"tmp.drivedownload" Error - unable to resolve with tech support escalation

Thanks, Jay, I did manage to delete it however it was not Dropbox that was stopping the process, it was Google Drive that was making it impossible have no idea why! I cannot understand how Google Drive put the folder in there in the first place then took control of it. I was thinking like yourself if Dropbox is finished syncing I should be able to delete it, however, I had to stop Google Drive to delete it. All worked in the end! All those pop-up messages also turned out to be saving files in that folder too which is why the folder was getting bigger and bigger and nothing got accidentally deleted.

All comments

Hi Gabby, sounds like you’ve got Google Drive and Dropbox linked somehow.

The .tmp.drivedownload folder appears to be a temporary folder that is created every time you download something from Google Drive.

Most likely, the Dropbox folder is located inside the Google Drive folder, though this is just a guess on my end.

What could be happening is when someone else changes the file, Google Drive might be trying to take control of the file, move it to the Google Drive online, and delete it from the Dropbox folder, which would then delete it from all users in the shared folder.

However, since I haven’t dared to put two cloud storages in the same folder, I’ve never been able to test this directly.

Is it possible that you have the two cloud storages on the same folder, or external drive?

Yes, that's probably the case. At one point, I was trying to remove some items from DB and move them to GD as the client was migrating. But this started some time after that, so I wasn't able to be certain that the file move caused the problem. Either way, it's definitely a conflict. The problem is, nobody can figure out how to correct it.

Even if there is a conflict, file deletion seems a pretty extreme result. There must be a happy medium.

It depends on how your files and folders are structured.

Any files moved out of a shared folder will be deleted for all members of the shared folder, this is something that can’t be avoided, regardless if you’re using Google Drive or not.

The same applies for moving files out of your Dropbox folder overall, it will delete it from the Dropbox site for you.

However, if you’re moving from Dropbox to Google Drive, and plan to permanently leave Dropbox, you could first copy the files to Google Drive, instead of moving them (as it seems from the image).

Once all the data is copied, you can delete the Dropbox data if you don’t need it any more.

If I’m misunderstanding something, please let me know.

Thanks Jay - yes, what you describe is what should be happening, but this problem with the popup message and files self-deleting is happening outside the normal processes.

I should restate for clarity, *nobody is trying to delete any files*, it's happening on its' own. This popup and the possible deletion occurs when (for example) another person (not me) opens the file, makes a change, and then simply tries to save it back where it came from.

This is the dangerous part that I couldn't get tech support to understand. If I were to click "move anyway" on the original popup box, I have no idea what would happen. I always clicked "cancel" and "don't show this message again", which I *hope* stopped the deletion of the file... again, no way to test this without seriously making a mess.

I am also having this issue! I to have had those messages and had to click on cancel. I can see the tmp.drivedownload folder in my Dropbox folder and it should not be there, for some reason it is, it is also in the Google Drive folder, however, there are no files in it. What I was attempting to do was move some files onto Google Drive and keep only some on Dropbox. However, my Dropbox folder has decided that will not be the case because I cannot delete the tmp.drivedownload folder that seems to be getting bigger and bigger. Therefore I think after all my files from Dropbox are uploaded to Google Drive I will have to uninstall dropbox as it is basically useless to me due to this undeletable tmp.drivedownload folder.

Well, that frustrates me even more, because Dropbox claimed they had never seen this before. I had to assume that at least one other person had the same issue.

Did you reach out to tech support? What was their response?

Hi @lalala1997, if that folder is in your Dropbox account and is taking up space, you can try deleting the folder when the Dropbox desktop application is paused, or closed completely.

The next time it syncs, it’ll detect that the folder is missing and then remove it from your machine and the site.

Zav

Hi, I'm an engineer at Dropbox. Thank you for reporting this issue. Am I understanding correctly that Google Drive and Dropbox are syncing the same set of folders, and that's when you see these confusing warnings? If you could explain your Google Drive and Dropbox setup it would help us figure out what's happening.

We do in general want to make sure we only show these warnings for user-initiated actions so they remain useful and you know what will happen when you click a button. It's technically difficult to tell when an action is user-initiated, so letting us know when there's an issue isuseful for us to make sure we refine our product and do the right thing--thanks!

One final question--when you click the checkbox to disable the warning, do you click "Cancel" or "Move Anyway"? Only "Move Anyway" will save the "Don't ask me again" setting.

Hi Zav, thanks so much for your response!

I have been clicking both "Cancel" and the checkbox - thanks for that point. However, even though my selection of the checkbox has not been useful, it only shows once for each file anyway. Interesting.

I've checked again, and I have selected Dropbox subfolders syncing with Google Drive, and vice-versa. Not my entire Dropbox folder. The Google drive has been mapped to a drive letter in the past, but at this time, is not. I also had a prior Google drive that was mapped, but that account is no longer syncing to anything, including Dropbox. (I include this info for the sake of case history, just in case.)

It is only on folders that are syncing to both Dropbox and Google Drive that this error appears to occur. I can't test to ensure that is the case, because I have a high number of little-used both Dropbox and Google Drive folders that must remain shared, but so far, that's my observation.

I recently changed some settings on the local Dropbox app, and on the local Google Drive app, in an effort to correct this and stop the messages, but I don't know how to test and make sure those choices are safe. Perhaps I've just managed to disable the popup, but the background problem is still happening, and files may be discovered later to be missing. It has been a day or so since I saw the popup, but that could be just that nobody on the shares has used any files. I'm trying to message someone for a live test, but due to personal schedules, this has been complicated. Either way, this doesn't find the source of the problem - it treats the symptom, not the disease - and I don't know for sure if all my files are safe.

Thoughts?

I am not sure if this will help you, however, I managed to fix my issue by deleting the tmp.drivedownload folder in the Dropbox folder. I was able to successfully delete this folder once google drive had stopped syncing my files. I do not know how why Google drive created that folder in the Dropbox folder in the first place but once I was able to delete the folder the pop-up messages stopped and things went back to normal. To avoid this possibly happening again I am just uploading files through the Google Drive website instead. This may not be convenient for some people however it works for me. Good Luck in solving your issues, however, check that there is not a tmp.drivedownload folder anywhere in your Dropbox folder and if there is delete it. Hope that helps!

Thanks for the clarification on this matter, and that you were able to resolve it on your end!