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In a "mdworker quit unexpectedly" loop after turning on Smart Sync

In a "mdworker quit unexpectedly" loop after turning on Smart Sync

Kidhack
Helpful | Level 5
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Ever since turning on Dropbox Smart Sync, Spotlight has been going nuts and using tons of CPU. The helper app "mdworker" is constantly crashing. Will report back after Dropbox finishes indexing all the Smart Sync files. 

Quit unexpectedly

PS. Funny you can't link Dropbox photos to the image uploader in this forum.

 
102 Replies 102

zobie
Helpful | Level 5
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Hi Ross,

 

Do you have any update on this? I never saw an email from come through. But I'm still having this problem.

 

Thanks for your help.

klurg
New member | Level 2
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I have this problem too, it's very annoying. I temporarily "solved" it by excluding my Dropbox-folder from Spotlight indexing. It's not an ideal solution, but it's neater than disabling spotlight altogether, because this way you can still use the search function.

John_Cox
Helpful | Level 6
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Sorry, I don't have much more to add other than a "me too".

 

Problems strated as soon as I set a directory to smart sync. Have installed latest dropbox v21.3.21, latest OS updates 10.12.3.

 

Really don't wan't to turn of spotlight as Alfred combined with search is how things get done... 😞

 

I resort to moving the dialog box off to the side and keep going til things calm down for a day or two then it fires up again.

abovegroup
New member | Level 2
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Me too as it goes...very annoying...

Jtaylor2d
Helpful | Level 5
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Did you ever resolve this'll? I have a user with this problem and it's related to SmartSync. Erased the computer and reinstalled and started immediately again. Just now trying to diagnose further and will report back.

 

Maybe someone from Dropbox can reach out to me? I'm a Dropbox Partner and I'm nervous to deploy this feature to other clients now.

John_Cox
Helpful | Level 6
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Alas, no. It is not as bad as it used to be once all the syncing was finished.

 

But even now I have a little dialogue box dragged off onto another monitor with the error.

 

Sigh...

AndersHansson
New member | Level 2
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I solved this issue a while back now.

 

IIRC all you need to do is to disable OSX Spotlight indexing for the Dropbox folder(s). You can do this from Settings --> Spotlight --> Privacy (tab) and add the Dropbox sync folder(s).

 

It was some time now so I might have forgotten some details so let me know if it works for you and I'll try to dig a little deeper to see if there was something else I needed to do.

 

It is indeed a very annoying issue...

 

EDIT: I now saw that a similar answer was given before. To my knowledge there is no way around disabling Spotlight for the affected folders. However you only need to disable folders actually used with Smart Sync.

Jtaylor2d
Helpful | Level 5
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I appreciate your input, but that's not exactly a fix. It certainly prevents the mdworker crashes from happening, but a fix would involve keeping on Spotlight.

I still need to some more research, but this is a strange issue. I have other users at this same location who use SmartSync on a Mac with Spotlight turned on who don't have any issues. I'm hoping that switching from SmartSync Online back to Local can fix the issue until further information from Dropbox comes about.

I'll keep everyone updated if I discover anything new.

Leno M.
Helpful | Level 5
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I have the same issues and just leave it on the side. Before someone suggested turning of spotlight and I did it, but after I get skype and all types of new errors. I turned it back on as nothing is working and the computer is full of errors from time to time.

Jtaylor2d
Helpful | Level 5
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For now I turned off Online-Only SmartSync, and used Selective Sync to only keep local copies of relevant data, and that is working for now. I have opened a ticket wth Dropbox to see what they say, but it is definitely a problem related to SmartSync.

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