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DB on MacOS is corrupting my files (now irreversibly)

WHardy

Hi,

for a while now I have been having problems with my DB-stored files on my Macbook. I use DB on a Windows (PC) and Macbook Air. Everything's fine on Windows, but the files do not open when I try on Mac. I have MacOS 10.15 (Catalina), running on Macbook Air. DB version is 84.4.170.

The files stored outside DB work fine, so it's DB, not the computer.

The message I'm getting is something along the lines of (I'm translating from Polish): Excel could not open the file ....xlsx due to an incorrect format or file extension. Check if the file has been damaged or if the extension does not match the format.

It used to work fine when I downloaded the file directly from the website and saved it again on my DB (replacing the corrupt version there). I figured if that's what it takes, I can wait for an update and work with this for now.

But yesterday I've spent some time editing a file on my Macbook, and today when I launched my PC it turned out it never synchronised. I checked the Mac, and the file is there, it has yesterday's date, Dropbox is on, but the file is corrupt so I can't open it. It's not visible through the browser version (it has the previous date there). I tried copying the file to another folder on DB and it copied there, synchronised across the devices, but with the previous date (!). Without any of my yesterday changes!

So please tell me how to fix this, and if there's a way to recover my work from yesterday, because frankly speaking I'm starting to reconsider having my files stored at DB.

Kind regards,

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WHardy

Dear Fiona,

got it to work (i.e. I can now open all files, though I did lose the one that didn't get synced). Turned out I had to allow for Smart Sync in the Dropbox preferences and for some reason this fixed things.

Found the solution here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Corruption-of-Excel-Files-saved-to-Dropbox/td-p/289813/page/2

Posted by another user. You might want to show this to other community managers as well so they can suggest this to other users with my problem.

So the fix required changing something with DB. I'd count it as "Dropbox corrupting my files", or at least as "Dropbox being misleading about what it's showing me in the Dropbox folder and not notifying me that I'm only seeing what's supposed to be there and not the actual file that is stored online" .

Shouldn't the files be stored locally by default if someone doesn't enable smart sync? Is that what caused the problem?

Anyway. Thanks for your time and best,

Wojciech

All comments

Fiona

Thanks for reporting this experience @WHardy.

I understand there is a corrupted file you have locally in your Dropbox folder and were not able to open or sync it. :slight_frown: The cloud had a previous version of this file saved. To solve your syncing issue you moved it to another location in Dropbox and this helped it sync. But it still has the previous date on the cloud and the other devices. Please feel free to correct me if I didn't get somthing right, so we can be on the same page with this.

:pushpin: Note that Dropbox doesn't have the ability to corrupt your files. Corruptions can be the result of third party app editions.

How does this file show locally when you try to open it? Is it corrupted in your local Dropbox folder and showing a functional previous version on Dropbox.com? :thinking:

Please add screenshots to show me what you see. Thank you!

WHardy

Hi!

Thanks for your reply!

"I understand there is a corrupted file you have locally in your Dropbox folder and were not able to open or sync it. The cloud had a previous version of this file saved."

Yes, that's correct.

"To solve your syncing issue you moved it to another location in Dropbox and this helped it sync. But it still has the previous date on the cloud and the other devices. "

I copied it to check if it will change anything to another Dropbox folder. Now, the corrupted 'original' still has the new date. The copy has the same new date, BUT it synced on the PC (so I got a copy there too), but with the old date (Nov. 5).

So it's like the file is on both devices (both the copy and the original), but Mac has a new date corrupted file, and PC has an old date working file.

Dropbox.com also shows the older, working version. If I switch for the copied file to be stored locally (right-click -> intelligent synchronisation -> local), the date reverts to Nov 5 (the old date). I dare not try it with the new-date corrupt file.

I'm not sure which part would you like a screenshot of, so if anything's still unclear please let me know and I'll add it.

Thanks,

Fiona

Thank you for clarifying this for me @WHardy .

If the corrupted version of the file was synced to Dropbox, you would see the file corrupted on the website as well. We cannot fix the corruption made by a third party app, nor tell which part of editing went wrong in the third party interface to result to this. To solve this, we would have to recover the previous functional version from your Dropbox version history.

Have you contacted Microsoft support for the Excel error you mentioned "Excel could not open the file ....xlsx due to an incorrect format or file extension." ? This error could be related to the corruption.

Is this corrupted file missing its file type indeed? If it does, please add the file type extension manually.

Test. :tools: We will need to make sure the device is syncing in general. Please drop a test file in your Dropbox folder and let me know if you see it syncing :arrows_counterclockwise:.

WHardy

The corrupted file isn't syncing (i.e. DB stores a previous version and somehow doesn't recognise that the corrupted file has a different date or that something changed).

The syncing, in general, works. As I described, if I copy the file within Dropbox (so I create a new instance of the file), it syncs across devices, but Mac still retains the corrupted version with a new date, and the other device (PC) gets the ok file with the older date. Somehow DB has these two versions still linked to each other.

And yes, the file has the proper extension.

And I don't want to recover an older version. I want my new one, but I understand that's not doable.

And I'm not contacting Microsoft - the issue is directly linked to Dropbox. The problem occurs only in the Dropbox folder and only on my Macbook and it also pertains to non-Microsoft files (e.g. the PDFs I store on DB are unopenable on my Mac as well, but they work on my PC).

I've seen other similar concerns around here, usually unsolved. Something doesn't sync as it should and I believe the burden of solving this is, unfortunately, on you (Dropbox).

