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"Online Only" files now show file sizes of "zero KB" ???

About a week ago, for some reason all my "online only" files in my dropbox computer app suddenly changed the file sizes from the actual sizes to "zero KB"... I have two different Mac computers running OS High Sierra, and it happened to both of them at about the same time. At my job I also have access to three other Macs, but they all still show the actual file sizes for "online only" files... so what is up with this "zero KB" on the two Macs that I use??? It makes it hard to work with online only files when I have no clue how large they are... online chat was unable to help me.

here's a screenshot of what I see:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zhnt413jfrjyv4d/online-only-zeroKB.png?dl=0

The only way I can see the files sizes now is to download the files locally. If I then switch them back to "online only" the file sizes change back to "zero KB"

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Hannah

Hey @paulieb, thanks for joining our Community!

This is actually how Smart sync works. When files are switched to 'online-only', they stop taking up space on your hard drive, so they become placeholder files, with 0 kB size.

Only when the files are synced locally, will they show their physical (actual) size.

Perhaps Smart sync wasn't actually doing its job before and your files were still taking up space on your disk?

Did you see a change on your disk usage after this?

Keep me posted!

battiman

Hi! I am having the same issue as of yesterday! Did you get it resolved?

Walter

Hey @battiman, sorry to hear about this.

Could you provide some additional information about the issue you're facing so that we can assist further?

For example, did you enable the Smart Sync feature recently? Where exactly are you spotting the discrepancy?

Any additional information is more than welcome!

battiman

I am having more or less the exact same experience as the threadstarter, I have been in touch with Dropbox support multiple times over the day and my case has been escalated to your senior department for further investigation. Believe me, all that can be checked and verified has been checked! I am very worried that I won't be able to fix this.

Walter

Thanks for your speedy response @battiman - could you share your ticket ID so that I can look it up in our system?

battiman

16055042

Walter

Thanks for that @battiman - I've passed your comments on to the agent who's handling your request so they're aware.

You should be hearing from our experts soon, but please let me know if there's anything else you'd like to ask in the meantime.

battiman

Thanks.

In the meantime, perhaps you could inform your co-worker Hannah (above) that she is wrong in her statement. Refer her to your own article about this:

Why do online-only files still appear to take up space?

brandy25

Hi @battiman, could you resolve this issue already? I have the same problem and I would like to know if there is a solution.

Thanks,

Chris

battiman

It’s been resolved but it was a total nightmare! I was bounced around between a couple of support agents, one more incompetent than the other, before having the issue escalated to the “advanced support team” or whatever it was called. They were slightly more competent but still I had to repeatedly explain to them that this is not “expected behaviour”. Extremely frustrating that I understood their own product better they did!

Then, all of a sudden, the issue was resolved somehow on their end and despite having asked for an explanation I never got an answer. I am sure it helped that I have a Business account. I can look into the email address to the guy who resolved it but it has to be tomorrow.

paulhoepner

Hello,

I am still having the same issue. Is there any working solution for this? All my "online Only" files show a file size of 0 kb and there is now thumbnail of the image or video available anymore. They used to show the actual size and thumbnails, although they did take up just tiny space on the local hard disk. It is really a pain. It works with all other cloud storages (oneDrive, Google Drive), only dropbox seems to have problems with showing the actual file size on "online Only"-files and the thumbnails.

This is a real pain, as it is impossible to see for example the size of a folder before downloading it, but even more the missing thumbnails.

I need a working fix for this and can not wait for this to resolve by itself.

@DropBox: Please check this issue and provide a working solution. We have about 200.000 files saved online only, we can not download each of them to see a thumbnail and the file size.

battiman

Hi!

I feel your pain.

As I mentioned in my post above yours, I was able to get help from Dropbox Advanced Team but it was a real disaster before it was resolved. Most of the so-called "advanced" agents knew a lot less than I did about the expected behaviour of files set to "online only". It was very frustrating to have to inform them each and every time about their own software.

I assume you have reached out to them?

paulhoepner

Hello,

thanks for your reply. Yes, I was in a call with an agent. But as you described, they don't know their software. She stated: It is expected behaviour to show 0 bytes and no thumbnail for "online only" files. Strangely: It works perfectly on Microsoft "OneDrive". OneDrive shows Thumbnails and filesize for "Online Only" Files.

battiman

Hi!

You need to be persistent to the point of hostile 🙂 Call and call again and again... It's very frustrating to have to jump through these hoops before even getting to the actual problem at hand! I could e-mail you the e-mail that I believe is the one with a resolution. I a not sure if you can DM me here, though?

paulhoepner

That would be a great help. Could you send it to:

[personal information removed per the Community's Guidelines]

(I will fish it out of my spam folder then 🙂

Thanks

battiman

Hi....

