My public links are no longer working

[hypnocoach]

All my public links are suddenly not working. I noticed that the previously copied link URL that I've given to people to access the file had "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com" as the first part of the url name. But now when I am copying the link, the first part of the url name is "https://www.dropbox.com"

I assume this is the issue, but why did this change?

I also noticed the selection option in the dropdown menu that appears when I right click on the file in my Public dropbox folder to be able to copy it has changed. It no longer has the dropbox symbol to the left and says "Copy dropbox link" whereas before I believe it said "Share dropbox link." And above that option, there is something with the dropbox symbol next to it that says "Share..." (that wasn't there before) and gives the option of entering an email address to send it to, or copying the link (also with the beginning url as ""https://www.dropbox.com"

Now not only do I have to recopy the URL's for all my active clients' files that they need to get to, but ALL the numerous "permanent files" that I have stored in Dropbox to access as clickable links on my several websites, in blog posts and online articles, in documents that people have downloaded, in my autoresponders are NOT WORKING. There's no way I can find and replace them all. What is going on?!!

[Mark]

They HAVE told lots of people though - in fact everybody via email.

And this is only affecting (at present) people who do not pay for the services they use. So, not using it is possibly what they want? After all it reduces their cost base.

[eskdale]

I'm pretty good a reading email notifications and I have a personal dropbox account and also a works dropbox account.  I've not received notifications from either (I've double checked).  I also checked my Spambox for emails from Dropbox and nothing in the last month.  My email address is also correct.   A present it is only affecting the free service but is it also going to affecting the paid service shortly.  They did that with HTML rendering.

Not using is a way of reducing thier costs.  But why spend all that money advertising and developing a user base then push them all away.  Surely it would be better to just charge for the service, rather than just annoy potential paying customers.

[Matthew T.27]

It comes back to the main point. There are many contexts in which modifying links already provided (e.g. on old forum posts, printed flyers, old emails people are keeping archived) is NOT POSSIBLE. Dropbox have NOT addressed this.

Who would have though, the usual people belittling users concerns and complaints. 

Who cares if they brought in a different sharing feature in 2012. There was no reason they can't run them side by side or at LEAST keep the old links active and prevent making new ones.

Far out. We're only interested in the replies of Dropboxers who can actually listen to our concerns and make appropriate changes. We don't care if you think the change is a good one. Or if appropriate notification is adequate justification to removing an important feature. It's a change harming us.

@Mark "And this is only affecting (at present) people who do not pay for the services they use. So, not using it is possibly what they want? After all it reduces their cost base."

Yes, but this point is moot, it will affect us business/Pro/Plus users - just as it has the free users, and it will give us the exact same grief. And Dropbox still won't care.

Hey, if they made it so people had to upgrade to Plus to keep public folder links active I wouldn't have a problem with it. That's not what they've done though. They've deprecated an extremely useful feature.

I hold on to a tiny amount of hope, miniscule hope, that Dropbox will see the absurdities associated with this change and decide to leave it in place for the customers that pay to use their service. My subscription expires a month after the change is scheduled for Plus/Business users. If it goes, then so do I, along with my business. I hope many others do the same. A consumer signal is needed.

The image above will go dead when the public folder is discontinued. When the image above disappears, so will paying users. Please reconsider Dropbox.

[Jonathan H.1]

@Rich

You say share link should be able to display in forums. Previously this was a simple right click and paste procedure and all files would be generated automatically. Now I have to visit the Dropbox website and right click for EVERY SINGLE FILE individually.

Furthermore, I'm still at a loss as to how to make images post in forums. I've tried dl=1, dl=0, raw=1? How?!

[Rich]

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Jonathan H.1 wrote:
Furthermore, I'm still at a loss as to how to make images post in forums. I've tried dl=1, dl=0, raw=1? How?

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By using a share link with ?raw=1 at the end.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0skuwdlhg6q4fol/History%20of%20GIF.gif?raw=1

Not ALL forums will support a link that doesn't end with an actual file extension, but most do. Personally, I've only ever run into one site that wouldn't work.

[Jonathan H.1]

**bleep**, seems raw1 doesn't work on this particular forum.

What's more, there's no way to generate links from within Explorer/Finder any more, you have to edit them manually and you have to do them one by one whereas before I could do a few dozen at a time 😞

Really sad to cripple the software in this way and break millions of existing links 😞

[Rich]

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Jonathan H.1 wrote:

... there's no way to generate links from within Explorer/Finder any more

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Yes, there is. When you right-click on a file, Copy Dropbox link will create a share link to the file and place it in your clipboard. Paste it where you need it and change ?dl=0 if needed.

[Igor S.6]

This move caused me to DROP Dropbox. I almost subscribed when they announced this and got scared that a move like this is not a good thing. It could be the beginning of an unstable company for the long term. I signed on with OneDrive and just finished transferring all my folders there for backup cloud storage & access.

[orionimaging]

When I discovered the issue I decided that OK I find that really useful - I go out my credit card and was just about to pay for Dropbox subscription, until I noticed that they were removing it from the paid users as well shortly - so I ended up giving Google some more money to expand my Google drive storage instead.

[Matthew T.27]

Yo Rich, thanks once again for mentioning the new sharing feature. How long do you think those links will work for? Reckon Dropbox will pull another shared link system out of their behinds and delete all these links?