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Dropbox on Mac stuck syncing indefinitely for days.

The Dropbox icon in my menu bar has shown the syncing icon for days. I've tried restarting the app as well as restarting my computer. When Dropbox starts up, it says "Syncing 2 files..." for a little while and then changes to simply "Syncing...". This is the message at the bottom of the Dropbox dropdown. When I select "View syncing issues" it reports "No Issues". I have the 2TB plan and am nowhere near running out of space, either on my plan or on my hard drive.

As far as I can tell, Dropbox is working properly otherwise.

The time on my computer is set automatically and is correct. I have not travelled or changed the time. I use regular home high-speed internet with no special settings. I've not had this issue in the past, nor do I have issues with other apps.

I have version v213.4.4597 and have been using File Provider (CloudStorage) for a while now.

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Comments

Megan

Hey there, @sfsam, happy Monday!

Also, you did an amazing job troubleshooting this on your end, well done!

You mentioned you're using File Provider for a while now, so is it safe to assume that the app hasn't been stuck "syncing" content ever since this migration happened?

Is it possible to see which files are syncing based upon the icons of the folders in Finder?

Also can you try these steps here to fix your hardlinks and permissions and let me know how that goes, please.

Keep me posted!

sfsam

Hi Megan,

I've had File Provider working for many months. The syncing issue I'm reporting started several days ago. The icons in the Dropbox folder are all green circles with the white checkmark.

I did the 'Fix hardlinks' button and it reported that it worked. But the syncing issue persists. I then did the 'Fix permissions' button and it reported that it was unable to fix permissions. I restarted Dropbox after each button. As before, it says 'Syncing 2 files...' for a minute or so and then changes to just 'Syncing...'. The menu bar icon has the syncing badge.

Nancy

Hope you don’t mind if I jump in, @sfsam. Have you already tried reinstalling the Dropbox app, as well?

If not, can you also give it a go and let me know about any updates?

sfsam

Hi Nancy,

Yes, I tried that. Same result: "Syncing 2 files" at first and then indefinitely "Syncing..." indefinitely.

v214.3.5170

Nancy

Thanks for clarifying! v214.3.5170 is our beta app version, which is experimental; did you install it to test if the issue would persist? I’m just asking because I can see you were running the stable version initially.

Are you still having issues if you disable "Early access" from here and go back to the stable version?

sfsam

I followed the "stable version" link in your reply and it downloaded an installer. I ran the installer and it again installed v214.3.5170. When I did the first reinstall, I'd gotten the installer from: https://www.dropbox.com/install and it gave me v214.3.5170.

I already had "Early access" turned off in my preferences. I never intended to use a beta. Issue persists.

Jay

Hi @sfsam, thanks for the info, in order to look into this matter in more detail, I'd recommend contacting the support team directly for them to investigate further.

jibletgreyv

Were you ever able to get to the bottom of this? I have the same issue.. 103,000ish files infinitely syncing. It's making me crazy.

Walter

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

If you already rebooted your computer and quit and relaunched the Dropbox desktop app and syncing still gets stuck at the same number of files, could you send us a screenshot of the app's version and status as shown in your menu bar?