Smart sync just started downloading everything to local

[Taylor B.7]

I have a folder with 8,000 large files. While I was working (but nowhere near the folder nor the files contained therein) I suddenly started getting notifications of "Smart Sync Download" and that all the files were "Syncing and Opening"

I have not accessed any of these files, although it's acting as if I had manually clicked each one, or perhaps changed the status to "Local file"

Changing the root folder to "online only" is not stopping the process.

[Norah]

Hi Taylor B.7, welcome aboard to Dropbox Community!

As a starters, we need to double check what status icon do you see on your files. Online-only should be a cloud icon, or the green tick which means it’s synced locally. 

A screenshot would be very helpful to have a clear image of the current situation.

Thanks in advance for your reply!

[Taylor B.7]

I paused syncing while it was doing this because I did not have the space to locally sync all these files. As I was waiting for a response, I finished up my work day.

For a few minutes, I was getting "Smart Sync Download Failed" (not 100% sure of phrasing but that was the gist) messages as files failed to locally sync due to the paused status.

I shut down my computer for the night. When I rebooted just now, it is no longer paused, but simply says "up to date" (whereas yesterday it said something about syncing 8,000 files).

The folders were a mix - most were still gray, but the few subfolders containing files that had synced locally had the green tick. I updated the root folder to "cloud-only" and they are now all "online only" and file properties reveal that while the size is 169GB the "size on disk" is back down to where it would be expected for online only - 32mb.

I will respond if this strange behavior starts again. I am wondering if some sort of indexing happened in the background of Windows to trigger this. These were mostly video clips, so maybe some process akin to "let us helpfully identify all your media folders, no need to ask first, we'll just do it!" tricked dropbox into thinking the files were being opened and needed to be downloaded locally.

Hopefully this behavior will be hard to reproduce 😉

[Norah]

Hi Taylor B.7, thanks for getting back to us!

As the issue has been resolved, the reasons on why you were experiencing this issue could be many, however, keep us updated if anything further comes up. 

Have a great week ahead!

[Taylor B.7]

You say "the reasons on why you were experiencing this issue could be many" - just curious as to what some of those reasons might be?

[Norah · Accepted solution]

Hey Taylor B, thanks for taking the time to write back in!

In cases where you see files downloaded from Dropbox to your computer that were previously online-only,  and you didn’t open or change the files, this could be caused by another application. Some applications need to look at your files to work, and that makes Dropbox download the files.

Please take a look at our article here for more details on why you are experiencing this issue.

Let me know if this helps or if you have any further questions!

[sally_p]

Thanks, Norah, glad to read your response, as I am experiencing this same issue, constantly. Although I had already researched this issue and read the support article (so please don't offer it as a solution), I'm pleased to be connected to someone who may know more than what the article states, and be able to offer some valuable suggestions/fixes.

When saving a new file to an "Online Only" folder, every file in that folder starts downloading, and the alert says they are also trying to open. I can understand that if I opened an InDesign file that was searching for its placed images, and they all downloaded. That makes sense and is an expected behaviour. But, just saving a new file to an "Online Only" folder should not cause Dropbox to download everything else in the folder, and try to open those files.

So this seems like a DB glitch to me, not a native application causing the behaviour. 

Please let us know how to resolve this issue.

Cheers!

P.S. Are you a DB employee or a helpful sort generously offering your time and knowledge? (Not that DB employees aren't helpful sorts as well.) Either way... many thanks.

[Sanchez]

Hey @sally_p, welcome to our community! 

If you’re running a fully updated and stable operating system, the latest stable version of our app (47.4.74), you’re sure that there isn’t another app accessing these files, and that you don’t have any referenced files/folders in your Dropbox (shortcuts to content that actually resides outside of the Dropbox folder), then I would like to put you in touch with our support team for investigation of this issue. 

You can either write in here, or I can initiate a ticket for you, using the email address associated with your forum profile. Let me know! 

By the way, @Norah and I are Dropbox employees
 

Cheers