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Dropbox desktop app locks file explorer and syncs already synced files on Windows 10

Since the last update, whenever I open the Dropbox app it hangs the explorer syncing files that were already synced and takes forever to complete. Upon the app starts there is always 4-5 files syncing and usually after that keeps syncing files that are already synced. This issue actually locks my hard drive usage and makes it disappear from the Explorer drives as if it's not connected due to Dropbox app doing who knows what. As soon as I close Dropbox the drive is available again for usage and explorer works properly.

Please fix this issue as it makes the app unusable and haven't had issues like this before. The last forced update caused all this issues and I wasn't even able to decide to install it or not.

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Comments

Hannah

Hey @Nicolas Miranda, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Can you hover over your Dropbox icon and let us know the exact sync status and version of the Dropbox app?

Do you currently keep your Dropbox folder on an internal or external drive?

Let me know.

Nicolas Miranda

Hi Hannah, Thanks for helping me on this issue.

The Dropbox desktop app version that started with this issue is 219.4.4463. The exact syncing status when opening the app is "Syncing Files" and always shows a counter around 4-6 files. This happens every time the app is opened even if the files were already indexed.

I use an external 8TB HDD to keep my Dropbox files backed up and it's always connected to my PC. When I check the disk activity when starting the Dropbox app, the read usage goes up to 100% and many files that were previously synced and indexed seems to be indexed again.

This issue never happened before this version and I had the same 4TB of files in my Dropbox and HDD.

I also tried reinstalling the Dropbox app and I found that the Dropbox app is unable to handle the load of 4TB of files to be indexed and also locked the HDD causing the Explorer to crash.

In the end I had to delete my backed up files and sync my whole Dropbox again as using the merge option is useless with the current indexer implementation used by Dropbox.

Hannah

Hi again, Nicolas, and thanks for the update.

Did the re-sync help resolve your issue eventually? Or does it persist?

Keeping the Dropbox folder on an external drive is not something we recommend, exactly because such issues may arise, but hopefully this won't happen again.

Nicolas Miranda

Hi Hannah, The issue still persists and I think the problem is in the indexing process from the last update. The previous version didn't index already indexed files on every app start.

This issue has to be looked as independent of the device used, it's clear that the Dropbox indexer optimization is not on point.

Walter

Hey @Nicolas M.1 - thanks for the update on this.
If you'd like to investigate a bit further, I'd recommend getting in touch with our support team as they'd be better equipped to help with account and device specific information.

In case you already have a ticket with us, please share its number with us here so that we can look it up in our system too.