Dropbox tries to back up a file I excluded from back up on Win11

Question

Hi there! DropBox Backup is trying to back up a file that I had excluded from back up. I'm using DropBox 194.4.6267 on Windows 11 to back up my e-mails from "%APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\\". In "Dropbox Backup" -> "Choose folders", I have unchecked / deselected / excluded the file "parent.lock" (%APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\\parent.lock), among others: However, DropBox still tries to back it up. To complete the backup without errors I have close Thunderbird, pause and resume sync, which defeats the purpose of having a continuous/automatic backup. This issue (DropBox Backup accessing a file excluded from the backup) is probably a bug. Is there a better / proper place to report this issue? Thanks!

FunnyBox · Answer

Hi, @Hannah ! It certainly does. I've been having this issue for quite some time.

FWIW, this is not happening only with Thunderbird, I was using it more as a simple example. I recently installed a new version of Evernote, and it also has a very similar issue: file %APPDATA%\Evernote\lockfile is also excluded from syncing, yet DropBox tries to sync it, too:

So it is not an issue specific to Thunderbird. It seems like a bug in the DropBox logic, where it tries to read the file (and/or its metadata) at first anyway, instead of completely ignoring it. My guess is that the dev team could check this at the source code in no time.

Hannah · Answer

Hey @FunnyBox, if after you reopen Thunderbird, you don't do a "backup now", does the issue come back after a while?

FunnyBox · Answer

FWIW, if I close Thunderbird, then pause and resume sync, the issue goes away:

When I open Thunderbird and do a "Backup now", the issue comes back.