Dropbox won't get passed 'starting'

[murphail]

I had dropbox working properly on my C: drive for 2-years, but that drive is very small and I wanted to move it to my 2 TB D: drive. 

Since I had so many files, dropbox would crash when I attempted to 'move' it to the D: drive, so I deleted everything and started over with a fresh install on the D: drive.

No errors and all my folders / most of the files seemed to transfer over, I was giving it time to transfer but eventually it stopped saying 'indexing' and 'synching' and won't get past 'starting'.

Yesterday, I ran an 'advanced install' to try to restart it - same result.

Any suggestions? I'm not getting any errors, running Windows 10 and dropbox version 77.4.131

[Daphne]

Hey there @murphail,

As a first step, can you check if you have any antivirus, firewall or security software that may be blocking the Dropbox desktop app? You'll need to ensure that these applications have Dropbox whitelisted.

Otherwise, from what you mentioned, you may be experiencing slow start up of the desktop app due to a large number of files within your Dropbox account. There can be a decline in the performance of the desktop app after it reaches the soft limit of around 300,000 files. However this also depends on your OS and its specifications.

To lessen the burden on the desktop app you can use selective sync to selectively remove select folders from syncing to your desktop. 

I hope this helps - Thanks!

[murphail]

Thank you very much for your response!

I do have anti-virus software, unfortunately it's password protected (that I don't have) so I'm unable to whitelist or even uninstall.

I do have 900,000 files in my dropbox and was using selective sync; however, it could still be overwhelming it. I reperformed the 'advanced reinstall' and started my selective sync with only one folder, it was successful and I'm currently progressing through one folder at a time.

Hoping it continues! Now to search on these selective sync conflicts ...

[Daphne]

Hey @murphail,

I'm glad to hear that an advanced reinstall helped with getting things running again!

If you're getting selective sync conflicts occuring, this is due to having a folder selectively synced (not sycing to the computer) and then another folder with the same name is placed in the same location as the original. When you choose to sync the folder from the selective sync settings, this will result in the selective sync conflict.

If you're having issues with this then I'd recommend checking out our Help Center article here on selective sync conflicts and how to resolve them.

Let me know how it goes - Thanks!

[murphail · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I reinstalled Dropbox to its original location, so as I understand it there shouldn't be selective sync conflicts. However, I was able to prevent them by deleting the original dropbox folders prior to resyncing. I did this one-by-one to prevent any overload. 

All fixed now, thank you for your help!

[Daphne]

Hey @murphail,

I'm glad to hear that everything is working and set up as it should be!

If you have any other questions then you know where to find us. 

Have a great day - Thanks!