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Dropbox stopped syncing since update

Ever since Dropbox released their new update, my files have been stuck on the same few hundred files and haven't been able to sync or save anything new in over 4 months. All the while they keep charging me my monthly fee. I've reached out to support several times and none of the solutions have helped. I've unlinked and relinked my account, have used their terminal commands, which also didn't. They have literally broken the product with this update without being able to offer me any solutions.

I'm using an external drive for my dropbox folder, it's not a network drive. It has worked flawlessly via this setup for over 10 years. Now with all these new updates etc, Dropbox no longer works as it did. it's a real shame and a huge inconvenience for my productivity. I'm sure others feel the same.

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Hey @pdiseris, I hope you're well today!

The first thing I would suggest to check would be to correct the hardlinks and permissions within the Dropbox folder. You can do this with the below steps:

Click the Dropbox icon in your menu bar/system tray.
Click the profile pic/initials icon in the top right of the window.
Choose "Preferences..."
Go to the "Account" tab.
While holding the Option/Alt key (Mac) or the Space bar Alt+H keys (Windows), click "Fix Hardlinks".
You might be prompted to enter your computer's username and password (not Dropbox's).

The app might need to sync for a while after doing this, so please just keep an eye out for any progress.

Let me know how it goes!

EDIT: Just updated the steps to reflect the new changes.

All comments

Hey @pdiseris, I hope you're well today!

The first thing I would suggest to check would be to correct the hardlinks and permissions within the Dropbox folder. You can do this with the below steps:

Click the Dropbox icon in your menu bar/system tray.
Click the profile pic/initials icon in the top right of the window.
Choose "Preferences..."
Go to the "Account" tab.
While holding the Option/Alt key (Mac) or the Space bar Alt+H keys (Windows), click "Fix Hardlinks".
You might be prompted to enter your computer's username and password (not Dropbox's).

The app might need to sync for a while after doing this, so please just keep an eye out for any progress.

Let me know how it goes!

EDIT: Just updated the steps to reflect the new changes.

When I press the `Fix Hardlinks' button, nothing happens.

As it happens, after 30mins, I received a notification that the hard links were repaired. i've restarted Dropbox and will see now if the syncing will progress as it should. I'll leave it running all day and check back to see if my local changes upload to the Dropbox server. I have thousands of unsynced new files that need to upload.

Hey @pdiseris, I'm very glad to hear that!

It can indeed take a little time for fixing the hardlinks and permissions to take effect, especially if you have a lot of files in your Dropbox folder.

I've made sure to pass this along to your open ticket with our Support team too, just to keep them in the loop.

Keep me posted on the progress, I'm looking forward to hearing back from you.

Cheers!

Hi Daphne, this seems to have solved my problem as far as I can tell. Uploads are progressing. I'll keep you posted.

Hi again @pdiseris.

I was just wondering if you've had success with syncing over the weekend or if the issue is persisting?

Looking forward to your update!

Hi Daphe, it ended up resolving with your suggestions and my Dropbox is all up to date for the first time in 4 months. Thank you for your simple solution. I was in conversations with specialist help from Dropbox who were suggesting more complex suggestions such as terminal commands, which didn't work, so again, thank you.

I'm very happy to hear that @pdiseris!

If you need help with anything else, please feel free to give me a nudge here. I'd be more than happy to help out.

I hope you have a great start to the year! 🎉

Hi Daphne,

I found your reply on this one but the 'fix hardlinks' approach did not fix my same problem. None of the files I have changed on my windows 10 PC since Jan 1 have synced with dropbox version 87.4.172. Dropbox says sync in progress but nothing moves. Any ideas please? Thanks, Steve

P.S. I am a Plus subscriber.

Hey @stevejhastings, thanks for joining us here!

Would you mind trying the steps again, but instead of clicking "Fix hardlinks" can you try the "Fix permissions" option?

There will be a short period after where you might see some small fluctuations in the sync status while this change is applied, so please allow a short time frame to see if there is any progress.

Let me know how it goes and we'll take it from there!

Hi Daphne,

I have a similar issue with a recent update that broke syncing of hard links in Windows for me as well.

I was happy when I saw your solution, however, I don't get the option to "Fix Hardlinks" anywhere in the options (v. 88.4.172).. I'm confused now.

In Windows, or any other programmes, those same hardlinks work perfectly fine!

Any suggestions?

Cheers

Hi @hardlink, thanks for joining the discussion!

To see the option within your desktop app preferences, you need to hold down the Space bar key while you're within the "Account" tab.

When you do this, are you able to see the option? You'll need to keep the key pressed to see and click on the option.

Let me know how it goes!

Hi,
Thanks for the reply, and sorry for the delay on my end:

The space bar did indeed bring up the 2 buttons (only after some time though, don't know why it wouldn't work before)..

So, I clicked "Repair", got the info "Dropbox sucessfully repaired .. and made them into copies". However, nothing's changed, the hardlink folders are still not sychronised (and marked with a small red x symbol).

I also clicked on "Fix permissions", which didn't do the trick either.

I've also restarted both Dropbox, and then the entire OS, without any success.

Do you have any more suggestions?
Or will the issue be addressed in the coming updates?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for getting back to me @hardlink!

Is it possible that they're symlinks instead of hardlinks? Rather than a copy of the file that it's linked with, it would be like a shortcut to the file in another location.

Could you try the steps listed in point 7 here and let me know if you find symlinks within the Dropbox folder pointing to files outside the folder?

If you do, can you replacing these with the actual file and using the symlink in the original location? Otherwise, please try moving files with the red X outside of Dropbox and then move them back inside.

Keep me posted with your findings!

