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Share Links are NOT Working - Recipients receiving 404 message on their end from my Free Account.

Hello - my Share-Links are not working properly. They only work sometimes, and other times not. My recipients are receiving 404 messages after I create and send them a Dropbox folder share-link.

I've had multiple people take a look to troubleshoot, and it all appears to be on dropbox side. Also, I work in tech, so pretty tech savvy, so very aware how to operate and troubleshoot technology, as are my recipients who took a look.

Please help fix this. Seems to be on the dropbox end.

Rob

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Graham

Hi @funkdawggg,

Thanks for the response, it's great to hear that everything is working for you again! Unfortunately, I can't see what may have been at the root of this problem and I agree that it does seem unusual given the prolonged issue free period of time you have been using Dropbox. Hopefully, this will be an isolated incident and you can continue to use Dropbox without any incidents for another prolonged period.

Thanks again for your patience in getting this resolved and for choosing Dropbox. Please let us know if you have any other feedback or if there is anything else we can help you with.

Have a great day!

Graham

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Mark

Are you sending out lots of links?

If so its very likely that you are going over your daily bandwidth allowance of 20gb (for free users) which will result in a 404 error until it resets.

funkdawggg

Define lots of links.

I have had this free account for 10 or 15 years. It's been the same amount of usage and clicks, so nothing has changed. Never had this issue ever. Can you see the amount of clicks? The links are sometimes working and sometimes not. There's not that many clicks or users. I can see the counts too, and is the same clicks as ever.

What are the click limits? Have the click count limits recently changed? If not, this is NOT the issue.

Also to Note, this is making Dropbox look very bad to a handful of Cloud Storage Power Users across the world FYI.

Jay

Hi @funkdawggg, currently it isn't possible to see the number of clicks or data transferred on your account.

The daily bandwidth limits for shared links and file requests can be found here, and does vary depending upon your account subscription.

funkdawggg

As soon as I sent the links out, my recipients were quickly saying they weren't working. And there aren't that many recipients, in fact, the same amount of recipients as the past 10 years with this account, and nothing has changed.

How do we explain these 404-returns on the share-links when a month ago there were zero 404-returns to the same exact recipients? Has Share-Link access changed? Can you please reset my account from the backend? There is clearly a glitch.

Thank you,

Walter

Hey @funkdawggg, sorry to jump in here, but can you clarify if your shared links are still not working or giving errors?

If so, let us know here and we'll reach out via email to investigate further.

funkdawggg

No, my links are not working right now. It appears they are working intermittently, sometimes they work, other times not.

This is the first time this has ever happened, and I've been using this Account for over 10 years. I also have to say this puts a bad taste About Dropbox into everyone's mouth, and many of my recipients are paying Cloud Storage Power Users across the world.

Has Dropbox changed its policies on share-links or something? Otherwise, their technology is glitching and its not a good look. Zero has changed on my end, and I've never experienced this.

funkdawggg

Hello Walter - After I sent you that last message, the links started working again.

Now I just got an email telling me "this email is an automated notification from Dropbox letting you know that your Public links have been temporarily suspended for generating excessive traffic." And now the share links aren't working again!

How long is a Temporary Suspension? This is all pretty frustrating. I just wish I knew what the limits were, and that there were limits in the first place. You can see in my Account that I've never encountered this issue, and I've also referred many, many, many people to dropbox to support the Dropbox Brand & Company Growth.

Furthermore, if my account was initially suspended last week for generating excessive traffic, why didn't an email like this prompt then? Just trying to make sense of this.

How can I find out what is going on?

Rob

Hannah

Hey @funkdawggg, sorry to jump in here as well.

Perhaps the email went to your spam/junk folder?

Have you tried contacting our support team about this?

If not, let us know and we can assist you on our end, by opening a support ticket for you.

funkdawggg

I have not been able to figure out how to contact support with my free account. I did attempt to contact support, and followed the directions to do so, but the directions to contact support didn't seem to apply, prob because its a free acct. Guessing the dashboard is different than in a paid account, correct? Can you advise how I can contact support?

Either way, the link-share functionality should work as it always has, just frustrating it doesn't anymore as of last week.

Anyway, thank you!

funkdawggg

Hannah—I just checked, I am not even able to create a share link in my own account anymore. Please help!

Hannah

No worries, I just sent you an email, so we can look into this internally.

funkdawggg

I just emailed you back. Thank you so much Hannah!

Graham

Hi @funkdawggg,

Thanks for using the Dropbox Community. I hope you are well today. I've just seen that you were having some issue using shared links and it sounds like it has been pretty frustrating for you so I just wanted to follow up and get an update on your situation. Could you let us know if the links are working again, and if so, have you been able to create any new working links? Likewise, if the issues are still ongoing or if there's anything we can help with just let us know.

Thanks again and have a great day!

Graham

funkdawggg

Hi Graham - appears everything is working for me so far. Thank you for checking in.

Do you have the ability to view what caused this? In 10 years, I've never had that happen, and now the issue has passed. I would just like to know the reasoning. Just strange it happened at all, after zero issues in years and years!

