About Robio

I'm with you! I use Dropbox to help manage files on the computers of non-tech-savvy older relatives, and locking those files is was the only way I've managed to keep them from accidentally(?) moving and editing things they shouldn't. Not clear on why Dropbox now says "to keep a consistent structure and to reflect the permissions content has in your Dropbox account, the desktop app may prevent local file locking," when this wasn't the case until recently, and (as far as I can tell) Dropbox's competitors don't have this problem. ... View more

Adding anothter "me too" to the chorus. Exactly as shown in OP's video. I know for a fact that I was able to lock files last April because I was able to lock all my tax-related documents after finishing my taxes. I'm now working on this year's tax preparation, and I'm not able to lock the same documents that in last year's files are locked. So something has changed in how the Dropbox interacts with the finder between 2019-04 and 2020-01. It also looks like Dropbox has unlocked all previously locked documents, and unlocks any locked documents moved or copied into Dropbox. This violates user's choice, and it's not necessary for Dropbox to be able to back up or share documents. Locking only prevents them from being renamed, rewritten, moved or thrown away. FYI, Google Drive and OneDrive don't have any trouble working with locked files. ... View more

FYI, I'm still on El Capitan, and the person I share these folders with is on Sierra. And for me it just...happened. One day, my partner was seeing dead aliases. BTW, I don't know why this thread is marked "solved." I don't remember doing that. Maybe I did it because Dropbox Support and I took the conversation offline. In the email convo I'm having with them, they do say they're aware of the issue and are working on it. They also suggested a possible workaround: For broken file alias like "1.txt alias", in terminal run: xattr -wx com.apple.FinderInfo "61 6C 69 73 4D 41 43 53 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00" /path/to/1.txt\ alias For broken directory alias "folder1 alias", in terminal run: xattr -wx com.apple.FinderInfo "66 64 72 70 4D 41 43 53 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00" /path/to/folder1\ alias For the above, you would just need to update the filename or folder name to match your situation. I have no tried this myself because even if it works, our shared folders conain dozens of aliases, and it would be several hours of work to jerry-rig all of them with this hack. Plus, I kinda think if my partner did this to fix the alises on his computer, it would subsequently break them on mine — which would actually be a much worse problem for us. Hope they find a solution soon. Dropbox is the only cloud software I've found that syncs aliases with relative paths, rather than absolute, and it's the main reason we chose Dropbox for our project. ... View more

The one thing that has not yet been made clear to me by Dropbox support is whether or not this is now expected behavior. No one has said one way or another whether Dropbox expects synced Mac aliases to use relative paths... >alias /users/rob/Dropbox/2019 Budget.xlsx alias >points to target users/rob/Dropbox/Budgets/2019 Budget.xlsx on ROB's computer >but points to target users/joe/Dropbox/Budgets/2019 Budget.xlsx  on JOE's computer ...which is what was happening a few months ago... ...or if Dropbox has been changed so that now the alias follows absolute paths (i.e., if the path includes /users/rob/, it won't work on Joe's computer. They've asked me to unlink/relink my Dropbox "to ensure it's working correctly" but first I need to know which of the two behaviors they consider correct.   In the mean time, I've found a workaround: Each user creates their own aliases locally. It's far less convienient because User A has to tell User B where to find everything they might want to alias. But it's better than having to hunt. ... View more

That would be fine, Walter. But Let me take one more shot at this too. Here's an example. Joe & I share a folder via Dropbox: User/Rob/Dropbox/Rob & Joe Shared/ Inside that folder are... User/Rob/Dropbox/Rob & Joe Shared/Cars/Honda/ and User/Rob/Dropbox/Rob & Joe Shared/Insurance/Auto/   Inside each of these folders, I have created aliases to the other: User/Rob/Dropbox/Rob & Joe Shared/Cars/Honda/Auto Insurance alias and User/Rob/Dropbox/Rob & Joe Shared/Insurance/Auto/Honda Alias   When I first created these aliases (maybe a year ago), they worked on my computer and on Joe's computer. And they worked for several months. But now those aliases no longer work on Joe's computer, and when I make new aliases to replace them (thinking the symlink had just been broken somhow), those new aliases dont' work either.   The reason we decided to use Dropbox for this shared folder was specifically because these aliases continued to work on both our computers. No other cloud service maintained the symlink on the second party's computer. But now it's not working on Dropbox either. Feel free to contact me however works best for you to get the clarification you need. ... View more

Hi Walter. Sorry so long to reply. You've almost got it, but not quite. Let me draw a clearer picture... - I created a folder inside my Dropbox folder called Rob & Joe Shared - Inside that folder is a complex directory structure including dozens of folders, sub-folders, and documents - For example, there's a folder called "FINANCIAL" inside of which are folders relating to bank accounts, inside of which are various spreadsheets... - But because not everyone organizes things the same way, I created lots of aliases throughout these folders, for example, there's also a folder called "*SPREADSHEETS," in which there are aliases to all the spreadsheets throughout all the directories. This way Joe doesn't have to remember where I put each invididual spreadsheet. If he's looking for a spreadsheet, he can just go to the *SPREADSHEETS folder, and double-click the alias for the one he wants. - ALL of these aliases are referencing documuents within this share Dropbox folder - When I first set this up last year, Joe an I thoroughly tested that these aliases worked for him, even though I set them up on my computer — in other words that when they got synced to his computer through the desktop app, the aliases still underststood their relative path within the shared Dropbox folder - AT THAT TIME, AND FOR SEVERAL MONTHS AFTERWARDS, THEY DID WORK 100% OF THE TIME on both our computers - But in the last couple months, not only have the aliases stopped working (saying the linked file can't be found), but new aliases created by me don't work on his computer either I specifically chose Dropbox for sharing this project with Joe because Dropbox was the only cloud service that correctly synced aliaes without breaking the links to their original documents. But now it seems that feature is broken. Hope that's clearer. As an example, the alias... Dropbox > Rob & Joe Shared > *SPREADSHEETS > Account1.xslx alias ...symlinks to...  Dropbox > Rob & Joe Shared > FINANCIAL > Bank#1 > Account#1 > Account1.xlsx   Both the alias and the original are within Dropbox > Rob & Joe Shared The alias — synced via Dropbox — used to work fine on both our computers, even though I created the alias on mine. But now the alias works on my computer, but not on Joe's. And any new alises I created within (and linking within) Dropbox > Rob & Joe Shared also don't work on Joe's computer. ... View more