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Leeon's avatar
Leeon
Helpful | Level 5
8 years ago

Dropbox on OpenSUSE Leap 15 (Linux) unlinks after restart

I am using Dropbox 50.4.71 on OpenSUSE Leap 15, just downloaded the app into home folder, on Leap there is still no Dropbox package. App works well, however after restart (sometimes after few resta...
desktop
Dropbox Basic
Linux
Setting up the apps
grawity's avatar
grawity
Helpful | Level 5
8 years ago

Leeon, can you check if the output of this command keeps changing across reboots:

stat -f -c %i ~/.dropbox/instance_db

(Keep the output secret, just check whether it changes or remains the same.)

 

This shows the statvfs().f_fsid, which Dropbox on Linux uses as part of the config encryption key. The developers apparently thought it is persistent, but it really isn't. For example, on XFS partitions, the fsid can change if partitions are moved around, it can change if you boot with a USB stick connected, it can even change randomly on every reboot. Every time it changes, Dropbox becomes unable to decode its configuration and just deletes it.

 

(I really wish they had used something more stable, but I don't even know where to submit a bug report about it.)

fullmakt's avatar
fullmakt
Explorer | Level 4
8 years ago

I will check this the next time folders are deleted to see if it has changed. thanks.

  • Leeon's avatar
    Leeon
    Helpful | Level 5
    7 years ago
    I contacted support, unfortunately I got not so positive reply:

    I have received a reply from our specialized team,

    Unfortunately, this does not meet the minimum requirements for the Dropbox application. OpenSUSE along with the file system is not supported.

    Please review our recommended minimum requirements on the following page:

    https://www.dropbox.com/help/3

    We are of course always looking for user input when creating the next version of the Dropbox app. I will make sure your comments are passed along to our development team.
    • Leeon's avatar
      Leeon
      Helpful | Level 5
      7 years ago
      Seems I at least found a nice workaround for the issue:
      My laptop has 2 disk drives - SSD and HDD. On SSD I have home with ~/.dropbox folder on XFS partition. However HDD is 1TB of ext4 mainly for data and media. So I moved whole ~/.dropbox/instance_db folder from home to HDD ext4 drive and created symlink back to home.
      Dropbox is now happy as ext4 does not change inode IDs at all.
      • Leeon's avatar
        Leeon
        Helpful | Level 5
        7 years ago

        Update to possible workaround: moving and symlinking ~/.dropbox/instance_db is not enough, it lasted for a day and resets again. Now I moved whole ~/.dropbox folder. So far so good after one day.

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