Dropbox isn't syncing anymore after upgrading to Ubuntu 20.04

[MonikaE]

I upgraded from Kubuntu 18.04 to 20.04 a little over a week ago. Since then Dropbox isn't syncing anymore. The icon in the task bar keeps switching between the network folder icon and the box icon (Dropbox logo), as if it were really busy up- or downloading something. But nothing actually goes up or down. (E.g. I verified that photos have been uploaded from my phone by checking on the web interface, but they don't come down to my PC. Likewise I created a new file on the PC and it does not show up on the web interface.) When clicking on the menu > "Recently changed files" there is nothing there in the submenu.

I have tried: Uninstalling Dropbox, deleting the settings folders .dropbox, .dropbox-dist and (in the Dropbox folder) .dropbox.cache, reinstalling from the Ubuntu repository, reinstalling from the *.deb file that can be downloaded from the Dropbox website (there was a dependency problem but this https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-installs-integrations/Unable-to-install-Dropbox-on-Ubuntu-20... helped with that), using apt purge, rebooting during the process, following https://help.dropbox.com/en-US/installs/advanced-reinstall, removing the device from the "Security" settings via the Dropbox website ... no change. The icon keeps blinking, nothing goes up or down.

What else can I try? Any logs I can look at?

[MonikaE · Accepted solution]

It's working again.

I ran ~/.dropbox-dist$ strace -f ./dropboxd.

It often showed ("Vorgang nicht zulässig" = "activity not allowed"):

[pid 8640] openat(AT_FDCWD, "/home/monika/Data/Dropbox/Dateien/programme/Videobearbeitung/software/otr-verwaltung3p/data/tools/intern-VirtualDub/wine/dosdevices/z:/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.11.0-openjdk-amd64/legal/java.compiler", O_RDONLY|O_NOATIME|O_CLOEXEC|O_DIRECTORY) = -1 EPERM (Vorgang nicht zulässig) zu sehen

I moved the entire folder Videobearbeitung out of the Dropbox folder be on the safe side and restarted Dropbox.

Immediately things improved, a notification showed "90 files deleted from Dropbox", my husband's PC showed "9 files changed" for a shared folder and after a while the systray icon stopped blinking and just showed the box (without arrows).

(The weird thing is that I had deleted all local files at one point and Dropbox had downloaded them - including the offending one.)

The "echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p" probably also was part of the solution.

[Hannah]

Hey Monika, thanks for keeping us updated.

Happy to see that you were able to resolve this.

This info might also prove useful to other users who may come across this issue, so we really appreciate it.

Make sure to let us know if you need anything else!

[pierpiotr]

Hi MonikaE,

I have the exact same problem stemming for the same background (upgrading from 18.04 to 20.04), but trying your solution here is what I get :

pier@pier-Buroo:~/.dropbox-dist$ ~/.dropbox-dist$ strace -f ./dropboxd.
bash: /home/pier/.dropbox-dist$: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type

meaning: No such file or folder of this type

What did I do wrong ?

[MonikaE]

The command is like this:
cd .dropbox-dist
strace -f ./dropboxd

[pierpiotr]

@MonikaEthanks,

But I get this :

Unable to monitor entire Dropbox folder hierarchy. Please run "echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p" and restart Dropbox to fix the problem.

I did as suggested but to no avail. Do you have an idea ?

[MonikaE]

Have a look at the file /etc/sysctl.conf. Is there an entry "fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000"? And no other entry with "fs.inotify.max_user_watches=..."?

[pierpiotr]

Here is what I have :

vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50
fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000
fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000

[MonikaE]

One of the entries would be enough , but having two identical ones is probably not a problem.

Did you restart Dropbox afterwards?

Did the strace give you any “activity not allowed” errors, like it did for me?

[pierpiotr]

Yes I re-started dropbox,

The strace command returned no error.

[MonikaE]

Then your problem must be different from the one I had.

You can try moving all files to a folder outside the Dropbox folder, see if things start working and then move them back in little by little.