The Dropbox desktop app is stuck during the uninstall process and never finishes

Question

Earlier this week, my DB apparently stopped syncing across my home laptop and office desktop. Online advice is to uninstall and reinstall. All day yesterday and now today, I have been trying to uninstall. At first, I kept getting the 'failed' message. Then I went into Task Manager and ended all tasks related to DB, and then it seemed to begin the uninstall process. Now it seems to be stuck in the uninstallation process - at the beginning, it showed approx 139MB being used in Processes, and it eventually goes down to around 1MB so I am assuming that things are being uninstalled - but it can't seem to finish, so the DB screen just endlessly says please wait while DB is being uninstalled… I am not sure what to try next - can anyone advise please? Thanks.

Megan · Answer

Hey there, @curiousconundrum!

Sorry to hear about that. Rest assured that I am here to help you get to the bottom of this.

Would you mind clarifying your device's exact OS? Also, do you have any screenshots of the screen or error message you see when trying to uninstall the Dropbox desktop app?

curiousconundrum · Answer

Hi @Hannah  - I tried to install from your link above - it tried for a while and then I got a message saying it couldn't be done and had been aborted. Does anyone have any idea what I might try next to either solve the syncing issue, or get this app uninstalled? I've used DB for years with no major issues but this is proving quite frustrating. Thanks.

Hannah · Answer

Hmm, can you simply reinstall the app without uninstalling it, to see if that helps with the syncing issue?

Just make sure to restart your computer first.