Fiona

I understand you want the version you last edited. We can not use previous versions to solve this, as it is not saved, so all I can suggest is to try to repair the Excel workbook manually. Instructions from Office support: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/repairing-a-corrupted-workbook-7abfc44d-e9bf-4896-8899-bd10ef4d61ab

Keep me posted!

Fingers crossed.

WHardy

Thanks. Tried it but didn't work.

I get that my problem is unsolvable, but you should probably try to get to the bottom of this so that more people don't end up in my situation.

Good luck,

Fiona

Since the file was edited with Excel when it got corrupted, I encourage you to look into this further with Microsoft to figure out how the file got corrupted and make sure it will not happen again.

On our end can only restore previous versions to help with corruptions.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful with this @WHardy.

Have a nice day!

WHardy

Dear Fiona,

again, this is not a Microsoft issue. Other files (not related to Microsoft) get corrupted as well (the difference being I have an online copy for most others).

The problem is most likely with Dropbox. I'm not using any third-party apps that could cause this. Even if it's something related to how Dropbox interacts with the MacOS file system, I'd say that solving this is on your side of things.

Best,

Wojciech

Fiona

Thanks for the additional info. Dropbox cannot corrupt your files. But we can try to help you figure this out and solve it. See which apps are saving the files corrupted. Please let me know the other file types that you get this issue with.

Some screenshots of file examples you can't open, would be very helpful for this thread as well.

How long has this been going on for? Have you scanned your devices with a security system? Help Center article about this.

WHardy

Dear Fiona,

Found the solution here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Corruption-of-Excel-Files-saved-to-Dropbox/td-p/289813/page/2

Posted by another user. You might want to show this to other community managers as well so they can suggest this to other users with my problem.

Shouldn't the files be stored locally by default if someone doesn't enable smart sync? Is that what caused the problem?

Anyway. Thanks for your time and best,

Wojciech

Fiona

Hey Wojciech, happy to hear it is solved.

Thanks so much for posting your solution and feedback.

Selective Sync is the Dropbox feature that removes the files from the local Dropbox folder completely. Smart Sync is meant to show you the "ghost" files locally.

Since Smart Sync extensions were not enabled at all, this feature cannot have affected the files. Without Smart Sync, all files are local. I understand there might have been an issue with Excel and how it saved the version of the file you edited.

Is the file you had the issue with functional and synced to Dropbox now? :thinking:

WHardy

Dear Fiona,

Yes I know what selective sync is and I know what smart sync is supposed to do.

Thing is, that I didn't have smart sync enabled, and I could not open some of the files in DB. Once I enabled it, they started working. And this has been the experience of another user that I have linked to above. So clearly, something doesn't work as intended.

There's no issue with Excel. The issue is with Dropbox. I had problems with other Office files, PDFs, and pretty sure something else, but that's irrelevant. Thing is, that even if it was something that didn't work between Office and Dropbox, I'd still say that Dropbox is the side that should try to fix the issue and not Microsoft (sorry).

AND, the files only did not work on my Macbook. The same files worked on my PC. So something was wrong with the syncing on Macbook. Not with the files per se.

So again - it's a Dropbox issue:

1) It only happened to files on Dropbox.

2) It only happened on one device, so the files themselves were not generally corrupted (i.e. third party app did not damage them) just badly synced to that one device.

3) The thing that fixed it was enabling a Dropbox option.

Another Dropbox user had the same issue and fix.

So please stop saying that Dropbox couldn't have done it and pointing fingers at other apps. Just try to figure out what went wrong.

And no, I have not recovered the one file that didn't sync properly at all, I had to redo the work. Doesn't matter now. I'm just answering to highlight that it's a Dropbox issue.

Best,

Wojciech

Jeff S.79

This statement, that "Dropbox cannot corrupt your files," is -provably- untrue. We have had so many Mac-structured files irretrievably damaged by being stored for periods of time on Dropbox's servers, that we have begun off-loading them onto safer storage options.

Some Mac-only files (.pages, .numbers, .keynote) contain resource forks that do not exist within Windows files and are challenging for any non-Apple computers to process and store. When those resource forks are damaged, the files become, essentially, useless and unreadable.

Why do I know this? Because we were using Dropbox as a redundant source of archival backups for a number of years' worth of project files. We eventually had to delete the main files from our hard drives, but retained the Dropbox folders for later access. When we later went to access them, the files were present but showed -zero- kb file sizes, and were irreversably damaged and lost. Luckily for us, we had the same files backed up to 2 other sources - an external Time Machine drive, and Code42's Crashplan cloud servers. Restoring the exact same files from the other 2 sources showed perfectly functioning files - but hundreds of files stored on Dropbox were no longer readable.

We contacted Dropbox about this and they said just what Fiona is saying here: it's not our fault!

Well - I would say proceed with caution on Macs, relying on Dropbox as a sole source of backup/restore archiving.

Stacy G.7

I found this thread after over 24 hours of me trying to figure out why my Macbook wouldn't open my PDFs, Word documents or even JPGs. I finally found that its ONLY when I use my Dropbox files in my Dropbox folder from the Finder on my Mac. If I go to the web version of Dropbox I can open the files OR if it's stored to the Mac in another folder outside of Dropbox then I can open it. So I have to agree this is some Dropbox issue not the program the file was made or opens in since I cannot open a number of different types of files, including images.

Honestly I still cannot figure out how to get it fixed.

WHardy

Hi!

In my case, it turned out that I have to enable the smart sync (even if I don't want to) or it won't work. So I think that's what worked in my case, maybe it will work in yours to?

Just thought I'd tell you this, before someone from Dropbox tells you it's not their software's fault

Good luck!