 03:50 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:50 PM <DIR> ..
04/05/2019 03:45 PM <DIR> Assets
04/05/2019 03:45 PM <DIR> driver_amd64
04/05/2019 03:45 PM <DIR> driver_x86
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> QtGraphicalEffects
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> QtQuick.2
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> QtWebChannel
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> QtWebEngine
04/05/2019 03:49 PM <DIR> resources
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\Assets
04/05/2019 03:45 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:45 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\driver_amd64
04/05/2019 03:45 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:45 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\driver_x86
04/05/2019 03:45 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:45 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\plugins
04/05/2019 03:46 PM <DIR> imageformats
04/05/2019 03:46 PM <DIR> platforms
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\plugins\imageformats
04/05/2019 03:46 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:46 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\plugins\platforms
04/05/2019 03:46 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:46 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\plugins\qtwebengine
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtGraphicalEffects
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> private
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtGraphicalEffects\private
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> Controls
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> Layouts
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> Window.2
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick\Controls
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> Private
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> Styles
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick\Controls\Private
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick\Controls\Styles
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> Base
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> Desktop
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> Flat
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick\Controls\Styles\Base
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> images
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick\Controls\Styles\Base\images
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick\Controls\Styles\Desktop
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick\Controls\Styles\Flat
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick\Layouts
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick\Window.2
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtQuick.2
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtWebChannel
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtWebEngine
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> Controls1Delegates
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> Controls2Delegates
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtWebEngine\Controls1Delegates
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\QtWebEngine\Controls2Delegates
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:48 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\resources
04/05/2019 03:49 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:49 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\translations
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Client\translations\qtwebengine_locales
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\OldBinaries
04/05/2019 03:50 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:50 PM <DIR> ..
04/05/2019 03:44 PM <DIR> bin_pps3nlyj
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\OldBinaries\bin_pps3nlyj
04/05/2019 03:44 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:44 PM <DIR> ..
04/05/2019 03:51 PM <DIR> Client
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\OldBinaries\bin_pps3nlyj\Client
04/05/2019 03:51 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:51 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Update
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Update\1.3.189.1
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Update\Download
04/05/2019 08:32 PM <DIR> {CC46080E-4C33-4981-859A-BBA2F780F31E}
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Update\Download\{CC46080E-4C33-4981-859A-BB780F31E}
04/05/2019 08:32 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 08:32 PM <DIR> ..
04/05/2019 03:34 PM <DIR> 70.4.93
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Update\Download\{CC46080E-4C33-4981-859A-BB780F31E}\70.4.93
04/05/2019 03:34 PM <DIR> .
04/05/2019 03:34 PM <DIR> ..
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Update\Install
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Update\Offline
Directory of C:\PROGRA~1\Dropbox\Update\Offline\{8E2854F5-0CAE-439F-A111-CDD
ED5CE5}

I am not sure what happened on 03/05, as I have no manual record that I did anything with Dropbox.  I am not sure if this tells me whether 70.4.93 is actually installed.

[Jane]

I appreciate the time you’ve devoted to collect all this info for me & thanks for pinging me back here Barry (@Barry F.). I’d like to dig a bit deeper & have a closer look on your setup through our Official Support channel. So as to investigate having all our tools available, I’ve made sure to reach out to you directly via email including all the details you’ve sent me here. 

Whenever you find some time, please check your inbox for my message & I’ll make sure to promptly get back in touch with you asap. I’ll be awaiting your next reply!

[Barry F.]

I installed patches to WIn 7 this morning, and after the reboot dropbox.exe (72.4.136) began using 14-21% CPU.  I have no idea why.  I have not added or deleted files from dropbox for over a week.  I really do not want to cancel dropbox.exe if I can find some diagnostics that I can run to diagnosw what is happening.  But my system is running so slowly as to make it unusable.

ProcessExplorer says that PID 4848 (there are two other subsidiary PIDs that are using minimal CPU) is using cycles at Dropbox.exe+0x9380.  And I ran  a ProcessMonitor trace and got 1,100 records, all for PID 4848.  For some unknown reason, I am unable to attach the small .csv trace file to this trouble ticket, so I put it on dropbox -

https://www.dropbox.com/s/seo2w3p43n9vc7h/Dropbox.190516.1451.CSV?dl=0

I do not know if this trace file or the +0x9380 offset will tell you what is happening.  If not, is there any other diagnostic tool I can run to determine what is happening?  Thanks.

[Jane]

Hey @Barry F., thanks for getting back in touch with me here! Kindly note that it would be best to further investigate via our Official Support channel after this point, as I’ll need to submit your logs for further review & evaluation to a specialized technician. If it’s okay with you, I could create a new Support ticket on our system; please let me know if you’ve got a bit of spare time to work on that with me & I’ll follow-up asap. Thanks again!

[Barry F.]

Please open an official trouble ticket.  I will try to keep dropbox.exe running.  Thanks.

[Jane]

I appreciate the confirmation @Barry F.; please have a look at your inbox at your earliest convenience & we’ll take it from there. Thanks!