Selective Sync & Indexing

[ckeats]

Currently we have 40 machines in our company, we have a dropbox database of 200GB and we all are running the latest OSX 10.12.3. Some of our machines are setup for smart sync and others are downloading the whole database. Our search function on the machines running smart sync are having search issues. The search function looks to only find SOME of the information and is missing others.

For example I search for "Tom" it may find 10 files named tom but miss another 25 files with the name tom in the same location. This looks to happen alot with NEWER created files and it doesnt ever seem to find them even after being there for weeks.

I assumed it was some type of indexing issue but if i attempted to rerun indexing on smart sync machines it will take WEEKS to run (24hrs with sleep settings off and running 100%). After indexing it still misses the files or just doesnt see anymore files anymore. The search function on those smart sync machines also affect our Outlook search which now only finds some information.

After alot of testing ive found that:

This Search issue does not effect those machines that are not running smart sync or selective sync

Any machine that has a SMALL (30GB-ish) Dropbox Smart Sync Setup

Will happen on OSX 10.10, 10.11, or 10.12

Happens on fresh OSX installs or Updated operating systems

Happens on all machines running Office Suite and Dropbox

Happens with the latest Dropbox Beta 23.2.22

Happens with Filevault 2 turned on or off

So ive pinpointed the issue to dropbox or the combo of Outlook and dropbox. (Without outlook installed indexing still takes longer than it should). Does anyone have any recommendations i could try? im sorta running out of options and smart sync is better for my company compared to selective sync.

[Jane]

Hey ckeats, 

Thanks for the detailed description of the case, it'll be a pleasure to troubleshoot as much as I can from here!

Can you please make sure that you are running the latest stable version of the application on your device and try to check whether the issue with the search option works as expected after the downgrade? 

Also, you mention that other users in your team are having the same issue as well. Are they running a Beta version of Dropbox? Can you please advise them to go back to the latest stable version: "21.4.25" and see if this persists? 

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

Kind regards, 

JaneA

[wisamamid]

I am experiencing similar issues using Dropbox v 28.4.14 with Selective Sync.

Spotlight search is not showing up results that are showing up on a few machines, while it shows on other machines. 

A few of the machines have been "Indexing" spotlight on the Mac for 4 days now. And it doesn't seem like its going anyhwere.

Another issue that I've noticed is that the "Download/Open" button that appears on the Dropbox website doesn't seem to appear anymore, even if the file is locally saved or Smart Synced (not locally saved) it doesn't show the button any more. This is on Google Chrome.

MacOS Sierra

10.12.5

[Mark]

Can I suggest you post over on the official 28.4.14 thread? That way the team are likely to see it:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Desktop-client-builds/Stable-Build-28-4-14/m-p/225423#M4010

[ckeats]

This issue still persistent even on the latest version 30.3.14. Anyone have any recommendations yet for a solution? or a place i can submit a legit bug?

[Jane]

Hey @ckeats, 

Welcome to the Dropbox community! 

Please keep in mind that there are some inconsistencies on some Beta versions, hence I'd like to ask you to go back to the latest stable version of the application, so as to get the best out of Dropbox. Just confirming here that our team is actively working on a fix on issues that have arised with the latest Beta build. 

Please share your feedback here, so that your comments get reviewed by our product experts. 

Thanks, 

JaneA

[wisamamid]

I am currently using the latest stable build 29.4.20 and I experience the exact same issues as the first post in this thread.

I have attemped the following:

1. Removed Dropbox and reinstalled it. I let everything Sync and Smart Sync

2. The indexing on Spotlight (macOS 10.12.5) had the same issue as mentioned above in the first post.

3. Reindexed Spotlight and it would show search results randomly. Some files that were synced would show up in the search results, and some that were Smart Synced (not physically on the machine) would show up.

What more can be done to fix this issue? 

Wisam

[ckeats]

Currently i have found no solution, even if i completely remove dropbox and let it sync regularly it still does not work. So this makes me think that a file is damaged during smart sync causing the system indexing not to work anymore. Even if dropbox was removed and you try reindex the damage is done and still doesnt work.

I got lucky one time by reinstalling the OS over top of the system but that only worked 1 out of 5 times i attempted it. Im currently speaking with dropbox trying to find a solution. The moment they give me anything ill post it here, so other people can avoid this problem. Also if you find a solution or see something similar that i may have missed let me know. Trying to collect all the information on this problem.

Glad im not the only one having trouble 😃

Thanks,

Cody K

[meerestier]

Any updates on this?

[Walter]

Hi @meerestier - welcome to the Community!

Can you please elaborate on this so as to make sure we're on the same page and troubleshooting the right thing?

If you could also provide some additional information in regards to your setup (Computer's exact OS, our app's version etc.), it'd be appreciated. 

Thanks!