New Dropbox behavior: creating .dropbox.device on SD cards

[billickc]

Recently Dropbox has begun to create .dropbox.device files on SD cards. This triggers an error in Adobe Lightroom on import:

The files are not photos or videos. (1)
/Volumes/Untitled/DCIM/MISC/.dropbox.device

I already have always had "Enable camera uploads" UNchecked. These cards are freshly formatted in-camera before each use, so Dropbox is creating this invisible file fresh each time. The file is 56 bytes and seems like a binary becuse it looks like garbage reading it with Vim. 

macOS 10.14.6

Lightroom Classic 9.2.1

Dropbox Version 97.4.467 (97.4.467)

Sony Alpha a6600 camera, Sony SF-G64T SD card, Transcend USB 3.0 card reader

[Daphne]

Hello @billickc thanks for reaching out to us here!

Just so I can have a bit of a better understanding of what's occurring here, can you let me know a brief step-by-step of what you're doing that ends with this error?

For example, are you connecting the SD card to your computer and during the Import to Adobe Lightroom you're getting this error? Do you get any Dropbox pop ups during the process at all?

Out of curiosity, does the same occur if you have the desktop app closed? You can close the app by:

1. Clicking the Dropbox icon in your menu bar.
2. Click the profile pic/initials icon in the top right of the window.
3. Choose "Quit Dropbox".

Let me know and we can go from there!

[billickc]

Sure. As I said, I have always had Dropbox camera import off. I never have the desktop Dropbox app running. Dropbox does have an active menu bar icon and syncs a subset of folders in the background (none of those folders are associated with Lightroom).

1. Insert SD card with photos (mounts on desktop)
2. Launch Lightroom.
3. Begin import from card.
4. During the import, receive error/alert from Lightroom "The files are not photos or videos. (1) /Volumes/Untitled/DCIM/MISC/.dropbox.device"
5. Be frustrated Dropbox is writing invisible files to my SD cards.
6. Reformat card in camera, take more photos, goto step 1.

[Daphne]

Thanks for getting back to me here @billickc!

If you see the Dropbox icon in your menu bar, then it means the app is still running on your computer and syncing your Dropbox folder as you mentioned.

Could you please try closing the app with the steps mentioned above and let me know if you get the same error again when connecting importing to Lightroom again?

[billickc]

No error or invisible file when importing with the Desktop app/menu item quit.

[billickc]

Restarted my Mac (so Desktop Dropbox relaunched) and we're back to the same nonsense where Dropbox saves invisible files onto my SD cards despite "Enable camera uploads" being UNchecked. 

error text:

The files are not photos or videos. (1)
/Volumes/Untitled/DCIM/MISC/.dropbox.device

unwanted invisible file:

$ pwd
/Volumes/Untitled/DCIM/MISC

$ ls -lah
total 384
drwxrwxrwx 1 myusername staff 128K May 26 11:25 .
drwxrwxrwx 1 myusername staff 128K May 26 10:25 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 myusername staff 56B May 26 11:25 .dropbox.device

[Daphne]

Hey there @billickc, apologies for the very delayed reply here!

I was looking into this for you from my side, and would need to investigate a little more alongside some device specific info.

If you're still having this issue and would like to look into it further together, please let me know and I can reach out to you directly to continue where we left off.

Thanks!

[billickc]

To be perfectly honest, that's a task for your QA department. Apps that write to my SD cards without permission have no business on my system. I uninstalled Dropbox completely and upgraded my iCloud storage tier instead.