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Smart Sync and Quick Preview on Mac

Smart Sync and Quick Preview on Mac

Andrew-RFLB
Helpful | Level 5
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Smart Sync causes my quick preview function (spacebar) to not function properly on my Mac. I can't preview thumbnails, or quick preview any videos or photos. Any ideas why this happens?

147 Replies 147

Jane
Dropbox Staff
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Hey @wheywood, as I'm currently gathering all relevant reports & re-directing them to our specialized team members, I’ve just sent you a brief message back on my end, in order to look into that a bit more closely. Please have a look at your inbox whenever you have some spare time & we’ll take it from there! 

 


Jane
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support

 

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sam011989
Helpful | Level 5
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Well, here we are at the end of June. A whole year since this problem was originaly reported and it's still an issue.  This is absolutely pathetic. If I didnt already have so much backed up on your servers I would be bailing out right now and going somewhere else.  

1) Stop lying, this is not a "solved" issue. Unmark it as such. If you cant, then you should definitely develop that capability to prevent false advertising.

2) After enabling smart sync as part of your upgrade I immediatley lost ability to quick look at files. Additionally, my mac's backup jumped from a typical 1-1.5GB backup to a whopping 576GB backup. WTF!? 

3) After numerous reboots, qlmanage-r terminal commands, uninstalls and anything else you could imagine I couldnt get quicklook back. 

4) I finally was able to disable smart sync (which was a pain in the ass to find). After a reboot, quicklook is back. Thanks to absolutley no help from Bret, the support individual I spoke to on chat online. Through his bad english I could see he had zero comprehension on how my mac worked, so how am I supposed to get support from someone who has no idea how my computer runs to begin with? He also had no idea how to solve the issue and eventually, once he understood my issue, practically just said "just email us" WITH NO HELP WHATSOEVER.

You guys are pathetic. I'm sorry, but no bug should take a year to be resolved, and even then customer support shouldnt be clueless about the issue after it's been around for a whole year.  So now my plan (which they just raised the price of) includes smart sync, which disables a more important feaure on my mac so I cant even use it. Awesome! I always loved paying for features I can't use!

Jane
Dropbox Staff
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Hey @sam011989, sorry to hear that you’re feeling this way; let me follow-up on that a bit closer!  
 
Kindly note that I recently discussed that with a team specialist & they had mentioned that they were working to improve the behavior mentioned on this thread, however it’s my understanding that you’ve now disabled Smart Sync thus reverting all your files to Local as a temporary solution. While it would be worth examining how you determined that this was attributed to Dropbox & what were the steps you followed along the way, please note that I’ve located your open support request on our system & I’ve now prioritized that internally. 
 
Since I could see that your ongoing discussion is still active, I’d like to ask you to wait for my colleague’s next update if possible, as they have a clear view of the context surrounding the case. I understand that the support interaction hasn’t brought about an ideal result so far, however it would be best if we gathered all relevant details within the same email chain. Nonetheless, if my coworker can’t reach a solid resolution on this matter, they’ll submit your inquiry to a higher-level technician for further evaluation & review. 
 
Let me know if you need further assistance in any way & I’ll make sure to check back with you asap. Thanks again! 

 


Jane
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support

 

Heart Did this post help you? If so please give it a Like below. 
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Questions asked in the community will likely receive an answer within 4 hours!)

annienar
Helpful | Level 6
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I find this answer from Jane, so annoying, "how you determined that this was attributed to Dropbox & what were the steps you followed along the way" it's been said here, again and again.

 

1. The Problem didn't exist before smart sync, once I activated the feature this issue started happening.

2. The Problem dissapeared once I disabled smart sync, have been using dropbox since then, just not the "smart sync" function. 

 

There's a lot of "relevant information and details" in this thread 14 pages of details. The support interaction has had nothing of support about it. It's been you guys saying this is a problem with the OS, not caused by smart sync, not related to dropbox at all. We are annoyed and uncool about this situation because it has been handled poorly to say the least.

sam011989
Helpful | Level 5
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@Jane Your response is insulting. 

