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dropbox filestatus unwatched for all files in Dropbox directory
Ubuntu 19.10 Dropbox daemon version: 93.4.273 Dropbox command-line interface version: 2020.03.04
Dropbox is keeping up to date -- up and down. But file status reports as unwatched
$ /home/stephen/Dropbox: dropbox filestatus .dropbox: unwatched .dropbox.cache: unwatched .metadata: unwatched 20190904_173012.jpg: unwatched 20190904_173020.jpg: unwatched 20190904_173025.jpg: unwatched ... and so on for all files/folders in directory
I have restarted Dropbox, restarted device...
What's up?
Hi Stephen B.25,
In you particular case symlink or binding - doesn't matter. The issue comes from the fact that the Dropbox daemon make a literal comparison between queried path and watched files/folders path, not inode comparison! That's why, even the same, a file could be shown with different status because beginning of the path is different. :nerd:
If you want to, can try mount a partition, you use in your home and move Dropbox folder there, if is more convenient for you. Be very careful, in such move! Take care not to left Dropbox application without available actual Dropbox folder place, even for a moment; this can lead to data loss!
Good luck.
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At the beginning, is Dropbox application running? :thinking:
What is the result from:
dropbox status
:wink: Try:
dropbox start
Dropbox status is "Up to date"
System restarted. Dropbox restarted. No change.
Hi Stephen B.25,
What's the result from:
cat ~/.dropbox/info.json; echo
Is the resulting Dropbox folder matching?
<SSH>stephen@acer:~/Dropbox$ cat ~/.dropbox/info.json;echo {"personal": {"path": "/mnt/3T/acer.dropbox/Dropbox", "host": 61868442032, "is_team": false, "subscription_type": "Pro"}}/mnt/3T is the second HDD in the system. System is a SSD with limited space.
/mnt/3T/acer.dropbox/Dropbox is then bind mounted to /home/stephen
Aha... And what's the result from:
cd /mnt/3T/acer.dropbox/Dropbox dropbox filestatus
Meanwhile, ".dropbox.cache" is permanently unwatched. This is hardcoded in the Dropbox application. You can't change this! Actually you can, but on next launch, the application will force the ignoraning again, this is the application local cache.
Ah! The filestatus from the original directory /mnt/3T/acer.dropbox/Dropbox reports 'up to date' -- as expected.
So ... good enough.
Would it be better to symlink rather than bind mount?
ln -sf /mnt/3T/acer.dropbox/Dropbox /home/stephen
I may have already tried that because that would be my first try. The bind would not be the first try but perhaps I had some other issue at the time I was installing.
Hi Stephen B.25,
In you particular case symlink or binding - doesn't matter. The issue comes from the fact that the Dropbox daemon make a literal comparison between queried path and watched files/folders path, not inode comparison! That's why, even the same, a file could be shown with different status because beginning of the path is different. :nerd:
If you want to, can try mount a partition, you use in your home and move Dropbox folder there, if is more convenient for you. Be very careful, in such move! Take care not to left Dropbox application without available actual Dropbox folder place, even for a moment; this can lead to data loss!
Good luck.
I'm okay with things as they are so I'll just leave it now that I understand.
Thanks for your help.
Hey, Ive been struggling with this for a few days. I think I finally found the solution,
In my case, this is what fixed the problem.
1. Quit Dropbox completely
2. manually run dropbox inside a terminal : ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd
3. when running it like this, you can see some additional errors. in my case it said, my dropbox had so many files, i was exceeding the inotify watch limit, and even gave me the exact command I needed to run to increase this limit: echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p
4. Restart dropbox
Hi jbiskofski,
All right, since you have find out a solution working for you. Symptoms in your case are slightly different, for sure. 🧐 Your case is different, definitely, so don't mess them!
Good luck! 😉
