"Dropbox needs to change permissions" message on startup

[Rachel R.2]

Lately, every time I start my Mac (OS 10.14.6) I get a message that reads (in full): 

"Dropbox needs to change permissions for the Folder: /Users/[name]/Dropbox

Enter your password to allow this"

(I would attach a screenshot here but I can't figure out how.)

I enter the password and all is well, but it happens Every. Single. Time. I start my computer. After checking here for ideas, I checked for symlinks (there are none) and reinstalled Dropbox (so I am now running the latest version), but that has not helped at all. What now?

[mjulia]

I am having the same issue, but unrelated to restarts. About every week, Dropbox presents the message like in Rachel's screenshot, and starts synching 15K+ files, even though none of them changed. It takes several days and completely kills my buttery.

I have run the following command and do not have any hyperlinks:

find "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)" -type l -exec ls -lah {} \;

I've also applied the instructions above. Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Julia

[Здравко]

---

@mjulia wrote:

...

I've also applied the instructions above. Any other ideas?

...

Hi @mjulia,

Is everything above passed without errors? Did you change the paths? In your case they are little bit different - the folder name differs!

Can you pass exact result in the terminal after execution (in a code block </>) - together commands and the returns, if any?

[mjulia]

Yes, I did change the paths.

[~/Documents/D/GitRepositories/www]> sudo chflags -R noschg "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"
Password:
[~/Documents/D/GitRepositories/www]> sudo chflags -R nouchg "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"
[~/Documents/D/GitRepositories/www]> sudo chown -R "$USER" "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"
[~/Documents/D/GitRepositories/www]> chmod -R u+rw "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"
[~/Documents/D/GitRepositories/www]> ls -al /Users/mjulia/Dropbox\ \(Personal\)/
total 2784
drwx------@ 17 mjulia staff 544 5 Dec 00:11 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 70 mjulia staff 2240 3 Jan 09:50 ..

(the rest of the directories are omitted)

[Здравко]

Your subscription is a Business one! Did you try the same commands for the Business folder too, not only to the private one?  The issue could comes from there.

[mjulia]

I believe that my Busness subscription is no longer active. Or at least I do not have that folder on my computer any more. After further inspection, I do have another Dropbox folder that is linked to that one. Maybe that causes some issues?

[~]> ls -al Dropbox*
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 mjulia staff 32 19 Feb 2016 Dropbox -> /Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)

Dropbox (Personal):
total 2784
drwx------@ 17 mjulia staff 544 5 Dec 00:11 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 70 mjulia staff 2240 3 Jan 09:50 ..

[Здравко]

What's the result from:

cat ~/.dropbox/info.json; echo

[mjulia]

{"personal": {"path": "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)", "host": 48016340672, "is_team": false, "subscription_type": "Pro"}}

[Здравко]

Hmm... interesting...

Let's try different possibilities. First, if and what kind of links you have inside Dropbox:

ls -alRP "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)" | grep " -> "

If there is some result, pointing path have to be inside your Dropbox folder, otherwise could be the problem. Next, to remove potentially quarantine for part(s), try following:

xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"

Hope some of the above commands will solve the issue.

[mjulia]

No links..

[~]> ls -alRP "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)" | grep " -> "
[~]> xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"

[Здравко]

I'm up to here, haven't more suggestions, currently. Let's hope someone else will give some additional possibilities, which work better for you.