I'm hosting Dropbox on a server OS & I'm facing a syncing issue.

[DolphinJL]

Occasionally I checked my server to see that all of my files are syncing properly. 99% of the time, no problem. But sometimes, like today, I'll check on it and notice that files have not synced for 1 days. In fact, Dropbox, in this case, was not even running. I am the ONLY one in our operation who accesses the server as an admin. Everyone else simply accesses network shares, which is what our Dropbox is.

On the other hand, most of the times that I've noticed it not syncing it was running, but showing that sync simply not happening. It wasn't paused, it was just NOT syncing.

So my request is, besides finding a way to ensure it doesn't stop syncing, I would like an alert option to check in my settings on the web when your servers see that my dropbox hasn't synced for more than 24 hours. If I check my web account I see that your server tells me when the last sync was. Perhaps that could be used to create a trigger to email me that my sync is NOT happening. Possible?

[Jane · Accepted solution]

Hey DropboxJL, thanks for posting us on our Forum on your syncing-specific inquiry, lets look into the issue you’re facing together!

As an initial point of reference, you may keep in mind that Dropbox isn’t compatible with Windows Server operating systems, though I’m here to help you out on that in any way I can. In order to send you the most relevant details, can you let me know what’s your current setup? As you’ve mentioned that you’ve hosted the Dropbox app on a server, please note that this configuration may work if you run the Dropbox app as an application in a user account, instead of as a server service.

Following to your request, please note that it isn’t currently an option to trigger an email when the app isn’t syncing, though I’d happily send you the most relevant next steps to get to the bottom of this matter, depending on your settings. 

Once I have this info, I'll make sure to look into the matter more closely & thank for the time you devote in relaying your account specifics on this discussion! 

[AustininIT]

We also use dropbox on a server to sync files that are stored in a shared drive.  We know there are drawbacks to this as permissions within the dropbox folder are more difficult to control and we know this isn't supported. However, I wish Dropbox did have a supported solution.  

The only drawback to this configuration that impacts the small business that is using this technique is the fact that when the server reboots, the Dropbox sync client does not run until a specific user signs in on the server.  It would be greate to determine a way to have the dropbox service run in the background with a specific user's credentials and allow that user to see the progress. 

Thanks for your understanding!