How have you NOT attributed this to dropbox yet? There are dozens of posts around the internet of people not having this issue until enabling smart sync. I made absolutley 0 changes to my system except enabling smart sync and then the probelm started. How in the world could you possibly push that off as anything else? And then it is furter confirmed after I disabled smart sync that the problem went away. Stop blaming something else and just accept the fact you guys screwed up, and have been screwing around on this issue for the past year. I've got degrees in computer engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science. I have a better understanding of how software and technology works probably better than most of your support team. So dont talk to me like I dont know what the hell I'm referring to or like I dont know how to troubleshoot and diagnose an issue. 

I also have absolutely zero confidence in your colleague. He responded to me saying the same exact thing you said a year ago on this forum, "However for the time been I am afraid that you will need to make the files local to be able to preview". HE DOESNT UNDERSTAND MY ISSUE EVEN AFTER I CLEARLY EXPLAINED TO HIM THIS WAS ON EVERY FILE ON MY COMPUTER EVEN OUTSIDE OF DROPBOX! He also doesn't understand how a Mac system works since he had zero idea what I meant by quicklook and preview. I dont want him working my case anymore, move me to someone else who actually knows how a mac works. 

User4759
Helpful | Level 6
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Jane has to be a bot. It's just the same gaslighting in every single post, and it boils down to what tech support has been telling customers they don't care about for decades: hmm, dunno, must be your other software/your hardware/your stupidity. Not our fault! Thanks for the money, sucker!

I "solved" this problem by quitting Dropbox and going back to relying on my Mac hard drive with physical and cloud backups, and archiving old files onto a NAS server which also gets a cloud backup.

Dropbox hasn't gotten a penny from me in more than a year (this issue is actually several years old). It's very clear to me that Dropbox's leadership has actually decided they just don't care about losing Mac customers because there aren't enough of us and sorting out why their product doesn't work for us isn't cost-effective. So they just send this bot in to perform "tech support theater" in which somehow we can never quite give "her" enough information to convince "her" it's anything Dropbox should bother looking into.

I don't pay to be treated that way. And Dropbox obviously didn't care that I left.

gleake
Helpful | Level 6
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Just to reiterate what I said in a previous post. Dropbox is well aware of exactly what the problem is. There is no need to waste your time emailing back and forth or screensharing to describe the problem.

That said, they actually do have a solution. Not a very great one (which is probably why they don't roll it out to all users.) But after emailing back and forth with them and explaining my problem and calling out their insincerity, I noticed that the problem was suddenly solved on my account and that of my coworker's. Our dropbox will now show previews for images even when they are in the cloud only.

The problem is, it doesn't perform very well. It takes a really long time to download a lower resolution image and desplay the preview. But it does work. More importantly, it no longer disables quick look for the rest of my files that ARE downloaded.

My guess is that this isn't a solution they can send out to everyone, for some reason or another. But it does seem that if you give them enough greif, they might enable this feature on your account.

Take a look at this screenshot to see exactly how this works.

Jane
Dropbox Staff
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I understand @sam011989 & for that reason I’ve made sure to touch-base with you on your existing ticket & I’ve now submitted that for review to a higher-level technician in form of a question, so that you further discuss the issue at hand with them. 
 
I hope that this helps! 

 


Jane
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support

 

Heart Did this post help you? If so please give it a Like below. 
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Questions asked in the community will likely receive an answer within 4 hours!)

sam011989
Helpful | Level 5
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Yes I have already received a reply from original guy (who still had zero help other than “yup it’s a problem but you still need to make files local”) and a reply from someone else who immediately sent me a list of items to troubleshoot. Right now I’m waiting for him to reply on if he still wants me to troubleshoot even though I can easily remove the issue by disabling smart sync.

Jane
Dropbox Staff
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Thanks for circling back to me on this matter @sam011989 as I can see that your open ticket has now reached our specialized colleague’s inbox & you’re discussing your options there, then it would be best to further enquire on that correspondence on any progress. Thanks again for taking the time to work on that with our team!

 


Jane
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support

 

Heart Did this post help you? If so please give it a Like below. 
:white_check_mark: Did this post fix your issue/answer your question? If so please press the 'Accept as Best Answer' button to help others find it.
:arrows_counterclockwise: Still stuck? Ask me a question! (
Questions asked in the community will likely receive an answer within 4 hours!)

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