Dropbox Sync Windows 10 Not Working Anymore

[AnnoyedRustProgrammer]

For about half I year I have persistent issues relating to dropbox trying to sync between 20k and 100k files (the total size of the latter is currently estimated to be about 4mb, which doesn't even make sense seeing that the block size of NTFS is 4kb...so something is broken). This number does not go down. No changes get synced once in this state; neither up nor down nor lan-sync.

Logging out & deleting the whole folder and any remaining dropbox cache files results in it working again after a reinstall.

But it breaks again quite quickly afterward.

I think compiling rust projects does accelerate the breaking. Maybe something to do with all the auxiliary files cargo produces.

It would be really nice to see a list of all the files dropbox is trying to sync, I could not figure out how. Also some of the files have hash-based names which might result in too long file names. But...like I said downloading all the files again makes everything work for a few hours. Also selectively syncing them to not be synced does not result in an improvement even after restarting the system. Is it possible that having non-conforming names online only also causes my issue? And having it local only too?

Generally the changes made to the selective-sync seem to propagate quite slowly, which is quite annoying when trying to figure out which exact files are causing this headache.

I tried for days now to pin down the issue but couldn't quite. I do not have any sync issues reported by the dropbox client. I think I saw a script once that checks recursively for file-name issues? Can't find it right now, but a link to that would be greatly appreciated.

I find it kind of ironic that the syncing has worked perfectly on my linux machine for the last 5 years of my premium membership yet has some weird issues on windows. Really quite the reversal of the usual software experience. 

[Walter · Accepted solution]

Hey @AnnoyedRustProgrammer, sorry to hear you're having issues with this and thanks for the detailed report.

Could you please let me know the version of the desktop app installed on your computer?

Also, have you considered setting the files you mentioned to be ignored via the desktop app?

Let me know what you find and we'll take it from there.

[AnnoyedRustProgrammer]

The version number is v151.4.4304 (the problem still persisted when not ignoring the files).
When ignoring the files everything works as intended though, thus why I have forgotten to answer for this long.

[Walter]

I'm glad to hear that ignoring those files did the trick for you @AnnoyedRustProgrammer

If you'd like to keep troubleshooting, could you clarify if the issue you originally reported is with slow syncing or if syncing was stuck? 

A screenshot of the desktop app's status as shown when having the issue would be very helpful too.