Ubuntu Desktop Client with an DS-Lite inter connection

[DanielGlaas]

Dear Dropbox Community and Developers,

I am running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on my computer and habe installed the latest dropbox App, installed via the official repositories via "apt install dropbox". It is the same version as one can download manually via the website.

The sync was already running smoothly for a while on this setup, but exactly with the day I changed to a new internet provider, sync does not work anymore...

My connection to the internet is now done via DS-Lite, which means that I don't have an external IPv4 but only a IPv6 address. Is it possible that the Linux implementation of the Desktop cannot handle this setup properly?

For comparison, I installed Dropbox on Windows 10 Virtual Machine in VirtualBox and there everything works as expected! For me this reduces the possible reasons for this error to be located inside of the Ubuntu Desktop App.

I would appreciate if someone has an idea how I can solve this issue or if maybe there is a fix available for the Desktop App for Linux.

Many thanks,

Daniel

[Здравко]

---

@DanielGlaas wrote:

...

My connection to the internet is now done via DS-Lite, which means that I don't have an external IPv4 but only a IPv6 address. Is it possible that the Linux implementation of the Desktop cannot handle this setup properly?

For comparison, I installed Dropbox on Windows 10 Virtual Machine in VirtualBox and there everything works as expected! For me this reduces the possible reasons for this error to be located inside of the Ubuntu Desktop App.

...

---

Hi @DanielGlaas,

You are saying "Dropbox on Windows 10 Virtual Machine in VirtualBox and there everything works as expected", bit asking in same time "I don't have an ... IPv4 but only a IPv6 address. Is it possible that the Linux implementation of the Desktop cannot handle ... properly?". If that's a Linux problem, how will your Windows work on VirtualBox VM running on the same Linux, as a host? No there isn't any problem in Linux (Ubuntu or other modern distribution); IPv6 is handled properly.

What do you mean while you mention "this error"? What error; do you receive some error message? Describe the state in details. Did you try unlink your application from your Dropbox account and link it back? What's the result from following command:

dropbox version; dpkg-query -W dropbox; dropbox start -i; dropbox status

[DanielGlaas]

---

@Здравко wrote:

---

Hi @DanielGlaas,

You are saying "Dropbox on Windows 10 Virtual Machine in VirtualBox and there everything works as expected", bit asking in same time "I don't have an ... IPv4 but only a IPv6 address. Is it possible that the Linux implementation of the Desktop cannot handle ... properly?". If that's a Linux problem, how will your Windows work on VirtualBox VM running on the same Linux, as a host? No there isn't any problem in Linux (Ubuntu or other modern distribution); IPv6 is handled properly.

What do you mean while you mention "this error"? What error; do you receive some error message? Describe the state in details. Did you try unlink your application from your Dropbox account and link it back? What's the result from following command:

dropbox version; dpkg-query -W dropbox; dropbox start -i; dropbox status

---

Hi,

thanks for your quick and kind reply, I will try to provide as much details as possible!

| "What do you mean while you mention "this error""

The error I observe on Ubuntu is that the synchronisation starts and that it displays something about "indexing files", but it NEVER finishes. Saying never means, that adding a 100kB text file isn't uploaded after 10 hours. But I don't get an explicit error message.

| "What's the result from following command:"

dropbox version; dpkg-query -W dropbox; dropbox start -i; dropbox status

gives directly after the start of the App this response:

dropbox version; dpkg-query -W dropbox; dropbox start -i; dropbox status
Dropbox daemon version: 110.4.458
Dropbox command-line interface version: 2020.03.04
dropbox	2020.03.04
Dropbox is already running!
Synchronisierung läuft (3.940 Dateien • 6 Min.)
3.940 Dateien werden indexiert (6 Min.)

5 seconds later, the 6 minutes estimation increases to 1 hour:

dropbox version; dpkg-query -W dropbox; dropbox start -i; dropbox status
Dropbox daemon version: 110.4.458
Dropbox command-line interface version: 2020.03.04
dropbox	2020.03.04
Dropbox is already running!
Synchronisierung läuft (3.940 Dateien • 1 Std.)
3.940 Dateien werden indexiert (1 Std.)

And more 10 seconds later, the time estimation vanished and stays like that for 10 minutes with unchanged number of files:

dropbox version; dpkg-query -W dropbox; dropbox start -i; dropbox status
Dropbox daemon version: 110.4.458
Dropbox command-line interface version: 2020.03.04
dropbox	2020.03.04
Dropbox is already running!
Synchronisierung läuft (3.940 Dateien)
3.940 Dateien werden indexiert...

| "Did you try unlink your application from your Dropbox account and link it back?"

After producing these outputs, I unlinked my account. The Dropbox App then terminates.
I restarted it and I get this message:

Your computer is offline. Please check your network connection.

I'm not able to reestablish a connection or to enter my credentials of my account afterwards.

| "If that's a Linux problem, how will your Windows work on VirtualBox VM running on the same Linux, as a host?"

My understanding of networking in VirtualBox is that the complete IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity is passed through from host to guest and the guest OS decides on his own which packets over which IP-stack it wants to send. And here I could see a possible place where a difference in the implementations could be.

[Здравко]

Hi @DanielGlaas,

Seems your application is stuck with an old version. Let's clear things step by step. First - forcibly unlink and wipe out current daemon components, and reinitialize. Execute following commands in terminal one by one:

dropbox stop
rm -rf ~/.dropbox ~/.dropbox-dist
dropbox start -i
dropbox version

You will need to relink. The last command should return now:

Dropbox daemon version: 111.4.472
Dropbox command-line interface version: 2020.03.04

It's normal an indexing to gets proceed for some time. After 5-6 mins try:

dropbox status

Repeat as you have done before to see if something gets changing.

