Tagging directly using File Explorer, but some files get an unspecified error, while others don't.

Question

Hello,

The company I work for uses Dropbox to share a lot of photos with each other, however, we have implemented a tagging system that is based in file explorer (we don't use the dropbox tagging at the moment).

Usually, this works pretty well - when I tag something saved in dropbox (but still tagged via file explorer), my colleagues can view the tags and edit/modify the tags as well. However, we have noticed recently that some photos are taggable by some of us, but not taggable by others.

- This is not a permissions issue as I have looked into it and we all have the same full access to edit all the photos

- We can all download the images and view them without any problems. If I download an "untaggable" image and save it to my desktop, then I can tag and view previous tags without a problem from my desktop. However, if I try to tag it directly in the drobox folder, I receive an error 0x80004005 (unspecified error)

In this screenshot, the green tick shows that I've downloaded the photo, but when I try to tag it this error pops up. However, some of my collegues have no problem tagging this image, while some others also cannot tag it.

We have a LOT of photos, and this is maybe happening to about ~5% of the total photos? There doesn't seem to be any pattern, and it also seems like each person has different untaggable photos.

I'm not sure if this issue is dropbox specific or related to the windows system - but it feels like it is a combination of both. Any help would be appreciated, thanks so much!

Hannah · Answer

Hey @EOuser, sorry to jump in here.

Like Megan mentioned, this tagging feature is actually provided by your computer's OS and not Dropbox.

We do have a tagging feature, which you can access only through our website, at the moment.

Now, if you mark your files as "available offline" and then quit the Dropbox app, do you see the same behavior, when navigating to the files through the Dropbox folder in file explorer?

EOuser · Answer

Hi Megan,

Thanks for your reply.

My Dropbox is up to date: 180.4.4912

All of our files are Jpg/Jpeg images - so some jpgs are fine, and other jpgs are untaggable (but this is inconsistent among my colleagues, as they can tag some jpgs that I can't, and vice versa).

I'm not sure how to tag the image while the app is closed, because I access the images by opening Dropbox and navigating to them. It is not saved on my laptop unless I download it.

Here's one peculiar thing I noticed:

There was one specific image that I couldn't tag, so I asked my colleagues to see if they could tag it.

Most of them reported back that they could tag it. After this I tried again and could tag it as well.

I'm wondering if the tagging might have to do with synchronization on the dropbox accounts, because once everyone else opened the image, my account was able to tag it too?

Let me know if this makes sense!

Megan · Answer

Hi @EOuser, does this happen on specific file types, or is it not consistent?

Also, if you quit the app, and try to tag while the app is closed, do you still get the same error? Which version of our app do you use on your end?

You should be able to find this by locating your little Dropbox icon on your task bar, and hovering your mouse there.