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'Make available offline' option issue - files keep reverting to online only

I'm having ongoing issues where some files I've made available offline keep reverting to online.

For example, I'm working in Adobe After Effects, and my assets (videos, images PSDs) I've previously made 'available offline'.

The next time (maybe a day or more later) I open my After Effects file again and it cannot find some of those previously available linked assets. I go in the Finder to see that some of the assets are no longer 'available offline' (green tick icon) and have reverted to 'online only' (grey cloud icon).

Is there a setting somewhere I'm not aware of where offline files revert back to online after a period of time or something?

I'm on a Mac - OS 12.3 (Monteray)

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Hannah

Hey @stinkerbill, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

There is indeed such a setting, however it shouldn't revert your files to online-only after such a short amount of time.

You can see more info and how to disable it here.

Let me know how it goes and if it makes any difference or not.

Thanks!

stinkerbill

Thanks for replying.

It seems from the link you sent that it's the 'Automatic Smart Sync' feature that is the issue.

You can turn on automatic Smart Sync so that files that you don’t open from your computer for a few months become online-only automatically and new files you add online become online-only by default. That way, the files that you don’t regularly use won’t take up space on your computer.

To turn on automatic Smart Sync:

Open your Dropbox desktop app preferences.
Click the Sync tab.
Under Save hard drive space automatically, select On.

However I don't have that option in my 'sync' tab - see the screenshot below:

Screenshot 2022-06-06 at 18.05.43.png

Hannah

Thanks for the update and the screenshot here.

If you hover your mouse over the Dropbox icon in your menu bar, which version of Dropbox do you have installed and what's the sync status of the app, please?

Cbuzio

I've been having the exact same issue...

Files that I downloaded last week, have reverted to being offline.

I also don't have that option in my sync settings. I'm on a Mac, operating system Ventura 13.4.1 (c), and the Dropbox version is v185.4.6054.

Please help, my files are really heavy and the internet isn't always fantastic, so sometimes I need to wait 1h until I can work again, even though I had downloaded the files last week.

Megan

Hey there, @Cbuzio, sorry to hear about that!

Does this happen with all of your files, or some of them?

When did you first start noticing this behavior? If you right click on a folder/file inside your Dropbox folder, do you have the option to change the status of the files, and revert them to the state they originally were?

Let me know more, and we'll take it from there!

Cbuzio

Hi Megan,

Thank you for your quick reply!

I've been experiencing issues with the online/offline sync for one or two months now. For a while, for example, I would select "make available offline" from the drop down list (after right clicking on the folder), and nothing would happen. It only worked when I double clicked the little cloud icon on the folder, then it started downloading everything.

I only noticed this particular issue with the files reverting back to online in the last few days, because these were big folders that took me a while to download. If they are small files, I might not notice the issue.

did this help? If I upgrade my operating system to Sonora, will it help or create more problems? (I usually wait a few months before installing a new operating system).

Megan

Hi @Cbuzio!

Is your Dropbox folder located in ~/Library/CloudStorage?

When you access the app's preferences, what do you see under the Sync tab?

Cbuzio

Screenshot 2023-11-16 at 15.58.57.jpg

Hi Megan, here is a screenshot of what I see! I feel it has been better at the moment though, and I can use "Make available offline" menu option again, so I feel this is resolved for now? I have not updated to sonora yet though.