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Image previews disappear after viewing image

Greg G

I love Dropbox for the convenience of storing and retrieving files. However, there is one feature that absolutely drives me crazy.

When I open a folder containing images, I can clearly see previews of every image on that folder.

However, when I click on that image to either view it closely or to use it in any application, the preview disappears and is replaced with the icon for JPG. If I ever view that folder again, there is no preview for any image I have viewed or used in the past.

This is VERY frustrating and the only workaround is to open every image with an icon until I find the one I was looking for.

This appears to be an issue with Windows 10 and Windows Explorer. Something tied with having DropBox store files "in the cloud" rather than the local computer interferes with showing thumbnails every time a folder is accessed.

Does anyone know that cause and what can be done to show previews for all images all the time?

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Walter

Hi @Greg G, sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

Could you please send me a screenshot of how this looks like on your end so that I can have a visual too?

Does it happen with Online Only files only or ones that are stored locally on your computer?

Keep me posted, Greg!

Greg G

Thanks for your willingness to help!

Here is a screenshot of how the images appear in one of the Windows Explorer folders.

The folder has a white circle with a green checkmark on it, which I believe means it is online only. The folders I know are stored locally have a solid green circle with a white checkmark on it.

However, my Dropbox folder is located on my computer's hard drive, which is a separate hard drive and the folders available on that drive should be stored on it. I likely have something misconfigured.

I appreciate your assistance!

Greg

Dropbox image problem.jpg

Jay

Hi @Greg Gm if there is a white circle with a green checkmark, then it means you have both online-only and local files in the folder.

If it was a cloud icon, then it would be completely online only.

There should at least one file or folder inside there which is online-only. You can try right clicking the folder and choosing Smart Sync > Local to make all files inside it local.

Greg G

Thanks for trying to help, Jay. That folder was already set up for Smart Sync - Local.

Something happens within Dropbox that whenever an image is viewed, it alters the file characteristics so that a thumbnail is no longer visible.

We need an app or tool that restores image settings to allow thumbnail previews to be visible again after the image is opened.

Jay

Thanks for the feedback on this matter, I'd recommend contacting the support team directly for them to look into this matter in future detail.

RBrunner

I am experiencing the same issue.

Once I open an image and view, the preview thumbnail disappears the next time I enter the folder.

~Ray

Megan

Hi @RBrunner, how are you doing today?

Keep in mind that the grey Xs next to your files indicate that you might have another cloud service running on your machine, which is causing the grey X icon to appear.

Do you have any other cloud programs installed on your device?

If I were you, I'd reach out to our support team in order to investigate further.

Let me know of any updates.

They have all the available tools on their end to see what might be causing this.

Mr b.4

Philippe B

Hi there,

I'm having the exact same problem that described before.
Is there now a known solution ?

Here are more about the backtrace:

Everything was ok (from the side of Dropbox) but I had to reinstall windows.

So my dropbox folder was just a normal folder. I reinstall Dropbox and said to it what was the Dropbox folder. It removed all my locals files for an option I missed (it's a really big folder: 1.5To T_T). Now that I put the correct option, but still not put all as Smart Sync > Local cause it takes a looot of time.

Well, the file who still are on the cloud have a preview. But at the moment I download them (by opening them for example) the preview disapears. It's a really unpleasant bug, because I have a lot of images, and it's really hard to find them without the preview.

Megan

Hi @Philippe B, welcome to our Community!

Do you have a Mac or a Windows device?

Can you also let me know the version of the app that you have installed there? You can find that by hovering your mouse over the little Dropbox icon, next to the WiFi.

Let me know more!

Philippe B

Hi @Megan,

Thank you for answering me.

I'm on a window device (Windows 10).

And the version of Dropbox is : 149.4.4568

Greg G

This has been a problem with Dropbox for YEARS. It does not matter what version of the app is being used. I am using 149.4.4568, but have been battling this problem since 2014. It has to do with how Dropbox interacts with the Windows file system. For some reason when an image is opened, the preview is obliterated.

In the past, I recommended creating a tool to reset all previews, but that has fallen on deaf ears. My Dropbox subscription was just renewed for another year, but before it expires, I am hopeful that a suitable alternative can be discovered.

rustyx2

Same issue here, Windows 11.

When a file is online-only, a thumbnail preview appears normally.

As soon as I open the image or it otherwise gets downloaded to local PC, the thumbnail is gone, replaced with the icon of the default image app.

If the file was initially local, a thumbnail preview is working fine.

If I move the image for which a preview isn't visible to another folder (inside or outside Dropbox) or even copy-paste in the same folder, a thumbnail preview again appears normally.

So it sounds like the "hand-off" of thumbnail handling to the OS default when switching from online-only to local, is broken.

Martin 14

I have the same issue! Very irritating. When is Dropbox going to fix this fault?