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Uploads get stuck

During the past few weeks I've needed to upload several 15GB .rar files. Each time, the upload process gets stuck on 9 minutes or so remaining. I have to refresh the browser and then start uploading again from scratch. Usually the second time it works fine.

I'm using an up to date google chrome on windows 10 professional.

I notice quite a few people are reporting the same problem on this forum. The help chat wasn't useful at all, basically suggesting I try again in incognito mode, so I can help them pinpoint the problem. I don't think as a paying customer I should be expected to spend time troubleshooting the problem for Dropbox. Surely they have server logs they can refer to for quickly identifying server issues?

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michael campbell

Update, just tried again in incognito mode. Now I get a black message popup at the bottom of the screen at 36 minute remaining saying 'you seem to be having internet issues, hang tight your upload will resume when you have a connection'

I don't have any internet issues, all other websites are working fine, as is my phone on wifi and netflix on my TV.

michael campbell

Just posted that, and the main dropbox page is still showing I'm having internet connection issues........hmmm, might be time to look for a better provider.

Jay

Hi @michael campbell, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Are you on a stable personal network, or a work network?

Do you have any proxy, VPN, firewall, security software, or even ISP/router settings that could be restricting traffic to the following Dropbox domains?

This will help me to assist further!

michael campbell

no, if that were the case then it wouldn't work on the second attempt. The connection is a stable 300mb/s virgin media connection.

Jay

Are you experiencing this with any device on the same network when uploading the files?

Are you able to use the Dropbox desktop application to sync the files to your account?

michael campbell

I have one device (my workstation). If it were device or network settings related, then it wouldn't work the second time, and also it works without issue for smaller files. Just large .rar files are the issue.

I'd prefer not to install the application.

Would it be possible for you to escalate this to someone who can investigate the server logs for my account please?

michael campbell

So I decided to install the app. And even though I chose the 'online only' storage, It's now taking up 60GB of file space as far as windows is concerned, even though there's only 40kb on disk. Windows reports I now have only 1GB of available space. So I'm guessing this is going to be problematic for windows managed page filing, as it'll base the available space on free space rather than actual free space determined by size on disk?

It's crazy, when I chose a different drive to keep the dropbox folder on, it took 10 minutes to move it! It's only supposed to be a list of file names. I only have dropbox to reduce disk space, not to double it.

michael campbell

It get's even worse. After moving the 15GB file to dropbox via the app and waiting for the upload to complete, it appears in my local dropbox folder, but is not in the remote folder.

Another problem, I choose to hide all folders locally to free up disk space (because setting folder to 'online only' doesn't work. It removes all of them apart from the one that contains the large .rar files!

What's happening here?! It's terrible!!!

I guess the initial file move when I dragged my 15gb to the local dropbox folder, wasn't uploading, but rather moving the file from one local folder to the dropbox local folder. I don't want this behaviour, it results in the file being in two place on the disk taking double the space. I just want to drag it from it's original location straight to the dropbox remote folder. I don't understand why it's not doing this if I have the folder set to 'online only'.

michael campbell

I have dropbox set to 'online only' it doesn't appear to work, so I manually set it to online only by right clicking on each folder and choosing that option (windows).

I then drag a 15GB file to one of my dropbox sub folders and choose copy rather than move. I expected it to begin uploading directly to the dropbox server, but instead it copies it locally to the dropbox folder and then uploads it. This results in two local copies of the 15GB file.

How can I bypass it creating a second copy locally, and instead send it straight to dropbox (same as when using the website, which incidentally always fails with big files, hence me trying the app).

Jay

Thanks for the info on this matter. I'd recommend contacting the support team directly for further assistance to investigate further.

michael campbell

I give up then, because that's where I started.

Hannah

Hey @michael campbell, just to clarify, if the files you added to the Dropbox folder haven't fully synced first, you won't be able to make them 'online-only'.

What's the sync status of the Dropbox app? You can hover over the Dropbox icon in your system tray, to see this info.

ashleywchism

We are all having the same issue and do not have internet connection issues, so what is dropbox going to do to fix this problem? Would like to cancel if I am not going to be able to upload videos to store and share when paying for a subscription to do just that. This has been going on for almost 2 weeks and that is very frustrating as a consumer.

itissid

I can report this too. Please see the video link below. As you can see from the link, I can upload other files(i.e. internet is fine) but not this specific one in the video (stuck at 55MB).

And for god’s sake, fix the **bleep** issue with manual uploads. We are paying customers what Level of Service are you providing here when 3 people have reported an issue and its been months since there has been no real progress on it?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/axqaggd2qnb2nw6xshb4j/Dropbox-gets-stuck-with-a-stable-internet-connection.mov?rlkey=vf1yciq0l2tcp40pbv722z4dk&dl=0

Walter

Hey @itissid - sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

Have you tried clearing your browser's cache or using another browser, preferably with no extensions or plugins running since you first noticed this?

If you did and this persists, could you rename the file and try again?

Let us know of any updates!

itissid

Yep, I have tried this with two different browsers in incognito mode on 2 different OSs (Windows and MacOS). The issue is persistent.

Do you guys do like, I don't know QA? I hear its quite useful for products and services sold by multi billion dollar companies. I would try uploading a large set of files with enough variance in size on a set of sandboxed browsers to see if it triggers an issue. And if that last bit does not make sense, please have someone from the development team chime in here.

Hannah

Thanks for your feedback here, @itissid.

Can we send you an email, so we can take a deeper look?

michael campbell

After months of trying to persuade the support team to escalate to their technical department, they finally did. Obviously they still haven't fixed the issue on the browser side, but this is what I've done to get uploads working. I downloaded the windows app, and the problem was still there. Eventually the support staff decided to escalate to the technical department as mentioned above, and they found that it was a bug on their server that was causing uploads over a certain size to fail when there was 5mb left. The bug was fixed on the app, and I got 3 months free for the inconvenience.

Bugs can happen, but I think the main fault lies with the support staff who seem to want to avoid escalating issues to the technical staff at all costs. This makes getting a resolution extremely long winded and frustrating. I assume this is also what's holding up the browser bug getting resolved.