Dropbox on OpenSUSE Leap 15 (Linux) unlinks after restart

[Leeon]

I am using Dropbox 50.4.71 on OpenSUSE Leap 15, just downloaded the app into home folder, on Leap there is still no Dropbox package.

App works well, however after restart (sometimes after few restarts) dropbox opens tab in web browser and want's to link. Basically configuration and account files, indexes etc. are removed from ~./dropbox folder.

I saw similar issues when people had Dropbox folder on removable media, this is not my case. Dropbox app is in home partition, as well as Dropbox sync folder.

I tried complete removal of dropbox app together with account folder, but it did not fix the issue.

Anyhing else I can try?

[Leeon]

All right, things starts to be quite weird:
I stopped DP and I backed up .dropbox folder.
I did like ~10 reboots, Dropbox was still ok.
After another reboot, DP disconnects and cleaned ~/.dropbox/instance1 files (where the is file index cache etc.).
So I restored the folder form backup, but it was not accepted and purged immediately when I started dropboxd again.

Log file though looks normal:

cat /tmp/dropbox-antifreeze-5gGur8
dropbox: logging to /tmp/dropbox-antifreeze-5gGur8
dropbox: initializing
dropbox: initializing python 2.7.11
dropbox: setting program path '/home/moridlub/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-50.4.71/dropbox'
dropbox: setting home path '/home/moridlub/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-50.4.71'
dropbox: setting python path '/home/moridlub/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-50.4.71:/home/moridlub/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-50.4.71/python-packages-27.zip'
dropbox: python initialized
dropbox: running dropbox
dropbox: setting args
dropbox: applying overrides
dropbox: running main script

Is there some debug/trace mode I can turn on to see more?

[Leeon]

After reindex (about 20 minutes) I quit Dropbox and made .dropbox directory backup. Than I executed several restarts without any issues. I created dummy folder in sync directory, removed it, waited for the sync and made another restart of the app. .dropbox folder was purged (index cache etc. was truncated) and account was unlinked So I stopped dropbox again, restored .dropbox folder, but after app start it was purged again.
There is nothing extraordinary in logs. Any advanced logging I can turn on?

[Leeon]

I did yet another test: created a dummy folder again, deleted it, stopped dropbox, started again, did it couple of time, everything was ok. After next restart DB disconnects again 😕

[Elixir]

Hi @Leeon, Can you please install Dropbox from here - https://software.opensuse.org/package/dropbox? You may choose 1 Click Install for openSUSE Leap 15.0 Community Package. Note that OpenSUSE is not officially supported by Dropbox, so I am afraid that the package you downloaded from dropbox.com has some issues with OpenSUSE. 

[Leeon]

No luck with that either. It however installed one another Python dependency, but at the end it is just package with Dropbox icons for the system and it anyway downloads the same DP package which I was already using.
On previous OpenSUSE version 42.3 I had no issue, it starts after upgrade to Leap 15. In the system there is for example an issue with OpenSSL (I already had to use some workarounds in wpa_supplicant and some other apps using that), so if Dropbox uses it, it might cause this problem.

[Elixir]

For your information: I did a fresh installation of Leap 15 on a virtual machine, and tested installing Dropbox through YaST. For me it is working fine, no un-linking after reboot. 

[Leeon]

Hi @Elixir, it is actually now my second installation of Leap 15 (hint to everybody: do not attempt to delete .snapper directory, as it contains hard links to your system files ... now I know 😉 ). Both installations behaved the same with Dropbox.
I use Btrfs for root and XFS for home (where Dropbox app and sync folder is located). Both are part of LVM which is encrypted by Luks. Not sure if this can make any difference.
Maybe something in my sync directory causing corruption of DP index DB (although there is nothing much extraordinary - just regular files, documents, some binaries...)?

[adreampuppet]

For what it's worth, I'm experiencing this issue on MX-17 configured as a live-usb with persistence. At every boot-up I'm asked to sign-in, and Dropbox indexes for half an hour or so. MX-17 utilizes XFCE and is based on Debian 9. I've re-installed Dropbox multiple times, purged the config files, tried moving the Dropbox folder to a new location, and clicked the "autostart" button on the Dropbox gui -- but I'm disconnected with each boot.

My production machines run Manjaro (Arch-based) with various desktop environments, and Dropbox runs perfectly on all of them.

[Leeon]

An interesting finding - at work using ethernet cable I do not suffer Dropbox disconnections (or at least I am not aware - I'll keep an eye on that).
However at home using WiFi, it starts couple of seconds after plasma desktop is up and mostly when it goes up dropbox is already started and in most cases causing request to reconnect (and 30min of reindexing) the account.
Might anyone confirm, just by disabling some known wifi and reboot, so network is not accessible at the start, but NetworkManager service running?

[adreampuppet]

Hello Leeon,

I just got a chance to boot into the MX-17 live-usb.  I normally run ethernet for the faster and more reliable speed, so I unhooked the cable, disabled wifi, and rebooted.  Dropbox gives a warning that I"m not connected to the internet.  As soon as I started wifi, a browser opened and I had to sign in to Dropbox to reconnect again.  So, for me at least, it doesn't matter whether I'm getting internet through wired or wireless sources.

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