Thank you,

Rob

Graham

Hi @funkdawggg,

Thanks again for your patience in getting this resolved and for choosing Dropbox. Please let us know if you have any other feedback or if there is anything else we can help you with.

Have a great day!

Graham

funkdawggg

Hello - I'd like to reopen this case, as this issue has happened again. @Graham @Hannah @Walter @Jay @Mark

My Dropbox Share-Link Recipients are receiving an Error Message when attempting to click my Dropbox Share Links again.

I did receive an email from Dropbox this morning - see screenshot attached. I've also included 4 additional Dropbox Storage screenshots of what I see on my end.

1. The Dropbox Email (screenshot of email attached) states I am currently using 20.27GB out of 20.00GB, but on my end, in 4 different views of my Storage, I'm told I'm using:

- 15.9GB out of 18.3GB in my Dropbox Acct in my Brave Browser.

- 15.9GB out of 18.25GB on my Macbook Dropbox App.

- 87.1% used out of 18.25GB from my iPhone Dropbox App

- 87% used out of 18.2GB in my Macbook Dropbox Settings > Preferences.

In other words, this email is giving me a bullcrap reading, and causing these Share Link Error Messages.

Also, the Dropbox Email states Excessive Traffic in my Account. 2 things:

1. What does excessive traffic mean? I still have not been able to identify its meaning. There must be a hard definition if this is a rule, correct?

2. I know for a fact that there isn't much traffic on my share-links, but at the highest level, how am I to believe Dropbox Communication about Excessive Traffic if its telling me false information about my Account being over-limit???

Please help, and thank you,

Rob

Dropbox Acct - Macbook Storage Reading-edit.jpg

Dropbox Email 2-24-23.png

Dropbox Mac App - Storage Screenshot-edit.jpg

Screenshot 2023-02-27 11.19.09.png

Dropbox Storage Screenshot - From Account Login on Brave Browser-edit.jpg

Hannah

Hey @funkdawggg, thanks for the nudge here.

I just wanted to clarify that the email you received is referring to the sharing bandwidth limits your account has, and not your Dropbox space usage.

You can see more about the limits and info on traffic when sharing links in this article.

funkdawggg

@Hannah @Graham @Walter @Jay @Mark

Yeah, I got your msg. All this commotion over "Excessive Traffic" and now I have to pull down and re-upload the data? Its a pain in the rear to manage shared data with Dropbox. It's no surprise your company hasn't much grown much more.

funkdawggg

I am still having trouble here. My recipients are still recieve the 404 error message. This happened a week ago or so, and I have since re-uploaded a new folder with new files, created a new share link, sent it to two users, and they are both getting the 404 error message (all yestereday).

Is my Account now temporarily or permanently restricted? If so, for how long or forever?

Thank you,

Rob

Jay

Hi @funkdawggg, in general, bans on shared links last for 24 hours. For each subsequent ban, the duration until the ban expiry increases exponentially each time.

As to when it will expire it isn't possible to see, however, we can only recommend testing the links periodically to see when the links work again.

funkdawggg

Thank you @Jay - can you send me the Dropbox Ban Duration timeline chart? I want to see where I'm at. Is it a week or a month or more or less?

Or can you tell me how long my current ban is? Or how much longer this ban will last for?

Thank you,

Rob

Jay

The first ban is for 1 day, the next would be 2 days, the third for 4 days. and so on exponentially. Depending on which ban you're on, you can figure out how long the ban will last. We wouldn't be able to see from our end.

Oscar Jite-Orimiono

Hi,

I have the same issue. This is the first time I'm experiencing this.

Am I also banned for 24 hours?

funkdawggg

Yes. If it is your first ban, than probably a 24 hour ban. After that the bans double to 48 hours, then, next time it happens, that doubles, and so on.

Best way is for you to minimize amounts of links, because the overage of clicks is causing the ban on the free account.

Oscar Jite-Orimiono

When you say clicks, that's clicks on the shared links only, right. Like when I share a document on Gmail, the clicks start counting from when the recipient uses that link. So, if they only access the document while logged in to Dropbox, I should be fine? Because, I'm a technical writer, I share a links frequently with my editors.

Thanks.

ronbannon

I have used Dropbox for many years, sharing files with my students without issue. My links no longer work unless I am logged into my Dropbox account. When I try to create a new link, I am told I cannot because my file(s) contain evidence of phishing.

Here's a sample link:

removed

It's not just this link; it's for any link I've created. And if I try to creat a new share via the Dropbox web-based app I am informed that I can't due to a phishing concern.

Also, I can no longer creat a share link via the Finder (Mac OS X)

This is a significant concern for me, as I have created many PDF files with embedded Dropbox links.

Yikes, can anyone help?

-Ron

Mark

You will need to speak to Dropbox support: https://help.dropbox.com/share/banned-links

ronbannon

I followed the link and was offered the choice to talk to a bot (useless) or return to the forums. I am hoping someone on this forum can help.

Megan

Hi @ronbannon, can I send you an email, in order for us to have a closer look into this?

ronbannon

Indeed, I look forward to having a chat with you. Please use the email (gmail.com) address you have on file. -Ron