Melding "Dropbox kan niet worden gestart" (Dropbox can't be started error message)

[jeegee]

Hallo,

Ik werk op een laptop met Linux Ubuntu 20.04 en krijg de melding "Dropbox kan niet worden gestart. Dit komt meestal door een machtigingsfout... enz".

Ik heb Dropbox gede- en -herinstalleerd met de Ubuntu softwaremap, maar ook na installatie met de terminal blijft de melding komen.

Ik heb onlangs in de command line mijn gebruikersnaam met 'usermod' gewijzigd, misschien herkent Dropbox me niet meer.

Graag een tip!

JGF

[Daphne · Accepted solution]

Hey @jeegee, ik hoop dat je een fijne dag hebt!

Omdat je al hebt geprobeerd de app opnieuw te installeren, kun je een geavanceerde herinstallatie proberen om te zien of dat werkt?

Hiermee kunt u een volledig nieuwe installatie uitvoeren nadat u de gebruikersnaam op uw computer hebt gewijzigd.

Laat me weten hoe het gaat!
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Hey @jeegee, I hope you're having a good day!

Since you've already tried reinstalling the app, can you please try an advanced reinstall to see if that does the trick?

This will allow you to do a complete fresh install after you changed the username on your computer.

Let me know how it goes!

[jeegee]

Hi Daphne,
Thanks for your quick and very useful reply!
I c/p 'ed the commands one by one, installed Dropbox from the Ubuntu repositary, installed the daemon, logged in—and coupling & synchro started right away.
As I understand most of the commands (if not all) remove stuff. In an article I came across the command 'purge' which (in the described case of an older Ubuntu distro) removed everything related to Dropbox. I decided not to use it, if it would have worked anyway.
Well, thanks again,
best regards, JGF

[Daphne]

I'm glad to hear that did the trick @jeegee!

The instructions do indeed remove any remaining settings of the desktop app, which might have retained the previous username of your device, which caused the error that you got.

If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to help out. Feel free to give me a nudge here anytime. 😀

I hope you have a great weekend ahead!

[jeegee]

Hi Daphne,

In an article about apt commands I read: 'apt purge removes everything related to a package including the configuration files'.

Is this what your commands did to my Dropbox data?

Have a good weekend too!

Regards,

JGF

[Daphne]

The advanced reinstall would have indeed removed the old configuration files for the app @jeegee.

Most likely they were still referencing the old username of the device, so removing these would have allowed you to setup the app from scratch.

[jeegee]

Thanks again! :^)
Met vriendelijke groet,
JGF