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Did I just lose my files? 0 bytes and Error 415

Hello,

When moving my files to a new system install using Dropbox, I found out that some of them haven't synced back. When looking at my web folder, they appear to have 0 bytes. When trying to preview them, I see a 415 error message:

Are my files really "safe", or are they lost forever? I don't see any file history, they aren't in the deleted files either. Is there any way for me to recover those files?

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Megan

Hey @NonVideri, thanks for reaching out to the Dropbox Community.

I'm sorry to see you're having trouble with this.

When and how did you originally sync these files to your Dropbox account? And were you able to access and open them before?

It sounds like maybe they aren't fully synced, could this be the case?

Let me know more!

NonVideri

I originally synced these files using Dropbox Desktop for Linux.

I was able to open them locally, but I've never checked online. I've assumed they were properly synced and I could trust Dropbox to act as my backup. So it might be the case that they never synced in the first place.

Megan

Hey @NonVideri, I'm assuming you don't have access to the Linux device anymore, right?

Since the files are 0 bytes, this means there's literally no data in them, so no program would be able to preview these.

If you check your events page, when were they added to your account, and were they 0 bytes then?

NonVideri

Yes, I've reinstalled my system on the same device, trusting Dropbox would keep my files safe.

Hard to tell when I uploaded them, but at their last modified date I have access to, they were still 0 bytes.

They had various "last modified" dates, staying at 0 bytes though. Which is why everything looked fine to me as Dropbox was "syncing" and not throwing any errors, but it was probably just updating the last modified date, while the file stayed empty...

Hannah

Sorry to jump in here, @NonVideri.

Did you get a chance to check if you can find anything related to those files in your events page?

Also, do you remember ever accessing those files from your online Dropbox?

NonVideri

I haven't found much, most of them were rarely updated files.

I've found that at least some of them have an older version with some data inside (but most of them had only one version with 0 bytes):

I don't think I've ever actually accessed them from online Dropbox.

Hannah

Thanks, @NonVideri.

If you want, we could switch over to email, so I can take a closer look, search for some example file names, but if the files never got fully uploaded to Dropbox, that won't help much. 😕

NonVideri

Let's try at least. I've already lost so much data, I can at least try to recover what I can...

Hannah

Okay, @NonVideri, I just sent you an email, so I'll see you there.