Problem working with Excel on Dropbox

[LauraP1]

Hi, I have a problem with Excel files. They works if saved in the pc but the same file in Dropbox said that is impossible to open cause it is not found. Thank you for helping me.

[Walter]

Hey there Laura - sorry to hear about this.

Can you please tell me the status on your desktop app? Is it "Up to date" or still syncing changes? 

Do you see a syncing icon on the said file? 

Moreover, could you share a screenshot of the exact error you get so we can have a better understanding of what could be going wrong? 

Thanks in advance @LauraP1!

[LauraP1]

Hi Walter,

thanks a lot for your super fast reply.

The Dropbox icon on the desktop is "up to date", non syncronising.

The file too has a green flag on it. Of course I share the screenshot.

Many thanks,

Laura

[Walter]

I don't see any screenshots Laura - can you try from the "Photos" button from within your reply's box (just above the place you write your post)?

Also, can you use our problematic file names' look up tool and let me know if you find anything at https://www.dropbox.com/bad_files_check ?

In the meantime, you can also view a full list of the characters (letters, symbols, or numbers) that may be incompatible with the operating system on your computer in this Help Center article: 

https://www.dropbox.com/help/syncing-uploads/files-not-syncing 

In any case, I'll be waiting for your next response with the screenshot of the error you get to have a better view of the matter at hand. 

Thanks again!

[LauraP1]

[LauraP1]

Hi Walter,

no files creating syncronising problems. I checked with your link.

The file's name is very simple, only words with _ symbol.

The strangest thing is that is impossible to open the file from the app on desktop, but if I proceed from the website it opens!!!

[Walter · Accepted solution]

Thanks for that @LauraP1!

The issue you're experiencing may be due to a limitation of the applications that you're using to open or save the files in question. In short, there are files that your applications can't process correctly because they have file paths that are too long.

This behavior is present if there are more than 255 characters in the entire file path. This means from the C:\ all the way to the extension of a file.

As an example if you had a test.txt file in your Dropbox that had the following path:

C:\Users\YourName\My Documents\Dropbox\test.txt

This file would have a path that is 47 characters long.

The Dropbox desktop application can read and write to locations that are longer than 255 characters, which means that files will sync to and from those locations, however, the applications used to open or save said files (e.g. Word, Notepad, Excel, Etc.) might not support reading from or writing to these locations with long file paths and may show error messages when trying to open, save or edit them. This is out of our control since the application developers would have to add support for long paths to resolve the issue.

You should be able to resolve the issues with your applications processing these files by simply renaming the file to a shorter name, renaming a folder to a shorter name, or reducing the number of sub-folders.

Keep me posted on your progress!

[LauraP1]

Thank you Walter,

because Dropbox considers the file name lenght not as it appears (as it was saved in C) but considers the full path, correct?

[Walter]

Spot on @LauraP1!

Let me know how it goes please and if you have any more questions, you know where to find us 

[LauraP1]

Yes of course, will do.

Thanks a lot for your time