No way of DM:ing here 😞

Anyway, here's the reply that finally got me back on track (unfortunately I have no way of identifying this agent apart from his name, John)

The engineering team identified an issue and have made some changes on the backend, which should resolve the problem you were experiencing.

So I don't have the magical solution as it was something they did "on the backend". But please refer to my case when talking to them again. Ticket number: 16055042

paulhoepner

Great, the ticket number will hopefully help. Thanks for your support.
PS: Ever though about working for the DropBox support team 😉

battiman

Haha, yes but only to fire some of them 🙂

paulhoepner

I'll join you for that 🙂

Megan

Hey @paulhoepner, and @battiman!

Paul, have you tried contacting our Support team about this? If so, feel free to send me your ticket number, so I can locate it on our system.

Thanks a bunch!

paulhoepner

Hello Megan, thanks for getting back to me! I am in contact with dropbox support about this, I have forwarded all information to them. Here is my current ticket: https://www.dropbox.com/support/ticket/19480527

If you can also have a look at it, that would be great!

Megan

Hi @paulhoepner, awesome, thanks for that!

Don't worry, I have passed my comments to your ticket number, for the agent to see. If you have any additional info, comments or questions, feel free to respond back to the ticket.

Thank you!

battiman

@paulhoepner How did it go for you? Was it resolved?

I just helped a colleague out and updated her OS to Ventura. After the update, I noticed all the online only files in Dropbox were showing a file size of 0 bytes. I got in touch with support and the nightmare started all over again with a "support agent" claiming this was "expected behaviour" yada yada. I will give them a call tomorrow but I am not looking forward to it.

So can you tell me if you also are on Ventura? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I am still happy on my machine running Monterey!

Jay

Hi @battiman, if a file is online-only, it means it doesn't take up any physical space on your machine, so it's normal behavior for the file to be zero bytes?

In order to understand what you're expecting, please let me know what you wish to see for files not physically taking up storage on your computer?

battiman

@Jay

I am not sure if you're trolling me here 🙂 I assume you have read the thread? It makes me crazy when you have to explain that this is NOT expected behavior to one of Dropbox's own employees! But you are in luck, I will explain it to you so you can be of better assistance if and when someone else ends up with you as their support guy.

Here's a screenshot of a folder on a machine running Monterey:

[Removed as per Community Guidelines]

As you can see, only one file is set to offline (the top one) and the rest is online only. All of them however display the logical file size, as is expected behavior. This is the way it has worked since Dropbox implemented this feature. All is okay here. Do you understand? The files with the little cloud icon are not actually on my hard drive, these are just placeholders which takes up next to no space. The placeholder's file size is of no interest to me.

Now here's a screenshot of a folder on a machine running Ventura:

[Removed as per Community Guidelines]

See the difference? All the files set to online only show the placeholders physicial file size (i.e. 0 bytes) and not the files actual/logial size. This is the bug. This is NOT expected behavior.

Now, unless you have a way of solving this for me, I would greatly appreciate if you just push this forward to someone else who actually understands the basic functions of the software you are supporting.

Jay

Online-only files should always show the physical file size of zero bytes in Finder and Explorer. If they showed the logical size, then this would be considered not normal behavior. Only files available offline would show the size of the file on the disk.

battiman

EDIT: I just now noticed that the screenshots were removed for some reason. You just have to take my word for it.

So you are basically telling me that of the two screenshots I posted, the one from the machine running Monterey is displaying some kind of bug/unexpected behavior when the files display the logical file size and not the physical size?

Also, the support agents on "the advanced team" (or whatever you call it) were all simply confused when they wrote back to me in March 2022:

Thanks for getting back to me with this screenshot.
No I can confirm that this definitely shouldn't happen.

And the other guys who helped me solve this after a long period of troubleshooting this - as you call it - "expected behavior" must have been extremely confused when they finally admitted it was a bug on your end:

The engineering team identified an issue and have made some changes on the backend, which should resolve the problem you were experiencing.

I suggest you read this article also:

https://help.dropbox.com/sync/make-files-online-only

Pay special attention to the section: "Why do online-only files still appear to take up space?”

You are simply wrong. That is ok. But I want you to admit it before we go on.

battiman

So an update to whoever finds this thread...

The issue, that was considered and handled as a bug last year, is now considered as a drawback of Ventura. The developers at Dropbox does not intend to try and solve it and you get no help from the support team. I understand that Dropbox is in the hands of Apple and if there is nothing to be done , I guess that's it. I can only prey the issue has been resolved once I will be forced to upgrade from my current version (Monterey).