I'm sorry, you are right!
When I checked terminolgies, I remembered: mine are indeed symbolic links, as they all point to folders (and they don't recommend hard links for folders). And there was some other issue I don't remember exactly, but I went for symlinks ("mklink" command) for a reason.

I want the target outside my dropbox, because my dropbox folder is on an encrypted partition, but I want my normal files backed up and syncronised in the cloud, too. It doesn't work the other way round, because if I start Dropbox and forget to mount my drive, it will think those files are gone and delete them. I don't want to type my encryption password every time I work on the computer either.

The solution I had worked perfectly fine.

But now apparently they broke the programme.

Thanks for the info @hardlink!

In this case, there isn't much I can suggest in regards to the symlinks. The workaround for using them with Dropbox would be to reverse them, so the file is within the Dropbox folder instead.

I understand that this isn't ideal for your though due to your current set up.

I'd just like to note too that there was a recent change in how Dropbox handles symlinks, which you can check out more info on here.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest making sure that your desktop app is up to date as a new version was recently released (89.4).

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Hi Daphne,
I'm having the same issue (on several computers). After latest mandatory update (mid January- V90.4.307 - Win 10) Dropbox startet re-syncing all the files (+100.000) and never finalized.

I've tried all the steps you mentioned above without any luck.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Thanks for joining us here @Sonnelein!

Can you just let me know if the files within your Dropbox folder are showing the blue syncing icon?

Also, if you click the Dropbox icon in your system tray can you send me a screenshot (excluding personal info) of the current sync status of your desktop app?

Are you seeing any progress in the sync status at all if you check it over a short time period?

Looking forward to your reply!

Hi @DAPHNE. my dropbox wont sync. tried all the solutions above. Can you help please. Problem occured I think this february or march 2020

Hey @pierrecua, thanks for joining the discussion here!

So I can have a better understanding of your current set up, can you let me know what the sync status of your desktop app shows?

Also, let me know which version of the desktop app you have installed, which you can see by hovering over the Dropbox icon in your menu bar/system tray.

Let me know what you find!

So,

Dropbox won't fix or address this, will they? -_-

I'm sorry this seems targeted at you directly, which it isn't as you're here to help users..

But I can't help getting annoyed that Dropbox team (and other developers) just randomly remove functions with a forced(!) update for apparently no good reason!

Plus, there's no way to avoid those updates, or go back to a previous version that works for me.

Same problem here. Tried all the methods but nothing worked. Syncing starts but after some minutes it stops and no files are synced showing +2 days . I also tried the beta version 93.3.258 but the same problem occurs. My system is Windows server 2012 r2 standard fully patched. If I restart the app, it starts syncing again but after 20 minutes it hangs again. I also tried to disabled firewall, tried the fix hard link solution, reinstalled the app, but nothing worked. I have a dropbox business account.

Thanks for your updates here!

I completely understand your frustration @hardlink, I wish there was something else that I could offer for you to work around the using symlinks.

You would be able to keep these in the Dropbox folder, it will just sync them as a symlink file instead of syncing the file that the symlink points to outside of the Dropbox folder.

Since you mentioned that you tried fixing hardlinks @dpuser1, can you let me know if you also tried the "Fix permissions" option that you see in the same location?

Also, since you have the desktop app installed on a Windows Server OS, can you check out this article and let me know how you currently have the app set up?

Keep me posted!

1. Done this like 10 times with support from DropBox staff.

Its does not work. I had my partner load a small folder 25 images two days to sync to my desktop used to be 2 minutes.

2. I was organizing my files and remaining them on my desktop App now they are gone online. Hundreds of folders.

3. DropBox went from being a favour company to the worse. I am telling everyone to get out before they destroy your folders

I'm sorry to hear about your trouble with this @jeffharrington !

Just to check all bases, if you haven't already please check to see if your bandwidth settings within your desktop app are limited at all.

Also, I was able to locate your open ticket with our Support team, and I've passed along your comments to the agent handling your case to keep them in the loop.

Let me know if this helps!

Hi there,

My dropbox has stopped synching all of a sudden. I am on a Mac laptop running Mojave o/s. If I make a file and save in my in dropbox via my finder, it doesn't save onto the web platform and vice versa. I have tried to unlink the dropbox and relink, quit dropbox and relaunch, and go into preferences account and press alt/option and fix hardlinks and have had no success with any of these attempts. Any other ideas? I have enough space on my laptop...it looks like there was an update to dropbox on March 19th, perhaps the issue started then. Thank you.

And just to add, I also went into preferences account and press alt/option and fixed permissions.

Hi there @TLS, I hope you're well today!

Thanks for all the detail you've provided so far. So I can have a better idea of your current set up, can you let me know which version of the desktop app you have installed?

Also, can you send me a screenshot (excluding any personal info) of the sync status when you click on the Dropbox icon?

Let me know and we can go from there!

Hi, i have been having the same problems with Syncing dropbox.

I updated my account to plus (2TB) and i am uploading data from my external harddrive to dropbox on my mac.

Since then i hve already 1.3TB of information, but two days ago it just stopped.

It shows syncing 162.741 files for two days and on dropbox.com it hasnt updated the last files.

I have made the tips i read about fixing hardlinks and permissions, i have restarted several times my mac, but its starts always on the same number and it stays there without sycing...

My desktop version is v96.4.172 and i am uploading a screenshot... Screenshot 2020-05-06 at 08.37.41.png

Can anyone help me with this?

Thanks for joining us here @Sardinha123!

When you tried the steps to fix permissions and hardlinks, can you let me know if you got a pop up prompt to let you know that this completed successfully?

Since you have a large amount of data in your Dropbox folder, then it might take a little time to complete this.

Also, if you hover over the Dropbox icon on your menu bar, can you see the sync speed for the desktop app and let me know what it shows there?

Thanks!

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