Child Item

Dropbox is not allowing me to download. It usually gives me an error.

so, for almost a year now I've been having a problem with dropbox where it does not allow me to download anything directly from the site, I would have to save the file I want to download in my dropbox and either download 2 things at once or wait for dropbox to sync stuff to my PC
at first, it started with not allowing me to use the download button in the middle from the file's site giving me a "there has been a problem downloading your file" or something like that, I would have to use the one on the top right corner
then all of the sudden that didn't work anymore giving me the same error, so after trying to figure out how to download files I found out that I could save a file in my dropbox account and then download it from there
that stopped working after some time as well like I honestly feel like dropbox is targeting me at this point
so since I couldn't find anything else to download I had to download the program in my PC and wait for it to sync stuff for me
I got annoyed of it after a while (for no real reason, just don't like having something like that going on for me) so I went back to the site to see if I can find a way to download anything, after a while I found out that I can bulk download files and that would be ok with dropbox

honestly, if I can still download that way I am completely fine but the most thing that frustrates me is since I am not allowed to download from the file's site in dropbox, any link that has "dl=1" just doesn't open, it's just an error screen of "we can't reach this page" but I could still go around it by changing the 1 into a 0, but the real problems comes to links that are just random letters and numbers with "dl=1" in the end
changing the dl=1 to a 0 will not make the page open for me to bulk download it and this frustrates me a lot
a friend of mine was able to download the files I wanted and sent it to me and everything worked fine to him so it seems to be an only me thing
I've tried using another browser and downloading in incognito and none of those worked out for me
I hope you will be able to find something about this
thank you

Find more posts tagged with

Web

Shared Links

Download

Closed - Not for right now

Promoted

Accepted answers

Здравко

Hi @E-Dragon,

Changing URL since you hit Enter in address line till moment actual file gets download is something normal. That's part of redirection process Dropbox uses.

Actual trouble seems DNS problems (i.e. your ISP service DNS can't resolve all domain associated IP addresses). Try change your DNS server in use with Google's someone for example. This change can do the trick for you. Possible servers, which could be used freely, are "8.8.8.8" or "8.8.4.4". To be sure you have access, open a terminal and type there:

ping 8.8.8.8
ping 8.8.4.4

Change your system network setting uses those server(s) which respond properly.

Good luck!

All comments

Lusil

Hey @E-Dragon, thanks for reaching out to us! I'd be more than happy to help look into this with you.

In general, a shared link that ends with dl=1 won't open, but will download to your computer. Instead, if it ends with dl=0, it'll display rather than download.

As for downloading your files, could you let me know if you've also tried clearing your cache and making sure that you're not running any third party browser extensions or plugins? Maybe that will do the trick.

If it doesn't, could you please send me a screenshot (without any personal info) of the error message?

Keep me posted!

E-Dragon

@Lusil (edited reply to add the tag cause it didn't seem to pick up your name the first time) clearing cache doesn't seem to be doing the trick here

also, I might have worded things a little bit wrong
what I meant is pretty much that dl=1 is not doing what it's supposed to do which is instantly download like you just said, but just gives me a "this site can't be reached" chrome page error thingy

this is what I get when I open a redirected link from youtube and changing the dl=0 when the tab is open will not give me the dropbox site with the file where I can just click download
and here is just a simple link that leads to the page where I can hit the download button but
so this link leads somewhere but I can't download from it, and if I try to make it dl=1

I hope these screenshots will help

Lusil

Thanks for getting back to me with the screenshots, @E-Dragon.

It looks like there could be a proxy, VPN, firewall, security app, or even ISP/router hindering traffic to these following Dropbox domains.

Could you please double-check that out for me and let me know what you find? Thanks!

Здравко

Hi @E-Dragon,

Are you sure you url query is valid (i.e. as is)? It seems little bit modified, as much as I can see! Try click on following link directly:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lxm9xufjgqkwj0h/AACUGEwXLkp0qZg7Y4tefdfka?dl=1

What you see?

E-Dragon

@Lusil I am not using a VPN nor a proxy, don't really use security apps and I believe the firewall is ok, not sure though
so I will see if it's the router or indeed the firewall
thank you for your help so far
I will keep you informed if I get anything 🙏

E-Dragon

hello @Здравко,
I tried clicking the link which led me to the result I expected which was nothing really
though when I clicked the link multiple times I noticed something
it changes the URL to random things but the underlined letters don't seem to change at all
not sure if this will be helpful but just wanted to point it out

Здравко

Hi @E-Dragon,

Changing URL since you hit Enter in address line till moment actual file gets download is something normal. That's part of redirection process Dropbox uses.

ping 8.8.8.8
ping 8.8.4.4

Change your system network setting uses those server(s) which respond properly.

Good luck!

E-Dragon

thank you so much both of you @Здравко and @Lusil for helping me with this problem
everything is working fine now
you two are amazing people
thank you and have a nice day 🙏