By the way you don't have any problem with your IP connection. If there was such a problem, you would never get reach to indexing.

[DanielGlaas]

---

@Здравко wrote:

Hi @DanielGlaas,

Seems your application is stuck with an old version. Let's clear things step by step. First - forcibly unlink and wipe out current daemon components, and reinitialize. Execute following commands in terminal one by one:

dropbox stop
rm -rf ~/.dropbox ~/.dropbox-dist
dropbox start -i
dropbox version

You will need to relink. The last command should return now:

Dropbox daemon version: 111.4.472
Dropbox command-line interface version: 2020.03.04

It's normal an indexing to gets proceed for some time. After 5-6 mins try:

dropbox status

Repeat as you have done before to see if something gets changing.

By the way you don't have any problem with your IP connection. If there was such a problem, you would never get reach to indexing.

---

Thank you for your suggestions! I did these commands:

dropbox stop
rm -rf ~/.dropbox ~/.dropbox-dist
dropbox start -i

Then a window appeared telling me that the daemon needs to be downloaded. It is done and the version is afterwards as you said:

Dropbox daemon version: 111.4.472
Dropbox command-line interface version: 2020.03.04

Afterwards, again a window opens that tells me that I'm offline. There I only can press "OK" and nothing more happens.

dropbox status

returns at first:

Dropbox isn't responding!

After about 20 seconds return of 'dropbox status' changes to:

Dropbox isn't running!

I hope you have any further ideas how to continue identifying the issue. I also have installed wireshark, maybe if it helps to capture dropbox network traffic.

Thank you in advance!

[Здравко]

---

@DanielGlaas wrote:

...

Afterwards, again a window opens that tells me that I'm offline. There I only can press "OK" and nothing more happens.

...

---

At that moment your application is waiting for the connection confirmation. Can you post a screenshot of that window that tells you are offline? At that moment new web browser window asking for your confirmation should appear! 🤷

As alternative you can use following commands:

export DISPLAY=
rm -rf ~/.dropbox
dropbox start

One web link should appear in the terminal. Open just appeared link in your web browser and confirm the application link there.

Hope this helps.

[DanielGlaas]

---

@Здравко wrote:

---

@DanielGlaas wrote:

...

Afterwards, again a window opens that tells me that I'm offline. There I only can press "OK" and nothing more happens.

...

---

At that moment your application is waiting for the connection confirmation. Can you post a screenshot of that window that tells you are offline? At that moment new web browser window asking for your confirmation should appear! 🤷

As alternative you can use following commands:

export DISPLAY=
rm -rf ~/.dropbox
dropbox start

One web link should appear in the terminal. Open just appeared link in your web browser and confirm the application link there.

Hope this helps.

---

| "Can you post a screenshot of that window that tells you are offline?"

| "At that moment new web browser window asking for your confirmation should appear!"

No, this does not happen. No web browser opens at all.

| "As alternative you can use following commands:"

export DISPLAY=
rm -rf ~/.dropbox
dropbox start

Now, the window shown above does not appear anymore, but also no link appears. This is the complete output on the console:

Starting Dropbox...dropbox: locating interpreter
dropbox: logging to /tmp/dropbox-antifreeze-k1batY
dropbox: initializing
dropbox: initializing python 3.7.9
dropbox: setting program path '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/dropbox'
dropbox: setting python path '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472:/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/python-packages.zip'
dropbox: python initialized
dropbox: running dropbox
dropbox: setting args
dropbox: enabling allocator metrics
dropbox: applying overrides
dropbox: running main script
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._constant_time.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._openssl.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._padding.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/psutil._psutil_linux.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/psutil._psutil_posix.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/apex._apex.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/tornado.speedups.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/wrapt._wrappers.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/PyQt5.QtWidgets.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/PyQt5.QtCore.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/PyQt5.QtGui.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
Done!

[Здравко]

Yes, seems recent versions of the application got changed little bit. To get link in the terminal the initial command should be little bit different. Try following:

dropbox stop
export DISPLAY=
rm -rf ~/.dropbox
~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

After the last command you should receive something like:

As the message directs, open the link in your browser and confirm the application link. Few moments later (10-20 seconds after confirmation) you will receive in the terminal a message like:

Check what's going on using:

dropbox status

Repeat, if needed, to trace the progress.

Now, if everything is ok - result "Up to date", you can stop the application using the command:

dropbox stop

Run the application as usual, finally to get up the icon in the system tray.

I just tested this procedure and it works.

[DanielGlaas]

---

@Здравко wrote:

Yes, seems recent versions of the application got changed little bit. To get link in the terminal the initial command should be little bit different. Try following:

dropbox stop
export DISPLAY=
rm -rf ~/.dropbox
~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

After the last command you should receive something like:

---

I really appreciate the effort you put into helping me with my issue, thank you very much!

I run the commands as proposed and the terminal output hangs forever after these lines:

dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/PyQt5.QtWidgets.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/PyQt5.QtCore.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/daniel/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-111.4.472/PyQt5.QtGui.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'

In parallel, I opened another terminal window and run "dropbox status" with this result:

Verbindungsaufbau …

This means that establishing a connection is ongoing, this state consisted for about 15 minutes and I don't thinkt there will be anything changing.

[Здравко]

Hi @DanielGlaas,

Here I almost "hands up"! You can try get idea what's going on using the following command:

ss -t -u -p | grep dropbox

In the received result, you will be able see what connections are actually establishing on. Where they are directed to and what kind of IP addresses are in use. Try to play with it and let's hope you will find out something more.

Good luck.