(OS X) Dropbox consuming a lot of CPU whenever any file or folder is changed anywhere

[Dave H.]

On my OS X 10.9.5 system I'm seeing Dropbox consume CPU whenever anything on the file system changes, regardless of whether the changed files or folders are in the Dropbox synced folders. The CPU usage is proportionate to the rate of file system changes.

When I'm running an installer that takes a long time and has high disk activity (e.g. installing a documenation update in XCode), then the Dropbox CPU usage goes through the roof and I see the Dropbox sync status change from 'up to date' to 'indexing'. For less sustained activities with less intensive file system changes, I see Dropbox just popup briefly in the list of top CPU consumers -- but it shouldn't be showing up at all (or certainly not at double digit CPU use and not for the duration of the file system activity.

My guess is that Dropbox is simply listening for file system events and reacting to each one as if it might be change in a synced file or folder. It should be ignoring fsevents that are for items outside the Dropbox folders -- but it seems not to be the case. 😞 😞

I'm on 3.0.3, but have been seeing this problem since the 2.* days.

--
Dave Hein

[Chris C.62]

I've had this same problem with Dropbox since 2014--and after being ignored by Dropbox tech help, I finally got a reply only when I flashed by daytime job description and business title. I'm running OS X 10.7.5 (scared to upgrade for fear so many more programs will "break"--but that's another issue).

Solution in early 2015 was to downgrade to Dropbox 3.10.11...but for some other reason the "Max-out CPU" issue has returned. All the behavior you all have described fits my machine, a Macbook Air, 256GB with Core i7. So the machine has plenty of horsepower.

I was so frustrated at Dropbox last year..and my paid, Premium account...that I swore I'd find another cloud service. Looks like it's time to make good on my vow.

Astounding that so many Mac users could complain about the same problem with no response from Dropbox. 

UPDATE 12/2/15:

I received a response from the Dropbox team (and I suppose so did others on this thread) which was very apologetic and suggest a number of mitigation strategies. I hope they'll post their response publicly.

However--I spent several hours recently meticulously deleting symbolic links. This was something this forum (or another one...I checked so many!) had requested. I used Terminal with the find -l command (when pointed at the proper volume/directory)

find . -type l

I found hundreds of links, mostly in Pictures folders. Used Pathfinder to delete 'em and also Finder to look at the source. I even used Spotlight to verify that a version of the original (same file name) existed elsewhere.

Anyway...bottom line is I eliminated maybe >85% of the symbolic links in the Dropbox folder and the "100% CPU" problem seems to have died down. Will watch and advise here.

[Ed]

Hi everyone,

We are really sorry to hear about your issues and that we didn’t catch this thread earlier.

Diagnosing CPU usage is tricky because even if all your issues seem similar they’re actually different and probably linked to your particular set up.

There are a few known cases where Dropbox was responsible for high CPU or memory usage:

• When we rolled out a new feature, called File Identifiers, back in the end of 2014. @Dave, this could be what you were hitting at that time.
• Edge cases with our features like Badge

Apart from that the Dropbox client shouldn’t use a high percentage of your computer’s performance, especially when not syncing files. 

We monitor CPU and memory usage really closely and each time there’s a spike (a lot of people suddenly consuming more CPU than usual) we investigate thoroughly to see what the root cause could be and fix this. We take this very seriously.

This is why, unless you fall into the above-mentioned explanations,  your problem is very likely  to be linked to external factors conflicting with Dropbox.

Here a non-exhaustive list of factors that could explain your issues:

1. Symlinks pointing outside of the Dropbox folder
2. Files in your Dropbox folder with permission incorrectly set (the app will endlessly try to sync them) 
3. Dropbox folder installed on NAS
4. Dropbox folders installed on drive with a file system that doesn’t support extended attributes
5. A lot of files (performance starts to decrease after 300k files)
6. Conflicting third party app (an app accesses your files and modifies them, then Dropbox syncs the change, then the app accesses the files again, etc… this is usually syncing apps, backing up apps, anti-viruses and/or security softwares)
7. A huge sync e.g. if you suddenly upload 100k files, Dropbox will use more CPU than usual to perform this action

If your set up falls into one of these situations, here are the respective solutions:

1. Remove the symlinks
2. Move Dropbox to another drive if possible or stop using Dropbox on the NAS, we do not support Network Share file system
3. Move Dropbox to another drive or format your drive with a file system supporting extended attributes
4. Use selective sync to reduce the number of files locally while keeping all your files in your Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/help/175
5. Try disabling any potential conflicting app one by one until you identified the one causing the issue
6. Upload files in smaller batches, or temporarily reduce the priority of the dropbox process to limit resource usage of Dropbox like this:

    Linux: http://www.nixtutor.com/linux/changing-priority-on-linux-processes

    Windows: http://www.wikihow.com/Change-Process-Priorities-in-Windows-Task-Manager

    Mac: http://bencane.com/2013/09/09/setting-process-cpu-priority-with-nice-and-renice

If none of your set up falls into those categories or if even after trying the above, Dropbox is still using too much CPU, I’d recommend writing into support here

www.dropbox.com/support mentioning this forum thread and what you tried to solve the issue.

