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Anyone else experiencing files and folders being deleted from Dropbox without human intervention?
I know that I'm going to get the stock Dropbox answer here that it can't happen, but I can explicitly tell you it does.
What I saw was random deletions of over 10,000 files/folders in the space of less than 33 seconds. Even with the best will in the world - not to mention the fastest fingers - this just isn't possible. Especially considering that some complete folders, and in some cases just files within folders, disappeared at 13:30 BST yesterday, all within 33 seconds (according to the event log).
The kicker is that the only person who has access to these files/folders is me - and I know for sure that I didn't delete them.
I guess there may be 2 explanations:
1) I entered a fugue state and decided to delete all my work on a number of cases
2) Something is happening with the Dropbox software that either Dropbox don't know about or can't fix
Been trying to get Dropbox support to assist, but got the usual default customer service answer of "it's not us it's you". Well, I know it's not me - so by extension it must be the software!
Next step is to request a refund of my yearly plan as I cannot have something that intervenes in my workflow like this and then wastes half a day (and counting) trying to figure out what's missing. I guess the only silver lining is that I have a Dropbox business account, so files are kept forever. Small benefit, but a good one at this stage.
So, after my long winded moan above, anyone have a resolution to stop Dropbox from deleting things from my folders? Or is it just time to move on to another provider?
Finally, don't let anyone from Dropbox tell you differently (especially the "Super Users") as I can categorically say it happens. They'll tell you it can't, but I know for a fact that it can.
Best of luck and hoping you don't fall foul of the same problems I've had.
Just got a nice message from some minion at dropbox, telling me "not to worry"...
Ummm...I pay them money to keep my data backed up and secure and their system is clearly not doing its job -- either by internal fault or security breach.
I will be leaving dropbox as soon as I can find an effective replacement
@currentcapital wrote:
That sounds to me like a hack, but not being a computer tech, I'd be hesitant to confirm it. Usual advice that I've received is to change the passwords, which I know doesn't help right now but could do in the future.
With regards to getting the files restored, hopefully you're able to do so via the console but if not, then ask on the support site to have the whole events restored. Be aware that it will take them ages to reply and to action, but this is really the only way.
Best of luck!
K.
@currentcapital wrote:
That sounds to me like a hack, but not being a computer tech, I'd be hesitant to confirm it. Usual advice that I've received is to change the passwords, which I know doesn't help right now but could do in the future.
With regards to getting the files restored, hopefully you're able to do so via the console but if not, then ask on the support site to have the whole events restored. Be aware that it will take them ages to reply and to action, but this is really the only way.
Best of luck!
K.
Update my earlier post...
DB answered to me... seems DB does support external drive. just keep it plugged at all times... dont move the usb cable with your mouse or anything like that??? othervise it is possible that the client sees the files missing and starts deleting them.
This seems like a bug to me... Even amateur programmer like me could see multible ways around this.
like check if the DB folder exists before syncing or if DB folder disapears in middle of sync recover the deleted data or give error warning. Since we paid for the space why not keep the deleted data there on the free space as long as the paid 1TB is full not just 30 days. I and many others use external drives because they can be unblugged, My laptop has SSD that has only limited amount of space so external drive is the most convenient. place to keep most of my data.
Anyways I learned my lesson and we are moving to other servise provider
I have computers on syncing on both Windows 10 and Mac Sierra computers. Mid-day yesterday, about 8,000 files and directories were deleted in a single dropbox event. The files appear to have been deleted in alphabetical order over the course of a few minutes. I know it was not the result of human interaction because the deletes took place across hundreds of directories. Some files and folders in these directories were deleted and others were left untouched. Moreover, I was out of the office when the event happened. All the deletes appear as a single event in dropbox.
On my Windows 10 computer, I noticed the Dropbox app was not running (perhaps had crashed) and had not been running for a while, probably around 12 hours). I restarted the app manually probably an hour before the mass random file deletion took place.
This type of random deletion cannot be attributed to human error so it must be a bug. Where do I report bugs?
Is there a way to undo an event in dropbox? If not, how do I get my files restored in an efficient manner? It would take days to manually restore using the links in the event. I can't do a bulk restore because then I would still need to sift through my restored files and redelete thousands of files.
It isnt a bug - it isnt possible to delete files on Dropbox without SOME sort of interaction from a computer or a person. You can go to a file that was deleted via www.dropbox.com/home , click on 'Show Deleted files' and then one of them thats deleted and look at the previous versions. That shows which devices/users instigated the delete command.
Is your Dropbox on an external or network drive? Or, does it contain junctions/symlinks? Thats what usually causes these.
And you can request a rollback at https://help.dropbox.com/delete-restore/recover-deleted-files-folders
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This has been happing to 100's of people Mark this is a Dropbox problem not a user problem. Dropbox need too address this issue now before 100's of people leave for a better sulotion.
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I have just lost 200 powerpoints - that has taken half a lifetime to build up. They were just randomly deleted last week - and I run just a simple imac. There is clearly something very wrong at Dropbox at the moment. I am going back to a good old hard disk
The same thing happened to me. Many files and folders deleted, then restored incompletely and randomly. I did not delete these files. Some have been duplicated, some deleted completely. It has happened in both shared and unshared folders. This is not a syncing issue. I have used Dropbox for years and nothing like this has ever happened. Dropbox tech support is very unhelpful so far.
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