Dropbox on Big Sur stuck syncing, please help!

[Katypical]

My Dropbox folder is on a 3TB external drive, it recently got full so I changed to a new 5TB and the first sync (although it took a while) was fine. But then the sync started again and is now "stuck" on over 2m files, nothing is happening at all. I've tried changing the lightning ports, swapping out the cable for a direct USB3 to lighting cable in case the adaptor was slowing it, I've also reinstalled Dropbox completely. This is driving me crazy, does anyone have a fix for this problem?

[Walter]

Hey there @Katypical, welcome to the Community and thanks for using Dropbox!

Could you please let me know for how long has the desktop app been stuck at syncing the same number of files?

Have you tried rebooting your device at all since you first noticed this?

Keep me posted!

[Katypical]

Hey Walter, thanks for getting in touch.

It's stuck for days at a time, and it's been about 2 weeks since I successfully synced. In this time I have been trying different things like speed testing the drive, restarting, reinstalling Dropbox etc. I installed a new cable last night, and did a full reboot, so this most recent episode has lasted about 18 hours. I'm not getting any error messages from the drive or from the Dropbox desktop app that might explain what's going on.

[Walter]

In that case, could you try an advanced reinstall as well @Katypical?

Upon that process, choose only one folder to be synced locally to your device through the advanced options. 

Let me know if that helps improve matters. 

[Katypical]

Thanks Walter, but that is exactly what I did yesterday. I chose only the folder "Kingfisher Creative" to sync, mind you it is very large, around 2.7TB. That's why I had to move up to the 5TB drive.

[Katypical]

Hi Walter, another 24 hours and my Dropbox still looks like this. Any ideas please?

[Walter]

Thanks for keeping me in the loop @Katypical

Could you try again with a relatively small folder to see how it goes? 

This folder seems to be quite large, so selective sync might be needed to lessen the file count. 

[Katypical]

Hi @Walter I tried that through the desktop app (see screenshot attached) and then quit and restarted Dropbox but no change. Do I have to reinstall again?

[Katypical]

Solved this myself, in the end.

I have CleanMyMac which, I realised, has an "uninstall software" feature that actually does work, unlike the advanced uninstall that Dropbox recommends (which, if your Dropbox is an external drive like mine, is really complex in Terminal). Once I reinstalled, I unchecked one biggish folder from the 2.7TB folder I wanted to sync, and about 48 hours later, it's all synced and up to date!