Our support engineers will look at your computer logs precisely and should be able to help (I can’t do that on this Forum thread as this is personal information we cannot share publicly)

I hope this helps!

[Diello A.]

It takes 100% processing all the time. I barely can't use my computer when Dropbox is open. 

Sincerely, I don't think Dropbox staff is doing anything to fix this issue. I'm considering migrating to another Cloud Service.

When Google Drive is syncing, it doesn't drain my CPU like Dropbox does.

Also, Dropbox is constantly draining my Macbook battery enegy.

[Laureline]

Hi Diello,

Did you followed the advice that Ed sent earlier?

There can be very different causes for a CPU issue.

If you did, I would recommend you to write to the support team here:

https://www.dropbox.com/support

They will be more than happy to look into your issue, and try to find a reason why Dropbox is using so much CPU on your computer 🙂

[Gordon Q.]

I have the same kind of issue.  As soon as Dropbox starts syncing, whether it be one file or 100, my iMac bogs down and my disk starts howling.  It's like Dropbox is the Soup Nazi of apps – "No processing for you!"  It feels like a scheduler problem to me.  I wish Apple or Dropbox would give me the ability to limit Dropbox to a capped slice of processor and disk usage.  Dropbox could use idle resources when available, but when other functions need resources, Dropbox is backed off to it's cap.  You know, state of the art 1970s computing.  

[John H.7]

Ed, can you please briefly explain what is meant by "Symlinks pointing outside of the Dropbox folder" and perhaps less briefly explain how you would go about fixing this condition and stopping it from re-occurring?

[Ed]

Means paths that are pointing to folders living outside your Dropbox folder.

For more details: https://www.dropbox.com/help/9199

Symlinks

Because symlinks refer to locations outside of the Dropbox folder, the Dropbox desktop app could get stuck attempting to access them.

Determine if symlinks are the cause with these steps:

For OS X computers

1. Open your Terminal app located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.
2. Copy and paste the command line below and press Enter on your keyboard.

find ~/Dropbox -type l -exec ls -lah {} \;

For Windows computers

1. Press the Windows + R keys (at the same time) on your keyboard.
2. Type "cmd" and press Enter on your keyboard to open the command prompt.
3. Copy and paste the command line below and press Enter on your keyboard.

dir "%HOMEPATH%\Dropbox" /a:l /s

By default, the Dropbox folder is located in ~/Dropbox. If you have a Dropbox Business account, the default location for the business Dropbox folder is~/Dropbox (Your team name). To search the business Dropbox folder you should replace ~/Dropbox with the full pathway to the Dropbox folder within quotation marks. You should do the same if you moved the Dropbox folder to a location other than the default location. See the follwing example pathway:

 find "users/Michel/Documents/Dropbox (Enterprise)" -type l -exec ls

[John H.7]

Ed,

Your last command needs this on the end:

-lah {} \;

But anyway finds nothing even if I make shortcuts/aliases to files/folders lying outside the Dropbox folder.

Please advise.

[Luwe S.]

Dropbox is still using too much cpu imho. Narrowing down the folders a bit with selective sync helps, but does not solve the problem. The selective sync feature is also a bit immature. Please integrate some feature like a custom ignore list for reoccuring folders that you want dropbox to ignore by default

to name a few, for me the following can and should be always ignored by dropbox

node_modules
typo3_src
typo3
cache
idea

[Diello A.]

I followed all the suggestions left here by Dropbox Staff and none of them will solve my problem. 

Dropbox client is like a virus. Whenever it's active, it will drain all my CPU and RAM and won't let me do anything else in my computer.

It means that if I want to do something productive in my computer, I have to close Dropbox completely (which is senseless, since I want to keep my folders in sync).

I don't think Dropbox staff will do anything to solve this problem. They don't seem to be really interested in making their customers happy.

I'm shocked how Google Drive can do the exact same thing without ruining my computer.